Blog

School’s out and the summer slide starts! Summer slide?  It's not a new game, nor something you find in a playground.  It's the brain-drain that happens during the holiday months when kids are out of class.  Academic skills tend to slip away during the summer if students aren't actively engaged in learning. Math, spelling, and reading skills suffer the most. Studies have found that learning… Read more.

Christine Barker and I travelled with DeBeers promoting literacy in eight NWT communities, as well as at the Gahcho Kué mine this spring. It was a wonderful experience to visit some communities I’d never been to before, and to meet with children and educators. We visited Gamètı̀, Whatı̀, Wekweeti, Behchokǫ̀, Łutselk’e, Ndılǫ, Dettah, Fort Resolution, and Hay River with the DeBeers Books in… Read more.

As a long-term program evaluator for the NWT Literacy Council, I was thrilled to be able to attend the NWT Evaluation Symposium with four of the Council’s staff members. The symposium took place last week in Yellowknife and at Aurora Village on Chief Drygeese Territory. As a non-Indigenous person who works with literacy organizations in the three territories, the topic was very near and dear to… Read more.

Moving as a family to a new country may introduce challenges for parents. They are removed from their local cultural norms and communicating in a new language. Canadian expectations for parents and Canadian laws may be quite different from what immigrants are used to. Mark Jacot, of Jangles Production, and Donna Joyette, of Joyette Consulting, were in Yellowknife last week to train local… Read more.

I attended the 2018 ABLE Financial Empowerment Conference hosted every two years by Prosper Canada for organizations interested in financial empowerment for people who live on a low income. I would like to share one of the wonderful resources I was introduced to at the conference. One of the best tools I have seen in all my years of trying to manage money in a healthy way is First Nations… Read more.

Often we think of early literacy as bedtime stories, singing and rhyming, and doing crafts together. As parents, we are our children’s first teacher and they learn through these activities. My toddler loves all of these things, but she is also learning by playing in the garden. Sidney would spend all day in the yard, and in her greenhouse if she were able to. She thinks she’s just playing, but… Read more.

We know a lot about literacy and include literacy activities in all our resources — but we don’t do as much in numeracy as we should. This week’s results from the territorial student testing program show that students in both Grades 6 and 9 struggle with math. That suggests that as an organization we should pay more attention to numeracy. Think how much numeracy there is in our everyday lives:… Read more.

You may have noticed that the NWT Literacy Council’s office was closed last Thursday and Friday. If you were wondering where we all were, read on! Last November, the NWT Literacy Council staff travelled to Calgary to receive literacy and essential skills training from Pat Salt. That training focused on exploring the many definitions of essential skills. Pat is an excellent instructor, and we all… Read more.

We judged Science and Heritage Fairs in Yellowknife this spring, as well as the Regional Fair last week. Students from grades 4-8 are assigned either a science or heritage project. I saw some well-done, informative science projects, but the heritage projects are what I really enjoyed. Students who choose to do a heritage project are encouraged to explore and share a topic connected to their own… Read more.

Literacy benefits the economy, society, and the quality of life of NWT residents. We decided that we could promote literacy by promoting all the places Yellowknifers can find free books. Well-educated citizens are better able to meet the demands of a modern economy, and are more likely to become productive, healthy, participating members of society (Office of the Auditor General of Canada, 2010… Read more.