Literacy Blog

Family Literacy Day - Dolly Parton's Imagination Library Whitehorse Launch

Communications Officer — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:38:06 +0000

Yukon Literacy Coalition &

Whitehorse Rendezvous Rotary Club

Celebration of Family Literacy Day

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – Whitehorse Launch

January 27^th, 2009

The Yukon Literacy Coalition and Whitehorse Rendezvous Rotary Club are excited to announce the celebration of Family Literacy Day at the Canada Games Centre starting at 11:00 a.m. on January 27^th, 2009. During this event, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library for Whitehorse children will be launched. Lana Rae will be singing and Brian Fidler will read “The Little Engine That Could”. Guest speakers include Dolly Parton’s Representative, David Dotson, from the Dollywood Foundation in Tennessee and our very own Patrick Rouble, Minister of Education for the Yukon Government.

The Dolly Parton Imagination Library is an innovative literacy program in which every month until the age of five, each registered child receives a free book in the mail. These books are carefully selected by a group of experts in education, child development and early childhood literacy. All Whitehorse children (0 to 12 months old at the time of the registration) residing in the Yukon are invited to register. The program is free and children registered during the Whitehorse Family Literacy Day event will receive a free children’s book to kick off their reading journey!

With the expansion to Whitehorse, the Yukon will be the first Canadian jurisdiction to offer the Imagination Library to all children thanks to partners including the Whitehorse Rendezvous Rotary Club, Invest in Kids and the Yukon Government Community Development Fund.

Family Literacy Day activities will also include story reading in French and English, face painting, fishing well, tattoos, crafts and a magic show. Activities are provided by Yukon Literacy Coalition, Association Franco-Yukonnaise (AFY) and Service d’Orientation et de Formation des Adultes (SOFA), Whitehorse Public Library, the Child Development Centre (CDC), Partners for Children (PFC), and the Learning Disabilities Association of the Yukon (LDAY).

Schedule of Events

11:00 a.m. Official Launch with Guest Speakers

11:30 a.m. Cake cutting, family literacy activities & refreshments

12:00 p.m. Family Literacy Day Concert with Lana Rae

Family Literacy Day - Guinness World Record™ Attempt - for Most Children Reading with an Adult - Multiple Locations

Communications Officer — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:27:07 +0000

Guinness World Record™ Attempt

Yukoners join other Canadians in a Family Literacy Day (FLD) World Record Attempt to break the Guinness World Record™ for Most Children Reading with an Adult – Multiple Locations.

Linked to Family Literacy Day, the World Record Attempt must be completed between:

11:00 a.m. January 23^rd & 11:00 a.m. January 24^th, 2009

The Yukon Literacy Coalition is holding its own FLD World Record Attempt event:

Where: Whitehorse Public Library

When: Friday, January 23, 2009

English readings at 11:00 a.m., 12:00, 1:00 & 2:00 p.m.

French reading at 4:00 p.m.

Children and adults are encouraged to come for a reading. Local celebrities and dignitaries will be on hand. For more information contact the Yukon Literacy Coalition at 668-6535 or yukon.literacy.coalition@northwestel.net.

The guidelines and event planning package are available online at: http://www.abc-canada.org/fldworldrecord.

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library comes to Whitehorse

Communications Officer — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:32:48 +0000

The Yukon Literacy Coalition will be launching Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Whitehorse on January 27, 2009 - on National Family Literacy Day. Stay tuned for more details.

YLC Update...

Communications Officer — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:02:49 +0000

66 Rural Yukon Children are registered in

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

How many children are registered in each rural Yukon community?

Dawson – 15 children

Tagish – 2 children

Teslin – 2 children

Carmacks – 5 children

Carcross – 5 children

Haines Junction – 2 children

Faro – 4 children

Pelly Crossing – 2 children

Watson Lake – 10 children

Old Crow – 3 children

Mayo - 2 children

Destruction Bay – 1 child

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Rural Yukon

Communications Officer — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:11:33 +0000

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is designed to give children and their families a chance to build a library of their own. The child’s family will receive an age appropriate book every month for the first five years of that child’s life. Registration started on October 19, 2007.

Eligible participants criteria:

- Children born after December 31^st 2006

- Reside in an area with the postal code YOB and YOA (Marsh Lake is in the YOB postal code)

More information contact Yukon Literacy Coalition - 668-6535 or contact the community partners:

Old Crow: Loretta Itsi (litsi@vgfn.net)
Beaver Creek: Rosemarie VanderMeer- Broeren (rosemariebroeren@yahoo.ca)
Dawson City: Miriam Havemann (dclib@klondiker.com)
Pelly Crossing: Mary McGinty (mcgintym@selkirkfn.com)
Faro: Diana Rogerson (flib@klondiker.com)
Haines Junction: Angie Charlebois (angie@northwestel.net)
Mayo: Karen VanBibber (mlib@klondiker.com)
Watson Lake: Ursula Fedorak (wllib@klondiker.com)
Carmacks: Gisela Larkin (cmlib@klondiker.com))
Teslin: Patty Wiseman (patty@ttc-teslin.com)
Teslin: Kelly Beaulieu ( tslib@klondiker.com)
Burwash Landing: Alyce Johnson (alyce_dukeriver@yahoo.ca)
Ross River: Bernadette Fulton (pasinag15@hotmail.com)
Tagish: Emanuelle Burelli (eburelli@sofayukon.com)

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a unique opportunity to do something simple and powerful for community literacy. Dream More, Learn More, Care More and Be More!

Let's talk about Health Literacy

Communications Officer — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:53:54 +0000

It keeps coming up, and why shouldn’t it? It’s an important issue. But what is health literacy? The Canadian Council on Learning defines it as an “individual’s ability to access and interpret information relating to their own health, and the capacity to make well-informed decisions about their basic health. This can include the ability to read and act upon written health information (such as the appropriate use of prescription medications), the proper skills to communicate their health needs to physicians, or sufficient listening skills to understand the instruction they recieve.” In short, it’s about being able learn about and do the things required for optimum health. Pretty important, isn’t it?

Yet 60% of Canadian adults have low health literacy rates, according to the initial results of the International Adult Literacy Skills Survey (IALSS). Here are a few of the other findings:

Canadian adults with less than a high-school education scored far lower than adults with higher levels of education.
The Yukon has the highest level of health literacy in Canada, with numbers significantly higher than the national average.
Canadians have higher levels of health literacy than our American counterparts.

For more information on health literacy in Canada, visit here.

There are Literacy Award Winners in Our Midst...

Communications Officer — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:39:09 +0000

… And their names are Gordon Hardie and Patti Wiseman!

Gordon Hardie has received a 2007 Canada Post Community Literacy Award for Individual Achievement. And for good reason. Here’s what Canada Post says about Gordon:

Gordon’s literacy journey has been a struggle, but he never gave up. After many years of tutoring, Gordon has brought his reading skills up to a grade seven level, and now he represents the Yukon on the Learners Advisory Network. He encourages other learners by sharing his story, and has lobbied the local government for funding for adult literacy.

Gordon has indeed been a dedicated advocate of Literacy in the Yukon. In 2006, he travelled from his hometown of Dawson to Ottawa to represent the Yukon at a national conference on public libraries. At our Yukon Summit for Literacy 2007, Gordon gave a moving speach about his struggles in learning to read and write and about the value of literacy. Congratulations, Gordie! Keep up the good work!

We would also like to congratulate Gordon’s tutor, Marjorie Logue. Dawson City, you should be proud!

For a complete list of Canada Post Community Literacy Award winners, click here.

Patti Wiseman has received a 2007 Council of the Federation Literacy Award. The award recognizes “outstanding achievement and excellence in literacy.” So it’s fitting that Teslin’s own Patti Wiseman is sporting a stylish new Council of the Federation Medallion! Here’s what the Federation says about Patti:

Patti Wiseman has made a remarkable contribution to improving literacy in the community of Teslin, Yukon. A resident for more than 20 years, Ms. Wiseman started working for the Teslin Tlingit Council (TTC) in 1996, helping to open the TTC Daycare. Last year she was instrumental in expanding the daycare into the Early Learning and Child Care Centre. Under Patti’s management the Centre has been a huge success. She oversees several programs including daycare, prenatal classes, the Aboriginal Head Start program, Teslin Playschool, and Teslin Community Literacy Programs. Patti has initiated several projects that encourage families to participate and learn together, as well as multiple child-focused programs.

But wait! There’s more. Patti was also a dedicated and hard-working member of the Yukon Literacy Coalition Board of Directors. Congratulations from all of us here at the Yukon Literacy Coalition.

For more information on the Council of the Federation Literacy Awards, click here.

If you have a subscription the the Yukon News online—it’s free—then you can read an article about Patti’s important work.

For Your Interest: Literacy Propaganda

Communications Officer — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 05:06:16 +0000

In my search for information about literacy around the world, I stumbled across the Cuban News Agency. Hardly unbiased reporting, the site claims that “16 [Bolivian] municipalities have already been declared freed from illiteracy” by using the Cuban Method. Now, if I could only find out what the Cuban Method is, maybe we could declare the Yukon freed from illiteracy, too!

Check out the article.

Now let’s travel across the world to China, where the People’s Daily Online reports that “China is confident to reduce its illiterate population by half by 2015.” Not that lofty goals for improving literacy are always unattainable, but considering China’s massive population and it’s rapid urbanization and industrialization, which can both be barriers to education, I’m going to file this one away as literacy propaganda, too.

I have no doubt that come 2015 the Chinese media will report that these lofty goals have been met. The question will be, did they do it by using the Cuban Method?

Click here to read the article.

Online Literacy Tutorial: What's a Wiki?

Communications Officer — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 05:02:02 +0000

There are many tricks to finding information online. I’ve had to learn them—it’s my job—and now I’m passing them on to you. This week, I’ll explain what a wiki is and how it works.

A wiki is a website that:

contains information
allows visitors to change that information

So, let’s pretend that the Yukon Literacy Coalition’s website was a wiki. You visit the site and start to read the section containing the employee biographies. You see that the Communication Officer seems to be tooting his own horn. You’ve met him before, after all, and are pretty sure he doesn’t look anything like “a mix between Brad Pitt and Justin Timberlake.” You just can’t stand it, so you log in to the website, upload a photo of Andrew from last year’s Christmas party and let the photo speak for itself. That’s what you can do with a wiki.

The most popular wiki is Wikipedia.

If you know something, and I bet you do, why not spread your wealth of knowledge by editing a wiki post today?

Literacy Activity for Teens: Digital Comics

Communications Officer — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:52:46 +0000

As part of the World Children’s Festival, NC State University motivated children and teens to use and improve their literacy skills by having them create their own digital comics. How’d they do it? With a nifty little program called Comic Life. Some students even animated their comics and uploaded them to their iPods. Now that’s making reading and writing fun!

Click here for the NC State article.

Check out Comic Life here.

And if that sounds like fun to you, too, you might like this tutorial that helps you turn your own digital photos into coloring books (hat tip, Photojojo). You’ll need Photoshop for this one. If you’d like to try one of these projects, and need a little help getting going, just email me at astark@navigonet.com.