Basic skills

This document, prepared by the QUILL Learning Network, summarizes the 2008/2009 literacy service plan for Ontario’s Georgian Triangle region.

The authors provide an overview of the Literacy and Basic Skills program in Ontario, including a timeline of developments in adult literacy in that province. From there, they move on to look at programs within the specific context of the Georgian Triangle.

This report focuses on the second phase of the Victoria READ Society’s Workplace Learning Project, which was launched in response to ongoing concerns of area businesses about managing change and recruiting and retaining promising employees.

This document offers a capsule summary of basic skills training and the workplace.

This document is a case study of the Vancouver Municipal Workplace Language Program (VMWLP). The program was established in 1990 to address the need to upgrade employees’ literacy, language, and communication skills.

This issue includes an article on the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour’s Worker’s Education for Skills Training (WEST) program, which received a Training for Excellence award from the Saskatchewan Labour Force Development Board.

Another article deals with the lack of awareness of workplace essential skills revealed by the Linkage Project undertaken by Workplace Education Manitoba.

This issue includes an article on a project jointly sponsored by a local of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) and the Workplace Education Manitoba Steering Committee (WEMSC). The Learning Experience Centre takes a holistic approach to teaching, focusing on the individual as a worker, community member and member of a larger family unit.

This first issue begins with an introduction to the newsletter, explaining its purpose.

Other articles deal with an organizational needs assessment (ONA) at the Dynasty Wood Products furniture plant; a training project for community literacy coordinators in Alberta; and the partnership between the Government of Manitoba and the Workplace Education Manitoba Steering Committee.

Competency-based learning meets the needs of all learners. It is important to keep in mind, however, that all learners are different. In order to address the needs and interests of all learners, the units in this publication have been divided by Essential Life Skills and Individual Life Skills.

This document looks at the factors that help an Ontario college Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) 5 student make a successful transition to Academic Upgrading (AU) studies. The author asks whether it is simply a matter of academic skills or whether there are attitudes that go along with those skills. As well, the author asks what kinds of tasks in LBS 5 are good predictors of success in AU.

This document, prepared by the Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy (MTML), summarizes the 2009-10 literacy services plan for Toronto and the York region of Ontario.

The authors begin by providing an overview of the Literacy and Basic Skills program in Ontario, then go on to provide a localized context for learner demographics and learner profiles.