This text is part of the special Literacy notebook
Organizations are working to develop literacy among young children.
Exposing children to words—in any language—at an early age helps them succeed in school and thrive in life. As such, many family-friendly organizations are working to turn little ones into future bookworms.
Marie-Josée Perreault speaks with pride about the “Promoting Early Literacy through Play” project, launched in 2021, which she helped set up. At the time, she was working as a caseworker for the organization Parents engagés pour la petite enfance, and her visits to vulnerable families allowed her to make a sad observation: “I noticed that some children didn’t know how to handle the books I brought them. At three or five years old, they had never held books in their hands!”
Building on this experience, in 2022 she developed a project aimed at connecting 0-5 year-olds with words in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Côte-des-Neiges and Côte-Saint-Luc neighbourhoods in Montreal. Nearly 80 activities that “use books as tools” were designed, with these books being lent to families during home visits. All of this is accompanied by introductions to the local library for those who have never set foot in one. “Families don’t enter a building they don’t know on their own,” notes the woman who is now the organization’s executive director.
Result: 73% of the 128 families affected by the project now say they share a daily reading time with their child. “Siblings are starting to read more,” also notes Mme Perreault. “The older ones will read to the little ones. They will be eager to see what books we will bring them and will ask to go to the library.”
Read to succeed
So do these children know how to read from a young age? “The goal is not to teach them to read,” explains Marie-Josée Perreault. “But the child learns even if he doesn’t know the words. Books contribute to his development,” she says.
Nadine D’Amours, president of the Fédération québécoise des organismes communautaires famille, agrees: “The earlier a child is in contact with books, nursery rhymes or literary language, the more we give them a taste for reading. It’s a factor in educational success, and not just in reading.”
In Quebec, the 260 members of the Federation work in one way or another to “enrich family literacy.” In addition to 0-5 year-olds, the activities offered by these organizations target the family in the broad sense, including parents. Also director of the Maison de la famille des Chenaux, Nadine D’Amours notes the importance of reaching out to parents, who do not always have the reflex to put their children in contact with books. “At our place, we ask parents to write a children’s storybook. Studies show that when they are involved in the creation of a book, they will more easily use it at home, especially in contexts where readers are weak.” This project resulted in a printed book, which parents can take with them, and even see in the libraries of the MRC des Chenaux, where it was distributed.
“The activities we do in early childhood have repercussions on the child’s academic progress. Because the “cerebral” activities that a child does with a parent or someone important to them leave an imprint on their memory. We therefore seek to ensure that this type of activity is associated with something pleasant,” concludes M.me Of Love. To achieve this, it is necessary to “put words in the child’s environment”. But not just anyhow: with pleasure.
Providing access to literature
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