RENFREW COLLINGWOOD COMMUNITY NEWS
January 2019
Family Literacy Week, January 20 to 27, 2019 by Janice Bexson Last year, we celebrated Family Literacy Day on January 27. But, hurrah – there is now one full week of celebrating literacy. This year, Family Literacy Week is on January 20 to 27, and what a wonderful development it is to have seven days of literacy! Literacy is the key foundation upon which many of our other skills are developed. These skills expand our knowledge, imagination and creativity, and develop our reading and writing abilities, leading to improved communication skills. This year, Family Literacy Week’s theme is Let’s Make It. Making things together is a natural way of socially connecting, boosting creative, motor and problem-solving skills, and increasing language, vocabulary and comprehension. Families who play and create together also naturally build self-esteem and confidence while they connect and share an activity. Fun and laughter are the added bonuses! We know that parents and caregivers are their children’s first teachers, so spending just 15 minutes a day to engage in a family literacy activity is an investment in a love of life-long learning, plus learning together as a family means more positive and quality time spent together. Parents and caregivers can foster family literacy by: • giving access to a variety of books and games, which encourage alphabet knowledge and reading • exposing children to seeing adults reading books, magazines and online articles at home every day • singing rhymes and songs aloud • creating unique family songs together • speaking to each other in the family language(s) • regularly engaging in informative conversations, just for the love of expressing language and vocabulary What does Family Literacy Week mean to you? You can make this week one of fun and creativity by participating in the wide variety
of activities. Inspiration can be found by looking on Decoda Literacy Solutions website, under Family Literacy Week (https:// www.decoda.ca/support-us/events/familyliteracy-week/). You can also find ongoing literacy activities in Renfrew-Collingwood’s neighbourhood, so be sure to visit one of the local public libraries for books and literacy resources. In addition, Collingwood Neighbourhood House hosts several literacy initiatives, including a weekly literacy group and reading circle, a one-one tutoring project, two family literacy programs (Family Place and Families Branching out) and a book exchange kiosk. For more information, contact literacyrc@cnh.bc.ca. Hopefully this week will be one of creativity and discovery for you. But please don’t stop here; continue spending family time participating in literacy activities, even if you are only able to spend one or two hours per month engaged in a planned family literacy activity. Enjoy! Janice Bexson is the literacy outreach coordinator at the Collingwood Neighbourhood House.
Did you know? Family Literacy Day (now Family Literacy Week) was originally created in 1999 by ABC Life Literacy Canada, to promote the importance of literacy for everyone. ABC Life Literacy Canada states that “taking time every day to read or do a learning activity with children is crucial to a child’s development, improving a child’s literacy skills dramatically, and can help a parent improve their skills as well.”
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