Discover 15 fun family literacy tips for learning together this Spring Break 

ABC Life Literacy Canada is sharing ideas for families to make sure everyone will keep their literacy skills sharp this Spring Break. These include the following: 

1. Sing it to Me: Play a song and then pause it. Ask your family to sing the next line – do they know it? 

2. Pop-up Kitchen: Follow a recipe together – a yummy way to practice math and reading. 3. #TTYL: Keep in touch with teens and impress them with your amazing texting skills (like using popular hashtags while using full sentences.) 

4. Outdoor Scavenger Hunt: Make a list of commonly found outdoor items, then go on a walk together with your list and see if you can find all the items. 

5. Grocery/Essentials Lists: Write a shopping list together of what you need and take turns finding the items on your list. 

6. Home Hopscotch Count: Make a giant hopscotch calculator, ask math questions and hop to the answers! 

7. Reverso Story: Tell your favourite story, backwards – start with the ending. Can your family guess the story? 

8. FGN: Start an FGN (Family Game Night) with your household or play virtually with other family and friends. 

9. Tell it 2 Me: Write a secret message with numbers and do the math to solve it. 10. Animal Walk: Research city street names and think of animals that begin with the same first letter of each street. 

11. Eat Your Words: Play with your food and write words with alphabet cereal and soup (we like  cookie letters too!) 

12. WOW Palindromes: Find words that are spelled the same way forwards and backwards.  How many can you find? (Some to get you started: wow, mom, dad, radar.) 

13. Abracadabra: Find cool card tricks by going online with your family. Practice and show your friends – can they figure out the tricks? 

14. Watch a Book: Read a book then watch the movie together. Talk about which version you liked the best. 

Family Literacy: 

• Family literacy focuses on parents, grandparents and other family members to improve the reading and writing skills of the whole family. 

• By reading to children and engaging in fun literacy activities regularly, adults actively keep their own skills sharp and also help children improve their skills. 

• Family literacy activities strengthen the relationship between family members which, in turn, encourages lifelong learning. 

• Without adult support and a strong foundation at home, a child is less likely to be successful and engaged in school. 

Statistics: 

• Children whose parents are involved with them in family literacy activities score 10 points higher on standardized reading tests. The Effect of Family Literacy Interventions On  Children’s Acquisition of Reading: From Kindergarten to Grade 3 – Conducted by Monique Sénéchal for the National Center for Family Literacy, 2006 

• The positive impacts of family literacy programming are greater than interventions including giving homework to children or reducing class size. Moreover, children from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit from family literacy programming at least to the same extent as children from other backgrounds. Further, family literacy programming enhances children’s social and emotional development and parents’ confidence as parents. Impact and  Implementation of Family Literacy Programmes: Review and Recommendations – National  Adult Literacy Agency (Ireland), 2018