Family Literacy Resources

‘Family literacy’ is the learning that happens within a family, and ‘family’ includes anyone that the family decides is family. This intergenerational learning includes parents, children, siblings, step-family, grandparents, caregivers, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbours, and more!

Literacy learning starts early in life. Language learning is the foundation of literacy: talking, singing, rhyming, signing, playing, and book sharing all build language skills. Everyday life brings opportunities for learning that helps adults and children build relationships, gain skills, accomplish work, and participate fully in their communities.

~ Adapted from Saskatchewan Literacy Network (SLN) (2016). Introduction to Family Literacy Participant Handbook

A former Saskatchewan Community Literacy Fund project, the Building Bridges Family Literacy Project, focused on supporting recent immigrant parents and their children. The project resulted in the creation of dual-language mini-books for young learners and their caregivers to use together. The creation of dual-language mini-books, written at an emergent level, supports the needs of the emergent readers who are acquiring English as an additional language. These dual-language mini-books provide for home language maintenance, and also allow for an easier transition to learning the English language. The Saskatchewan Literacy Network is sharing their work as a resource intended to support work with newcomer families to Saskatchewan.