Home  

Parenting for a Literate Community (Anne Hunt, Pam Nason, Pam Whitty)
Excerpted from Innovative Teacher Education Projects in Early Childhood Education
Pam Whitty, Pam Nason, Anne Hunt
Prague, Czech Republic, September 1998

NATIONAL LITERACY PROJECT LAUNCHED

The name says it all. Parenting for a Literate Community is both the title and the ultimate goal of a national literacy project officially launched in Fredericton on Family Literacy Day, Jan. 27.

This Health Canada project was directed by the Early Childhood Centre at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.

"The $143,000 project focuses upon acknowledging and enhancing the literacies of preschool children and their families," says Pam Whitty, one of three UNB early education specialists who worked on the project.

To this end, the Early Childhood Centre has developed a national training program for family resource centre and early intervention staff. These professionals, through existing programs, are in contact with families who can benefit from literacy development.

"These new training materials will help family resource centre and early intervention staff to strengthen the literacy component of home and centre-based programs and to nurture a more co-ordinated approach to effective literacy education," says Dr. Whitty.

A series of eight booklets offer practical guidance for implementing the Parenting for a Literate Community program. Their topics range from cultivating literate play to connecting warmth and well-being with books.

Complementing the printed material is a video which reinforces the concepts in the booklets and introduces the program's three main components - the children's program, the parents' program, and the parents' and children's combined literacy program.

All training materials are available in both official languages.

UNB's Anne Hunt, Pam Nason and Dr. Whitty - along with Lynda Homer of Health and Community Services - developed Parenting for a Literate Community in partnership with Literacy NB Inc., the New Brunswick departments of Education and Health and Community Services, l'Université de Moncton, and the Fredericton Regional Family Resource Centre.

For more information on this project, please visit our Parenting for a Literate Community Web site. The francophone component of this project is entitled Pour une communaute alphabetisee and is also available on the web.