Early childhood literacy programs in Canada

The goals of family literacy programs include helping “parents understand the importance of the home environment in developing children’s language and literacy skills, helping parents acquire learning resources for use with their children, teach[ing] parents specifi c activities that promote language and literacy development and build[ing] literacy skills of the parents “(CLLRN, 2009, p. 24). [...] In order to test the accessibility and relevance of the questions a pilot survey was distributed to three programs that refl ected the diversity of programming in Canada. [...] To view the survey questions, see Appendix B. A French translation of the survey was prepared and distributed to French programs operating across Canada, and approximately 7% of surveys were returned in French. [...] Additionally, participants had the opportunity to give permission to Read to Me! to access survey data after the completion of this research to support the development of an early childhood literacy network. [...] When discussing early childhood literacy programs in Canada it is important to stress that while many programs provide resources and services for young children and their families, the goals of these programs extend to the health of their entire communities.