How can parents help their kids get a leg up on literacy? The answer is fairly simple: get more books into the hands of preschoolers.
In fall 2015, Kara Plamondon, speech pathologist with the Northern Health Region, initiated a family literacy program in collaboration with the Flin Flon Aboriginal Friendship Centre’s preschool program, Aboriginal Head Start.
Working with children from infancy to age 5, Plamondon sees a wide spectrum of language skills as students prepare to enter kindergarten. For kids with speech and language delays, the transition to school can be challenging.
She decided to initiate the program to “level the playing field,” by offering families tools to build essential language skills before kids head off to school.
The program is organized around a series of playful, themed events, like a sliding and literacy party held at the Flin Flon Ski Club at the end of January.
At the first event, held last fall, Head Start kids received a basket for storing books, and a stack of books to keep and read at home.
At each session, each child adds a few more books to his or her collection, so attendees will have an extensive library of high-quality picture books by the end of the year.
At the sliding party, three-year-old Harlynd scampered around the chalet, scouring the shiny new titles spread out for the kids to explore, and bringing new books over to his mom, Jasmine Bouvier. He was one of many kids poring over the books, gathering around for storytime, and snuggling up in their parents’ laps to read together.
“We’re noticing children are more responsive to the books, vocalizing, talking about the stories, recognizing stories and having a familiarity with them,” Plamondon said.
Bouvier said the literacy events prompted her to make reading a regular routine with Harlynd.
And that’s the whole point.
While improving kids’ literacy levels is the ultimate goal, the program is really oriented towards helping parents to cultivate a reading practice with their children.
Session leaders communicate with the adults who attend about the importance of reading to build speech and language skills, and parents are expected to participate in the literacy activities alongside their kids.
“We can do as much as we can, but there has to be a change at the parent level and in the home before we are going to see significant changes,” said Plamondon.
The literacy program is funded by a $4,000 Literacy for Life grant, provided by the Winnipeg Foundation, which covers the cost of books for attending children. Some books have also been donated by local families.
