Literacy News from Canada
May 11, 2006
Louise at Students for Literacy Ottawa has an interesting post here about recently literacy-related news from Canada. She first presents highlights from a survey of Canadians, which found that "Canada is not making the grade in certain key areas related to life-long learning." For example, "approximately 58% of Canadian adults can meet most everyday reading requirements, whereas Canadians feel that 80% would be an acceptable level." I guess it's a positive first step to want reading levels to be higher than they are.
Louise then carries a news story about how literacy testing can take the fun out of reading, based on a meeting between teachers and literacy advocate David Bouchard. The article particularly emphasizes that adults can best encourage kids to love books by being avid readers themselves. I liked this quote, from a participating teacher: "I taught in New Zealand for a while and the reason they have such good scores is because the whole population reads."
Finally, the post concludes with an article about bachelor of education students who will be doing humanitarian work in Central America, and conducting literacy workshops while they're there. Canada seems to be a veritable hotbed of literacy-related activities.