GNS: Family Literacy Day
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Family Literacy Day takes place every January 27th to raise awareness about the importance of reading and engaging in other literacy-related activities as a family. Since 1999, thousands of schools, libraries, literacy organizations and other community groups have taken part in the initiative. ABC creates free learning and promotional resources for anyone that wants to get involved. 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.
Family Literacy in Canada
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Children spend five times as much time outside the classroom as they do in school, so parents and caregivers need the tools to support their learning (The Read-Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease, 2006).
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Children whose parents are involved with them in family literacy activities score 10 points higher on standardized reading tests (The Effect of Family Literacy Interventions On Children’s Acquisition of Reading: From Kindergarten to Grade 3, Conducted by Monique Sénéchal for the National Center for Family Literacy, 2006)
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One year of parental education has a bigger positive impact on whether a son or daughter will attend a postsecondary institution than an extra $50,000 in parental income (Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2011)
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A mother’s reading skill is the greatest factor to affect her children’s future academic success, outweighing other factors, like neighbourhood and family income (National Institute of Health, 2010).
GYPSD is also proud to share that we have two in-house writers: Division psychologist, Crystal Virtanen, who wrote "Fireboy" for her son, and Leanne DeLeeuw, who wrote and illustrated, "Letter to My Child". Both books are available to purchase on Amazon - check them out!