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This program provides caregivers to engage in literacy through building skills. Some examples offered in the program are; story time, rhyming, puzzle building, book lending.

https://www.actionread.com/new/what-we-do/what-we-do/

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Action Read's Early Start Family Literacy Program provides opportunities for parents/caregivers and children, birth to age 6, to engage in early learning activities. The program builds skills that help children be successful at school right from the start. It's FREE and located in schools and community centres throughout Guelph! Follow the link for the current program schedule.

The Early Start Program offers:

Story-time, numeracy and language games, songs, rhymes, word play, puzzles and crafts

Nutritious snacks

Ideas and resources for activities at home

A book lending library for children and parents

Caring, nurturing Early Childhood Educated qualified staff

Information on other programs and services

The Early Start Program is a play-based program where children are given exposure to a wide variety of activities, based on their unique needs and interests. Reading to children develops pre-literacy skills such as vocabulary building, oral language and comprehension. Family literacy programs help parents and caregivers understand their role in their child's early learning development, and create a strong lifelong learning foundation. Action Read believes that early learning programs are vital to the health and success of children, families and communities!

Action Read is extremely grateful for the support of numerous individual donors and the following funders:

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Action Read Community Literacy Centre is a non-profit, charitable, community literacy program for adults and families in the City of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

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Daelyn- Action Read Early Start Family Literacy Program 

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Daelyn- Action Read Early Start Family Literacy Program 

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Action Read’s Early Start Family Literacy Program provides opportunities for children aged 0-6 and their parents/caregivers with opportunities to engage in early learning activities that build the appropriate tools for children to use at school and home.

https://www.actionread.com/new/what-we-do/what-we-do/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Action Read's Early Start Family Literacy Program provides opportunities for parents/caregivers and children, birth to age 6, to engage in early learning activities. The program builds skills that help children be successful at school right from the start. It's FREE and located in schools and community centres throughout Guelph! Follow the link for the current program schedule.

The Early Start Program offers:

Story-time, numeracy and language games, songs, rhymes, word play, puzzles and crafts

Nutritious snacks

Ideas and resources for activities at home

A book lending library for children and parents

Caring, nurturing Early Childhood Educated qualified staff

Information on other programs and services

The Early Start Program is a play-based program where children are given exposure to a wide variety of activities, based on their unique needs and interests. Reading to children develops pre-literacy skills such as vocabulary building, oral language and comprehension. Family literacy programs help parents and caregivers understand their role in their child's early learning development, and create a strong lifelong learning foundation. Action Read believes that early learning programs are vital to the health and success of children, families and communities!

Action Read is extremely grateful for the support of numerous individual donors and the following funders:

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Action Read Community Literacy Centre is a non-profit, charitable, community literacy program for adults and families in the City of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

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EarlyON offers a nurturing setting where families may participate in educational activities that foster the development of early reading

Child-focused with parent-child interaction

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Brings families together to celebrate and practice their family and financial literacy skills and encourage daily learning through reading, writing, problem-solving, numeracy and financial literacy.

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Learning Activities for Preschool & Beyond l FamilyLiteracyFirst.ca

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ABC Money Matters is a free introductory financial literacy program for adults in Canada. Sign up to host a workshop today!

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EarlyON Child and Family Center

This program runs through several different locations and caters to families and young children from 0-6 as well as offers several different activities to enhance literacy.

https://ymcaofniagara.org/programs/community-initiatives/earlyon-centres/

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Every parent wants the best for their child. We can help you. EarlyON Child and Family Centres are welcoming places where parents gather with their children

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Centre for Family Literacy is about supporting children and the individuals they deem important to improve their literacy and provide them with more learning opportunities.

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Our Approach - Center for Family Literacy

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Philosophy We believe that families are the foundation of all societies. By helping one family develop literacy and learning skills, we start a ripple of positive change, for that family and their community. The more families we support, directly through programs or by training other professionals, the more ripples we create.

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This program focuses on the reading and development of reading of parents, grandparents, or other members of the family to improve the reading skills of the entire family.

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What is Family Literacy? | abclifeliteracy.ca

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Family literacy focusses on parents, grandparents and other family members to improve the reading and writing skills of the whole family. Learn more.

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Engaging in activities in first or second language where parents and children benefit from this program; they work on reading, writing, problem solving, numeracy, and financial literacy skills

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About Our Family Literacy Program l FamilyLiteracyFirst.ca

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HSBC Family Literacy First is a free program that provides free online learning activities for families with children of all ages. Learn more.

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EarlyON Child and Family Centres - Kate Meyer

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EarlyON Child and Family Centres - Kate Meyer

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EarlyON Child and Family Centres provide free, high-quality drop-in programs for children from birth to six years of age, their parents, and caregivers.

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EarlyON Child and Family Centres provide free, high-quality drop-in programs for children from birth to six years of age, their parents and caregivers.

The centres are family-focused and offer a welcoming and fun space for Niagara's children to learn, play, and connect with others. Parents and caregivers stay with their child(ren) and together experience the many benefits these centres provide.
Programs and services are free and open to all families.
EarlyON centres offer:

Fun activities - reading, storytelling, sing-alongs, games and more

Friendly staff professionally trained in early childhood development

Access to other community resources you can benefit from

Connection to other families / caregivers with young children

Programs such as infant sleep clinics and breastfeeding classes

Ministry of Education | Public Health Parenting Resources | Parent Direct Niagara | INCommunities

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EarlyON Child and Family Centres provide free, high-quality drop-in programs for children from birth to six years of age, their parents and caregivers. The centres are family-focused and offer a welcoming and fun space for Niagara's children to learn, play, and connect with others.

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Investing in Children: https://investinginchildren.on.ca/family-literacy-events

10 - 12 hands-on activity stations that promote parent/guardian and child engagement. This program attempts to embed the Science of Reading, as well as the current Ministry of Education math strands into each topic.

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Family Literacy Events — Investing in Children

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Family Story Time Sessions at Oshawa public library branches. Is a drop-in family program that includes Stories, activities, songs, and more for the whole family. They cater to ages 0-5 as well as 5+

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Stories, activities, songs, and more for the whole family. Drop-in, family program.

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Literacy Boost Program is developed from Niagara University. Teacher candidates provide instructional sessions after evaluations are conducted to support the child's literacy skills.

https://www.niagara.edu/family-literacy-center/

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Family Literacy Center - Niagara University

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Niagara University’s College of Education’s Family Literacy Center provides a valuable community resource for diagnosing and remediating reading difficulties,

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Our chosen program is Family Literacy First has the foundation of bringing parents and children together to practice family literacy. They believe ]parents are a child’s first and most important teacher, and whether you’re engaging in a learning activity in your first or second language, both the parent and child benefit.

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Learning Activities for Preschool & Beyond l FamilyLiteracyFirst.ca

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ABC Money Matters is a free introductory financial literacy program for adults in Canada. Sign up to host a workshop today!

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Provides children with weekly opportunities to engage with numeric and literacy based activities that also promote parent-child collaboration, while taking in consideration to educate the parent.

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Family Literacy Events — Investing in Children

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Langley Literacy Network builds on community strengths to encourage life-long learning by ensuring that residence of all ages have access to sufficient and appropriate information, services and support.

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Family Literacy Programs | Langley Literacy Network

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Family literacy programs help parents to support their children’s learning and literacy development.

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This program provides families with the opportunity to reach their literacy goals together in a safe and supportive group.

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Adults with Children Together - Center for Family Literacy

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“If we are to raise literacy standards in any significant way, we need to do more to ensure that all parents have the confidence to support their children’s developing literacy and in so doing are encouraged to develop their own literacy.” – Ruth Hayden, PhD, Professor Emeritus Program Values Together, adults and children learn new […]

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The United for Literacy Volunteer Program provides opportunities for individuals to support literacy development in their communities by tutoring, mentoring, and assisting educational programs, aiming to improve access to reading and writing skills for those in need.

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United for Literacy - Volunteer | Make a Difference | United for Literacy

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Learn more about volunteer opportunities in communities across Canada.

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ABC Life Literacy: Family Literacy First is a program that aims to bring parents and children together to practice family literacy through free online resources.

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What is Family Literacy? | abclifeliteracy.ca

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Family literacy focusses on parents, grandparents and other family members to improve the reading and writing skills of the whole family. Learn more.

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This program works with schools, community centers, shelters and it includes programs for teens, adults, seniors, children, and families. It inlcudes after school homework clubs, online reading support, learning support for adults with developmental disabilities, and more.

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United for Literacy believes any place can be a learning place. We deliver our programs in schools, community centres, shelters-anywhere we're invited.

All over Canada-in urbanized, rural, and remote locations-United for Literacy is there. We work with community partners to determine what is most needed in their region. This includes programs for children, teens, adults, seniors, and families. Our free literacy and numeracy programs include:

after-school homework clubs, including reading, writing, and STEM support

workplace literacy

essential skills for adults

learning support for adults with developmental disabilities

Reading Tents where children learn to love reading

Summer Literacy Camps to keep kids reading and learning during the summer

small group tutoring and conversation groups for newcomers

online reading support

and many more.

Practical and goal-oriented, some programs are in-person, while others reach people online. Our programs are tailored to people of different ages and life stages. We work to meet the community's priorities and goals. Educators consider our programs to be best-in-class examples of Student-Centred Individualized Learning principles.

For programs offered only in French, please go to Littératie Ensemble.

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United for Literacy offers programs for people of all ages at locations across Canada.

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This family literacy program is a non-profit organization which focuses on engaging both parents and children in literacy practices to bring families together. Skills are built such as reading, writing, numeracy skills, problem solving, etc. This program engages all ages to formulate relationships and connect literacy to life experiences.

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About Our Family Literacy Program l FamilyLiteracyFirst.ca

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HSBC Family Literacy First is a free program that provides free online learning activities for families with children of all ages. Learn more.

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EarlyON Child and Family Centre Kincardine

Provide early learning and literacy programs/activities for parents and their children. Educators also do home visits.

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Bruce County. Human Services Children’s Services, EarlyON Kincardine, EarlyON Child and Family Centre

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Need Help? Can’t find a service? Call 2-1-1 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

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Family Literacy First is a free program that aims to bring families together by providing literacy activities in 5 languages. The program offers families fun learning experiences including creating stories and other unique activities!

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Chapter one offers effective tutoring programs that works with both children and their families each day through a one-on-one basis for only 5 minutes to accommodate their attention span and their development, either at home or at school.

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Our Early Literacy Intervention Programme provides daily, 1:1 phonics sessions for children who are not on track with whole class phonics teaching.

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The Early Start Family Literacy program encourages parents/caregivers and their children to engage in early learning activities together. Some of these activities include story-time, rhymes, songs, and numeracy and language games.

https://www.actionread.com/new/what-we-do/what-we-do/

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Action Read's Early Start Family Literacy Program provides opportunities for parents/caregivers and children, birth to age 6, to engage in early learning activities. The program builds skills that help children be successful at school right from the start. It's FREE and located in schools and community centres throughout Guelph! Follow the link for the current program schedule.

The Early Start Program offers:

Story-time, numeracy and language games, songs, rhymes, word play, puzzles and crafts

Nutritious snacks

Ideas and resources for activities at home

A book lending library for children and parents

Caring, nurturing Early Childhood Educated qualified staff

Information on other programs and services

The Early Start Program is a play-based program where children are given exposure to a wide variety of activities, based on their unique needs and interests. Reading to children develops pre-literacy skills such as vocabulary building, oral language and comprehension. Family literacy programs help parents and caregivers understand their role in their child's early learning development, and create a strong lifelong learning foundation. Action Read believes that early learning programs are vital to the health and success of children, families and communities!

Action Read is extremely grateful for the support of numerous individual donors and the following funders:

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Action Read Community Literacy Centre is a non-profit, charitable, community literacy program for adults and families in the City of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

# data[].attributes.body
Action Reads Early Start family literacy program throughout Guelph offers story times, literacy language games, a book lending library for families, and activities for families to bring home. This program also provides information about further programs and services that families can use to support their learning!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Action Read's Early Start Family Literacy Program provides opportunities for parents/caregivers and children, birth to age 6, to engage in early learning activities. The program builds skills that help children be successful at school right from the start. It's FREE and located in schools and community centres throughout Guelph! Follow the link for the current program schedule.

The Early Start Program offers:

Story-time, numeracy and language games, songs, rhymes, word play, puzzles and crafts

Nutritious snacks

Ideas and resources for activities at home

A book lending library for children and parents

Caring, nurturing Early Childhood Educated qualified staff

Information on other programs and services

The Early Start Program is a play-based program where children are given exposure to a wide variety of activities, based on their unique needs and interests. Reading to children develops pre-literacy skills such as vocabulary building, oral language and comprehension. Family literacy programs help parents and caregivers understand their role in their child's early learning development, and create a strong lifelong learning foundation. Action Read believes that early learning programs are vital to the health and success of children, families and communities!

Action Read is extremely grateful for the support of numerous individual donors and the following funders:

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Action Read Community Literacy Centre is a non-profit, charitable, community literacy program for adults and families in the City of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

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The Play to Learn program incorporates play elements into developing literacy skills. This program encourages families and children to engage in these elements of play and curiosity to promote literacy growth.

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The YMCA of Niagara is proud to provide community-focused programs & services including child care, camps, health, fitness & aquatics, job, educaiton & training help, community initiatives, immigrant services and youth engagement. Join or donate today!

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Community Literacy of Ontario - Christina and Kaitlyn 

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Community Literacy of Ontario - Christina and Kaitlyn 

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This program is a literacy network that provides English language, community-based literacy and basic skills. it showcases the importance of literacy across health, poverty, employment, etc.

https://www.communityliteracyofontario.ca

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Centre for family first literacy is about stories and activities bringing together families, to celebrate and practice their family and financial literacy skills and encourage daily learning.

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Learning Activities for Preschool & Beyond l FamilyLiteracyFirst.ca

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ABC Money Matters is a free introductory financial literacy program for adults in Canada. Sign up to host a workshop today!

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Programs - Center for Family Literacy

This program builds on their everyday families practices and provide them with new and engaging ways to include literacy activities in their routine

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ABC life literacy Canada- Family literacy first

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This program provides a great opportunity for engagement between children, families, staff and volunteers. It is supportive of newcomer families, allowing them to learn in a comfortable setting where they can use their preferred language.

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I would like to reevaluate what program I initially thought it was, which was a child-focused with parent-child interaction. I believe that this program would benefit from having a 2Gen model which is when the child, as well as their caregiver or other family members, can learn and take in information at the same time. This would be a great idea, especially for immigrants coming to Canada, as they may not speak English, or have the social skills to thrive like in our society. They could incorporate multilingual storybooks, or even wordless picture books, in order to involve each individual in the program. The caregivers can take advantage of the lessons they are learning such as social skills, education in a certain topic, or training of some sort. Either way, both the child and caregiver(s) can benefit from this type of program.

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https://investinginchildren.on.ca/family-literacy-events

In re-evaluating the Investing in Children Program, we think that overall, it is really well designed providing children and their families an oppourtunity to engage in meaningful learning activities. By emphasizing the "Science of Reading," this program targets the literacy development of young learners and aids in providing families with resources to encourage learning in non-educational spaces.

An activity we might suggest for this program would be group story-making or board-game making! We think that adding an additional creative aspect would allow children and families to showcase their funds of knowledge and continue to develop their social literacy skills. Creating things like stories or games would be a great way to thoughtfully engage young people in developing what literacy looks like to them, taking into account cultural and social belief as they have creative liberty. We think having families work together, or creating small groups of participants would be an awesome way to encourage communication and growth.

To add, we believe that the program facilitators should further consider emergent literacy theory as it respects children as active participants in their own learning. With that said literacy programs are valuable to emergent literacy theory as they provide children with additional knowledge that they will take with them into academic settings where they can further build upon it.

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Family Literacy Events — Investing in Children

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If I were to design a family literacy program, I would pull strategies and concepts from the Lynch & Prins (2023) article that would support the success of students and their communities. The first key idea that I would take from this article is reframing the term literacy to include social and cultural contexts, recognizing the importance of building on the diverse ways students interact with literacy outside of the classroom. Reframing literacy in my family literacy program will set the foundation to incorporate new ideas that adhere to the different funds of knowledge that families can bring. An activity that would support this would be allowing students and their families to share a specific skill or activity with the rest of the group, allowing for a diverse and contextually rich learning opportunity. Furthermore, I would implement guardian and community-specific programming, that offer the skills that families may need to implement family literacy outside of formal settings. This will also allow me, as a facilitator, to learn about the ways in which families engage in literacy outside of educational programming, allowing me to build relationships with guardians and provide culturally specific and diverse lessons.

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The family literacy program that we would like to create would be called "Connected Pages". This program is a creative family literacy program designed to strengthen communication, foster creativity and build family bonds through shared journaling. Families will be paired up and exchange journals each week. During the first week family A receives the journal and can express their thoughts through letters, drawings, collages, or any other form of creative literacy. At the end of the week, the journal is swapped with family B, who will add their own contributions in return. This back and forth continues throughout the program, encouraging families to reflect, share and connect across different perspectives. Families can share their cultural recipes, the songs they are listening to, personal art pieces, what they do on a day to day basis etc.)

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Designing our own program:

The program we are designing is a family reading program that is joined with the public library. It is child-focused with the active engagement with parents. It is inclusive as it is free for everyone but they have to sign up. They can sign up through the public library as well in case some individuals do not have access to resources. Having it at the library also provides resources and materials such as books, toys, etc. in case families do not have the resources at home. It is available for everyone. An example of an activity we would run is choose a book for a day where the children and caregivers would find a book they like from the library and read it together. Making sure the parents engage the children and decontextualize the words to help the children understand what they are reading. This is building literacy development, family engagement and a positive learning space.

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If I were to design a new family literacy programs, it would be called the Read & Grow Together program to support children ages 3-10 and their caregivers through interactive, culturally relevant, and accessible activities while also fostering a love for reading, strengthening bonds between children and parents, and promote life-long learning. The key components would include accessible program such as free participation and resources that are available in multiple different languages and accommodations for diverse learning needs. Another key part would include parent or caregiver workshops where they can lead reading strategies, phonics, and story telling techniques. A Third component is interactive literacy activities such as guest authors or an activity called "Story walk adventure". Finally, they're would be take-home literacy kits available that are tailored to different reading levels and interests that also have comprehension experiences and story telling props like puppets. One activity I would include is something called "Story Walk Adventure", where families engage in an outdoor literacy activity where a children's book is printed off and spread along a walking trail in the community with each page displayed at different stops. At each stop, children and parents read the page outload together, complete a short activity related to the story so that it is interactive (e.g., act out the scene, respond to a question, or find a nature object on the trail related to the plot of the story. They will also be encouraged to discuss themes of problem-solving, emotions, or cultural traditions. I would hope that this activity combining literacy with movement and nature makes reading more fun and engaging while fostering discussion and understanding.

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My idea for a new family literacy program stems from the idea of foundational skills and family/peer connections. Because of this, I called it Read, Play, Connect. This Family literacy program will be focused on inclusivity and transform traditional learning into a more interactive process through storytelling, play-based learning, and diverse learning strategies. Parents and caregivers will actively participate through shared reading, literacy-based scavenger hunts, and audiobooks, fostering both child and adult literacy development and connection. The ORIM framework inspires this program as it makes sure that literacy is put into everyday experiences, like reading recipes or discussing community signs (Lynch, 2023). Using a "family pathways" approach will empower families through intergenerational learning, excitement for education, social connections, and real-world literacy practices, creating a more diverse and supportive literacy environment.

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Our program, LetterLinks, focuses on young people ages 10-14, and it utilizes a pen pals system.

The individuals who are apart of the program meet once a month, where they open letters from their pen pal, who lives in a different country, and the activity leaders are in charge of translating the letters to the children in the group. Then, they assist in helping the kids write their letters.

Each program headquarters keeps a scrap book where they put the artifacts the penpals receive.

The guides also send a letter back and forth with the other guides with an activity of the month that is custom in their country.

Then, the members of the program complete the activity, and send a photo back of them doing so, to go in the scrap book. This allows for each groups' funds of knowledge to be applied, and allows for cultural knowledge of each group to make its way into the education they are receiving.

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Reading Without Words - Nathan & Sarantis

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Reading Without Words - Nathan & Sarantis

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Our family literacy program will have a specific focus on literacy education through wordless picture books. It is a child-focused program with parent interaction, incorporating group storytimes and discussions. It is targeted toward children aged 8-10 and their families. Wordless picture books build upon children's literacy skills through active interpretation and engagement with the stories while providing bi-/multi-lingual families with opportunities to take on active roles in their children's literacy development. Children will have the opportunity to participate in group read-alouds and discussions to build oral literacy skills, but will also have chances to read individually or with their families to incorporate family funds of knowledge and provide relevancy to their literacy education. The program will be free, with weekly drop-in sessions held in public library spaces to reach families that may be overlooked by other literacy development programs with lengthy waitlists. The goal of our program is to provide children with opportunities to expand their understanding of what literacy can be defined as and facilitate connections between their literacy development/education and their everyday lives; instruction through wordless picture books provides all children with an understanding that literacy can be interpreted and understood in countless ways, encouraging conversations between children and families where cultural knowledges are shared and valued.

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The program that we have decided to create would focus on the comprehensive model, meaning the program would be parent-child education focused. It would target gaps in education and basic life skills. There would be 50 minutes each week, twice a week, with times being between 6-7pm, 6:30-7:30pm, 12-1pm, and 10-11 pm to address all working schedules. The age of the children would be between toddler to kindergarten age as we want to target earlier ages to ensure the best absorption. The first week would start with anonymous surveys for families to state the skills that they wished to work on or learn more about, after which there would be themed weeks that would focus on a specific skill. There would be focus on adult tasks such as applying for an apartment, organizing a calendar to remember dates, studying for a citizenship test, etc. There would be 10 minutes at the beginning and end that would be interaction time with adult-child, and then 30 minutes where it would be individual for adult learning and child learning. We would ensure all resources needed for the program are provided onsite so that families from lower socioeconomic statuses would have easy access. We would also ensure all who attend would know that we have a broad range of the term family, meaning that it can be a parent, aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc.

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Choice 2: Early Days and Early Life Program

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Choice 2: Early Days and Early Life Program

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Program Overview:

This program is designed for preschool children and their caregivers, emphasizing interactive, hands-on activities that promote early literacy development. The program focuses on building key skills, such as community engagement, leadership, and real-world application. Additionally, the program provides caregiver support, offering strategies to encourage early literacy at home, while also recognizing common challenges that may arise in literacy development. Hence, strengthening parent-child bonds through shared learning experiences is crucial!

Activity: Shapes and Sing-Along

This interactive activity supports three essential areas of early literacy development: oral language development, book reading and print awareness, and letter knowledge and recognition.

How It Works: Each child receives a bin of fabric shapes (ex., triangle, square, circle). A song will be played to guide children through shape identification, counting, and characteristics (ex., “How many corners does a triangle have?”). Throughout the video, there will also be pauses to allow caregivers to interact with children, encouraging them to recall where they have seen these shapes in their environment, such as at home, school, playground, etc. In addition, cognitive engagement is promoted by asking questions like “What makes a circle different from a square?” Furthermore, a video transcript enhances print recognition, helping children associate letters with sounds and build early language familiarity.

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A program I would create would be called "Growing Together through Words." It would aim to help families build literacy skills through simple, everyday activities. I would offer workshops that are flexible and culturally inclusive, with materials in different languages. One activity I would include is a story circle, where families create and share their own stories together. Each family member would contribute to the story, promoting reading, writing, and communication. The program would focus on creating a literacy friendly home environment and supporting both parents and kids. The goal would be to meet families where they are, with both in person and online sessions, and help them develop literacy skills that go beyond school.