Reading Circles
Reading Circles is one aspect of Frontier College’s programming directed at children and youth. Designed to strengthen child and family reading, a Reading Circle is a club where adults and children come together to read for pleasure. In settings surrounded by books, group reading and literacy-related games, Reading Circles are community-based, volunteer staffed family literacy projects.
Storysacks
Neil Griffiths, a school principal, developed Storysacks in Britain. He brought the idea to Canada when he gave a series of workshops in New Brunswick in 1999. Storysacks Canada was founded shortly afterward. A story sack is a large cloth bag containing a good quality storybook, props, scenery and characters to bring the story to life, a non- fiction book linked to the story, reading tips and activity ideas for parents, word or number games based on the story, and an audio tape of the story.
Across the country, the provision of family literacy programs and services that focus mainly on the literacy skills of the caregiver is uneven. The main reason cited for this is funding. Some provincial and territorial governments allow adult literacy funding to focus on family literacy as long as the main recipient of the program or service is the adult.
With the strong case now being made for early intervention, much of the focus of family literacy programming is on the child and on ensuring that the caregiver has strong parenting skills. In most provinces and territories this type of family literacy programming is often provided by early learning centres, school boards or by a consortium of community agencies. Organizations that provide adult literacy programs and services are not necessarily involved. When these organizations are involved potential gaps in family literacy provision within a community are few.
In some provinces and territories, however, early learning centres that provide workshops on parenting skills for caregivers may not make referrals to adult literacy programs. Some of these programs have been offered based on the assumption that all the adults participating have the literacy skills to be the child’s first and foremost teacher.