Family literacy projects

This document uses Essential Skills as the basis for activities to celebrate Family Literacy Day, observed in Canada annually on January 27.

This Family Literacy Resource Guide is intended to provide support and information to the many individuals and groups
involved in family literacy throughout the province of British Columbia.

The Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL) provides a forum where people from provincial/territorial and national organizations can work together to identify, discuss and address issues of common focus. This project, Mapping the Field of Family Literacy, reflects MCL’s goal of building consensus, growing capacity and maintaining a commitment to family literacy.

Children whose parents have low literacy skills are at a higher risk to grow up to have low literacy skills themselves. This case study details a successful family literacy program in the Waterloo Region of Ontario called Get Set Learn! This program targeted parents on Ontario Works (a welfare program) with pre-school aged children in hopes of breaking the cycle of being disadvantaged because of parental low literacy levels.

This How to Kit is a math resource for teachers, family literacy facilitators and families. It offers a variety of easy, fun and hands-on activities for families with children from ages 7 – 10. This kit provides an opportunity to engage families in developing positive attitudes towards math by working and learning together to solve math problems.

Cooking is great family activity. When parents prepare a recipe with their children, they are teaching the children not only cooking skills, but also literacy skills. There are several cooking and literacy extender activities included in this kit. However, preparing any recipe involves literacy. Any time spent talking and doing things together helps preschool children to develop language skills.

This How to Kit provides you with information on making family books and ideas for creating homemade books. A family book is a memory scrapbook for kids and their parents. They are a great way to engage children and families in reading and sharing together. A family book includes pictures, mementos, stories and drawings.

To better equip Francophone parents to act as their children’s first teachers and to support them in this role, a number of French-language literacy centres have provided family literacy programs in several Francophone communities in Ontario. This document presents the results of a research study that evaluates the impact of family literacy programs on Francophone parents and children in Ontario.

Support for Parents and Children in Education was a family literacy research project in rural Frontenac County in Northern Ontario. The purpose of this study was to determine and examine the supports needed by parents to be able to gain the skills and confidence necessary to deal with the various aspects of their children's education and to improve their literacy and numeracy.

This report presents the findings of a research study on family literacy in Ontario. Using focus groups and a province-wide survey of more than 100 family literacy practitioners, this study takes a snapshot of family literacy activity in Ontario. The study is designed to identify issues and gaps in the current family literacy infrastructure and to identify effective and sustainable options for family literacy delivery.