While literacy for the whole family certainly does include reading books, it's also about understanding the world around you. January 27th is the day each year when the entire country celebrates Family Literacy Day, and on Monday the Weyburn Public Library celebrated with a 'Luau' event.

"Family Literacy Day, like in the context of libraries is sort of promoting literacy for the whole family, so it's not just children reading, it's adults as well," said Branch Manager Matthew Rankin. "The main thrust of Family Literacy Day, in general, is literacy beyond just books, like financial literacy, and being able to read and understand the world, essentially."

He said the Luau goes along the same lines as a series of programs introduced at the WPL by the READ Saskatoon program in late 2019.

"They have different kits that the Southeast Regional Library is using to promote literacy in different areas, so financial literacy, understanding different cultures, stuff like that," he shared. "So it was more the Luau was the theme we were able to frame all the stations under."

He said coding is another form of literacy the WPL offers for older children.

"We're experimenting at the moment, but our Code Club 2020 is trying to get kids on a regular basis to get interested in programming, and sort of understand what happens when you program a robot to do something and it doesn't do what you want, or it does it in a way that you didn't anticipate, and it's just to get people started and interested," Rankin explained.

These kinds of programs, he noted, help more community members realize the WPL keeps in line with their motto, 'not the library you remember'.

"It's in line where the region is going directly and where Weyburn is going specifically, we want to do things we haven't done in the past, sort of coordinate more with different community groups, help where we can, and host events and stuff like that," he noted. "So we want to do more things like this, we want to do more technology, we want to do more supporting groups in the community."

Rankin said the WPL aims to be seen as a community hub, so people think of them when it comes to connecting, and sharing literacy and more.

Each station at the Luau event offered a different activity, such as reenacting a scene from a book using puppets and props.

Writing in sand was one of the activities during the Family Literacy Luau at the Weyburn Public Library on Monday. After completing (or trying) each activity, families could stamp their passports.

DID YOU KNOW? [From: https://abclifeliteracy.ca/family-literacy/ ]:

What is Family Literacy?

Family literacy focusses on parents, grandparents and other family members to improve the reading and writing skills of the whole family.

By reading to children and engaging in fun literacy activities regularly, adults actively keep their own skills sharp and also help children improve their skills.

Family literacy activities strengthen the relationship between family members which, in turn, encourages lifelong learning.

Without adult support and a strong foundation at home, a child is less likely to be successful and engaged in school.

Children spend five times as much time outside the classroom as they do in school, so parents and caregivers need the tools to support their learning (The Read-Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease, 2006).

Children whose parents are involved with them in family literacy activities score 10 points higher on standardized reading tests (The Effect of Family Literacy Interventions On Children’s Acquisition of Reading: From Kindergarten to Grade 3, Conducted by Monique Sénéchal for the National Center for Family Literacy, 2006).

One year of parental education has a bigger positive impact on whether a son or daughter will attend a postsecondary institution than an extra $50,000 in parental income (Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2011)

A mother’s reading skill is the greatest factor to affect her children’s future academic success, outweighing other factors, like neighborhood and family income (National Institute of Health, 2010).

Parents’ reading habits play a large role in determining how often kids read: 57% of kids who are frequent readers have parents who read books 5–7 days per week, compared to only 15% of kids who are infrequent readers (Kids and Family Reading Report – Scholastic, 2017).

Children of low-literate parents are exposed to 30,000,000 fewer words and enter kindergarten with a much larger skills gap than their peers (The Case for Investment in Adult Basic Education, Kevin Morgan, Dr. Peter Waite, Michele Diecuch, March 2017).

Almost 40% of Canadian youth do not have suitable literacy skills (TD Canada Trust, Literacy Matters: A Call to Action).