It's Family Literacy Day!

Thursday, January 27 is a special day in the country, as it is Family Literacy Day throughout Canada. West Central Online talked to Family Literacy Coordinator of West Central Literacy Tina McGonigal about the importance of literacy, and also what this year’s theme for Family Literacy Day is. 

“The theme this year is learning in the great outdoors. So, all of our regions are putting a focus on getting outside and enjoying the winter weather,” McGonigal said. 

West Central Literacy has a few things planned for the special day, including a book which the province selected for the special day. 

“Every year the province chooses a book that goes along with the National Literacy Day. So, this year it is ‘When the Trees Crackle with Cold, A Cree Calendar’ and they were able to send us out a few copies of that to go along with our programming. With that, we partnered with some of the daycares and day homes in the west central region and we sent out a copy of the book and some story stretcher stuff for all the kids at the day cares. And we also partnered with a group called Active for Life this year, they're out of Alberta. They are a great resource for physical literacy and they sent us out some great sheets about dressing for all kinds of weather so that you can still go outside and enjoy it.  And also staying active throughout the whole year, with different ideas on ways to stay active that some of them that you maybe wouldn't even think of. We are also doing a story skate in Davidson with their elementary grades one through four kids. It’s basically it's similar to the idea of a story walk, only we're utilizing their rank and parents and kids will strap on their skates and they'll skate around the rink and read the story as they go. So, that was supposed to take place this Thursday on National Literacy Day, but unfortunately with numbers in the area, we've decided to postpone that for now, and we're hoping to pick it up sometime in February. Lastly, we also provided a bunch of copies of the book to the school division and several different classes in the Sun West School Division have some plans of their own events they're going to do with it,” McGonigal added. 

McGonigal then gave a background on Family Literacy Day in Canada.  

“It started in 1999, so this will be the 23rd year.  It was actually created by ABC Life Literacy Canada and we still work with them. They promote events all across Canada that are going on for national literacy days.” 

The importance of reading and literacy starts at a young age, and McGonigal talked about a program that has been going on for years in the west central region. 

“We always have our Books for Life program going and that is essentially where we provide a board book and some literacy information to every single baby that's born in the west central region. Those actually go out with the health nurse on their first visit, and that's regardless of family or anything like that, every baby gets a start with a book, with our Books for Life program,” McGonigal said. 

For more on Family Literacy Day you can head to www.saskliteracy.ca/crackle or www.saskliteracy.ca/FamilyLiteracyDay.