Peel board supports family literacy
Family Literacy Day has been recognized across Canada by students and parents on Jan. 27 since 1999. To coincide with Family Literacy Day, the Peel District School Board developed this tip sheet with activities and ideas to promote literacy as a family priority.
Family literacy encompasses all the ways parents and children develop and use literacy skills to accomplish everyday tasks and activities. It includes reading, writing and telling stories, following directions, keeping records and lists, writing messages and making drawings to share ideas.
Here are some activities for you and your child to do together to improve family literacy skills.
Make reading together a family priority
- Encourage your child to create her own custom dictionary. Buy her a notebook and ask her to write two to five new words a week. Look them up in a dictionary together to strengthen your child's vocabulary and memory.
- Ask your child to read a newspaper article to you. Talk about the article and why it's important.
- Make read-along cassettes of two or three of your child's favourite books. Have every family member read the parts of different characters. Listen to the cassette in the car.
- Stay up late on weekends to read in bed. Have each family member explain his or her choice of reading material.
- Plan a regular date every couple of weeks to visit your local library with your child. Ask the children's librarian for a list of recommended new books for you and your child.
- Start a family book club. Take turns making selections. Encourage everyone to read the same book and then hold a club meeting to share thoughts and opinions.
- Subscribe to an educational magazine the whole family will enjoy.
Sharpen writing skills through creative projects
- Encourage your child to write and illustrate a book for a younger sibling or neighbour. Develop the story idea together.
- Practice planning with your child. Buy your child a new day planner that includes to-do lists. Show him how to break large projects into smaller tasks he can write down and complete over time.
- Make word searches for each other using new words you and your child have learned. Plan to solve the puzzles on a quiet afternoon.
- Start a family journal. Encourage every family member to write a few thoughts about their day before going to sleep. Share the journal entries on a regular basis.
- Ask your child to make a list of activities he would like to do on weekends. Post the list on the refrigerator and plan to do one activity per week.
- Create a family newspaper. Assign each family member one or more articles. Use photos or your children's artwork to illustrate the articles. When your newspaper is complete, send copies to friends and relatives.
Literacy is more than just reading and writing
- Suggest your child do drawings from a "birds-eye view" or from the point-of-view of an insect on the ground. Have the whole family practice drawing simple objects from different points-of-view-for example, draw an apple or a flower. Discuss your drawings.
- Play charades with your child. Have her act out book titles she has read.
- Bake cookies or other goodies with your child. Let him read the recipe and measure the ingredients.
- Play word games such as Scrabble or Boggle.
- Choose an interesting place to visit. Plan all aspects of the trip together - figure out how to get there by looking at a map (make a map and have family members follow the directions on the trip). What is the best route to follow?
- Provide a workspace for your child. Keep plenty of supplies on hand including: paper, pens, pencils, erasers, crayons, glue, markers and scraps of cloth and yarn. Encourage your child to write or talk about what she has created.
- Visit places that relate to what your child is studying at school. Encourage him to talk about the experience.
- In a restaurant, encourage your child to order from the menu. Have her try to estimate how much the meal will cost.
For more ideas about learning together, subscribe online to daily parent and child learning activities by going to the Peel board's web site at www.peelschools.org. Bookmark "Parents Boost Learning" and visit regularly.
