LAKELAND - The Blue Quills Literacy Centre at University nuxełhot’įnethaaɁehots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills (UnBQ) has released a resource it hopes will help families improve their literacy in both the nêhiyawêwin (Cree) and English languages.
The family literacy program resource guide has been created to support Indigenous family literacy, and was put together through a partnership with the St. Paul Community Adult Learning Program - Portage College.
The Read Learn Laugh Program resource guide focuses on developing and promoting literacy skills in adults and young children. The resource guide recommends using storybooks that contain both the nêhiyawêwin and English languages.
"The goal of the resource guide is to support a renewed effort by First Nations to reclaim Indigenous languages, while valuing English language skills," according to information from UnBQ.
Valerie Cardinal is the team lead for the Blue Quills Literacy Centre at UnBQ. She explains the Literacy Centre's mandate includes a family literacy component, along with an Indigenous language component.
The resource guide is meant to be a package for family literacy practitioners to facilitate programs to adults and children. Cardinal says she's hopeful the resource will allow for programs that can give families an opportunity to "develop reading skills together."
The program resource guide is a free download, and is meant to be used by organizations who are working with children, and are interested in developing those reading skills. Counting, colours, and other skills are reinforced through the program, in a way that engages both parents and children, says Cardinal.
“Parents are learning how to develop those skills to teach their children.”
Although the pandemic interrupted the roll-out of the resource, Cardinal says those involved still wanted to make it available to anyone who can use it. The plan is to offer and share the resource more widely to communities throughout the region, when the situation allows.
The Read Learn Laugh Program Resources Guide is split into six weeks. A different book recommendation is given for each of the six weeks. Books include The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Mosom Mosom; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; Powwow Counting in Cree; Little You; and My Heart Fills with Happiness.
The program resource guide provides organized daily and weekly schedules along with suggested snacks, three-support activity centres, and a list of required materials with song lyrics to start and end literacy time.
"Read Learn Laugh is an excellent program to support literacy skills. Students in the Portage College Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) Diploma Program will be making this innovative program available for learners as part of the Language Growth ELCC 222 course in the Spring of 2021," according to Patricia Flatla, Program Coordinator at Portage College.
The free program resource guide can be downloaded at the UnBQ website.
