According to a 2012 study, 6 out of 10 Canadians would like to spend more time helping their children learn at home. Are you one of those?
The literacy rate in Canada is a subject that shocks because of the official figures on the subject and which surprise us every time. We tend to believe that compulsory schooling makes all citizens readers, but that is not true. In fact, four in ten Canadians between the ages of 16 and 65 struggle with low literacy.
There are nine million people in Canada who do not master reading perfectly and of these, 15% have major problems understanding written documents. Another 27% have great difficulty reading very simple documents.
How is this possible?
In fact, most of these people understand enough to be functional in everyday life and at work. It is for this reason that the problem of literacy so often goes unnoticed. Despite everything, depending on the region, between 18% and 38% of young people aged 16 to 25 do not even reach this minimum level of skills. In other words, in some places, a third of young people do not know enoughread to be functional in a job.
Obviously, we tend to believe that refresher training is the best solution, but despite all the efforts of literacy organizations, less than half of the people who contact them enroll in their literacy program. education and of those who do, 30% drop out. If it is so difficult to make up for lost time in adulthood, it is imperative to start with the youngest.
Since Quebec is one of the provinces with the lowest literacy rates, let's see what we can do to help children learn.
Home
The best place for a child to practice reading is at home with their parents. It is at home that the child spends most of his time and it is by seeing his parents value reading that he will want to read independently. Do not hesitate to read stories to your young children. Eventually, as they imitated you with the dolls and the tools, they will imitate you while reading.
Making time each day to read or do an educational activity with the children is essential to a child's development and even if you only have 15 minutes a day to devote to reading, it is enough to help her significantly improve her reading and writing skills.
In fact, a national study conducted by Statistics Canada has shown that reading to a child more than once a day leads tosignificant positive impact on their future academic skills. In addition, according to this research, children who are exposed to books and reading at an early age do better than others in solving mathematical problems.
Literacy Day
Family Literacy Day is a national initiative that was started in 1999 by ABC Life Literacy Canada. This day, which is held every year on January 27, aims to raise awareness of the importance of reading and taking part in similar language activities as a family.
To mark the 15th annual Family Literacy Day, ABC Alpha for Life Canada invites Canadian families to spend 15 minutes of fun learning together. So let's take a few minutes with our children and discover with them the pleasure of reading. It's the best way to help them learn everything else and it's a wonderful gift to give them some of our time to improve their future.
