What is Family Literacy?

Family literacy refers to the way parents, children and extended family members use literacy at home and in their community.

Family literacy occurs naturally during the routines of daily living, and helps adults and children “get things done”.

Often, literacy activities take place at home, but some parents may need support to provide the bridging activities that prepare children for school.

Family literacy programs focus on parent and child. The programs are intended to improve the literacy skills of parents and children, based on the assumption that improving the literacy skills of parents results in better educational experiences for them and their children.

Some Facts about Family Literacy

Educational researchers have demonstrated that a child’s progress in school is clearly related to his or her parents’ literacy.

The literacy link between parent and child has to do with the role parents play in helping their children learn to read.

Children raised in literate households are likely to enter grade one with several thousand hours of one-to-one pre-reading experience behind them.

Research shows there is a better chance of a child becoming a fully literate adult if reading is encouraged in the home. Children who grow up where there are books and readers become readers.

Family literacy programs are critical to the prevention of adult literacy problems. Programs help parents and other caregivers improve the skills they need to support their children’s learning. A 1995 International Adult Literacy Survey found that 42% of adult Canadians have some difficulty with reading.

Children living with adults who have limited literacy skills, or in homes where reading and writing are not part of everyday life, are at risk of poor achievement in school.

The Vancouver Grizzlies Spinoza Bear

Grizzlies Spinoza Bear, a talking teddy bear, is designed to encourage children to enjoy reading. This year, Spinoza Bear will participate in Literacy BC’s family literacy initiative. Over 50 Grizzlies Spinoza Bears will be sent to family literacy groups around the province to be used with parent and pre-schooler reading programs.

Spinoza will be used to encourage the children and their families to read along using a tape recorder inside Spinoza’s tummy which plays cassette tapes focused on storytelling and reading. The soothing and therapeutic voice appeals to a child’s imaginative and emotional needs.

A large poster and wall chart of “Super Grizz,” the Grizzlies mascot, will accompany Spinoza. The “Grizz Reading Challenge” is part of the Grizzlies Read to Succeed, an in-class reading incentive program for grades 1-4 that runs February and March each school year.

A warm and special thank you to the Grizzlies Foundation for this generous support to family literacy in B.C.