Family Literacy Day
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About 250 kids, parents, volunteers and area residents took part in the 2013 Family Literacy Day event last Thursday evening at Avondale United Church.
“Groups and organizations come together every year to put this event on,” said Oxford County early literacy specialist Cara vanKlaveren. “We were anticipating about 140 children and their families tonight.”
ABC Life Literacy began the initiative 15 years ago, and Family Literacy Day has grown to become an annual Canada-wide event.
“We’ve held family literacy events across Oxford County, including tonight’s event here in Tillsonburg,” vanKlaveren said. “It’s a great turnout and we’re having a great time.”
Avondale United Church donated space for the event. For participating in Family Literacy Day, children received a free book of their choice, sponsored by the Tillsonburg Kinette Club, and enjoyed a free snack to take home sponsored by the Tillsonburg Kiwanis Club.
vanKlaveren noted the various booths, games and literacy related activities children and families enjoyed during the event Thursday evening.
“We have guest readers from our community coming out to read, so people can take part in the stories, we have activities set up by different childcare centres, St. Joseph’s School is here, we have the fire department here and Crime Stoppers is here as well.
“They’re setting up activities that would promote literacy as a family.”
Improving literacy skills doesn’t require a lot of hard work, said vanKlaveren, and can be done in simple and enjoyable ways.
“It’s simple activities – you could be pointing to a street sign as you’re driving down the street, it could be making a recipe together, it could be sharing stories or singing songs. Anything that has something to do with our language and literacy development.
“What we know is that children learn best through playing because that’s what they’re naturally drawn to do. So we want to be promoting that play and just give some meaningful activities for our children to do, and point out those things that are in our everyday environment that will help promote their language development, as well as their literacy development.
“It’s important to hold events like this as a reminder that it doesn’t take a huge program to bring literacy events to our kids,” vanKlaveren concluded. “Keep it simple and fun – that’s what kids thrive on.”