Literacy

Literacy is a foundational skill that increases success in school, work and life and includes the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking.

The Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board provides a variety of support services, resources and assistance to students, families, and staff through the program branch of the Teaching and Learning Department.

Literacy Supports for Parents and Guardians of Primary Students

Parents can have a significant impact on their children's literacy learning. The following videos provide practical strategies that parents, and guardians can use to support their children.

Important Tips

This animated video provides four important tips that can set the foundation for a lifelong love of reading and writing and prepares students for future success. The information in this video is based on the Ministry of Education's Parent Guide for Reading and Writing With Your Child.

Magnetic letters can be a useful tool for early literacy learning. This video demonstrates a magnetic letter activity to build letter recognition. It is #22 on the following list of Magnetic Letter Activities.

See our magnetic letter strategies for more ideas.

Reading Together

For young readers, reading together is a powerful and rewarding strategy that makes reading fun. This video demonstrates some of the benefits of reading together!

One way to engage your child at the beginning of your time reading together is to ask them questions about what they're about to read. Before reading, read the title together and ask your child to make predictions. This encourages children to start thinking about what they already know about the topic. Watch this short video to learn more.

Wait Time

As parents it can be tempting to just tell your child a word if they are struggling; however, it's important to allow children time to do a little bit of reading work. This video demonstrates the importance of ‘Wait Time' in your child's literacy learning.

Pulling It All Together

Children may need to re-read before they can pull it all together. Waiting for your child to re-read sentences allows them to self-correct. When a new word comes up that is difficult for your children to read, explaining the meaning of the word might make it easier for them to learn and remember the word. Watch Pulling It All Together.

Talking with your child about Reading

After your child reads a book to you, ask them to talk to you about it.
These conversations are just as important as the reading itself. Here are some questions to get you started:

• What did you notice?
• Were there any tricky parts? How did you get through them?
• Does this book remind you of anything?
• What have you been wondering as you read?
• Does this book make you think of anything else you've read?
• What was your favourite part? Why?
• Was there a part of the book that surprised you?
• Why do you think the author wrote this book?
• What are you going to read next? How did you decide?

Reading Recovery

Reading Recovery is a short-term early intervention for students having difficulty in learning to read and write. Reading Recovery-trained teachers are available in several elementary schools where they work daily for thirty minutes with the lowest achieving students in Grade One. Read more about Reading Recovery in KPR