National Adult Literacy Database

"As librarians, we see first-hand what materials kids are actually reading and getting excited about. Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of anticipation in children’s books with new trends bubbling up to the surface each year. But what does the future hold for children's literature?"

This month the ESL Literacy Network is launching Education Opens Doors, a video featuring learners in the Bridge program at Bow Valley College. The program provides pathways to further education for immigrant youth, ages 18-25, with interrupted formal education.

Funding will be available for not-for-profit organizations, public-sector employers and small businesses to create high-quality summer job opportunities for young people from 15 to 30 years of age who are full-time students intending to return to their studies in the next school year.

Social and Enterprise Development Innovations (SEDI) has announced that the TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund has awarded $837,321 in grants to 12 community organizations engaged in financial literacy projects across Canada.

The New Year is here, and with it come promises of change – eating healthier, going to the gym and getting a new job, perhaps. Improving your literacy skills can also help you make the ultimate change.

Employment rose by 40,000 in December, the fourth increase in five months, according to a new Labour Force Survey from Statistics Canada. December's increase was all in full-time work. The unemployment rate declined 0.1 percentage points to 7.1%, the lowest in four years.

CMEC has just published PCAP-13 2007: Report on Reading Strategies and Reading Achievement, the third in a series of research projects in which the PCAP-13 2007 data set is used to examine questions of interest to educational policy-makers and practitioners in Canada. It focuses on the factors that contribute to the performance of 13-year-old Canadian students in reading.

The Centre for Family Literacy will host a Leading with Literacy Breakfast and presentation of the Lois Hole Memorial Literacy Awards in Edmonton, Alberta, on Thursday, January 24, 2013.

“The new, enhanced Job Alerts system is being introduced to improve and strengthen the job information made available to Canadians,” said Human Resources and Skills Development Minister Diane Finley. “We are pleased to launch this system in January and begin better helping people find employment opportunities in their area, from a variety of sources.”

Canadian parents and teachers are succeeding at creating an environment at home and at school that promotes good reading skills among children, according to reports released today by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). But while the reports show that Canadian Grade 4 students perform well in reading by international standards, there remains room for improvement.

Following little change in October, employment rose by 59,000 in November, the result of an increase in full-time work. The unemployment rate declined 0.2 percentage points to 7.2 per cent.

Over the past few years Canadian Literacy and Learning Network (CLLN) has undergone a number of changes. One of the most recent changes has been the transition from a representational board to a skills-based board. CLLN is currently seeking applicants for one of 10 board positions.

The purpose of the State of the Literacy and Essential Skills Field report is to provide an overview of Literacy and Essential Skills across Canada from the unique perspective of CLLN and its national network partners, the provincial and territorial literacy coalitions. This is the first national environmental scan to be conducted by CLLN and as such it will inform the direction of future scans and will be the basis of further work to show how the Literacy and Essential Skills field is responding to trends.

In his new free workshop for 2013, Tom Sticht reviews extensive data on intergenerational inequalities in education and economics. He also presents data from many studies to suggest that greater investments in the education of undereducated youth and adults, many of whom are parents or will become parents, can help break the multiple life cycles of inequalities in education and economic achievement.

Skills/Compétences Canada, a national not-for-profit organization that actively promotes careers in skilled trades, has announced that Lowe's will be renewing its Toolbox for Education Grant Program for 2013. This will be the third year that Lowe's, in partnership with Skills/Compétences Canada, offers the program benefiting students and educators in Ontario and Alberta.