PAL stands for "Partnership Approach to Literacy". It is a tutoring project designed for school students with low reading or comprehension skills, who experience little pleasure in reading.

This program was developed through Matthew Halton Community School, Pincher Creek, AB for all four schools in the community (public and separate). Other current Alberta sites are: Coalhurst Elementary, Grande Praire (public, separate and county schools), Crowsnest Pass (through its Parents in Partnership Program), Fort Macleod, Claresholm, Nanton, Senator Buchanan and Galbraith Elementary in Lethbridge. Under development are Rocky Mountain House, and William Roper Hull School in Calgary for September 2001. It began in 1989-91 as a pilot project funded through the National Literacy Secretariat, in partnership with the Alberta Government. PAL provides trained volunteers to tutor school students who struggle with daily reading tasks and find little or no enjoyment in reading. Through the years of literacy programming, over 500 literacy tutors have been trained in this community of 7000 citizens (for PAL and the community's adult literacy project, READ/WRITE).

Family Literacy component: PAL is a partnership approach which includes the efforts of student, tutor, school and parents to bring positive changes to an individual's view of reading and writing. Parents are included in the planning for tutoring outcomes, and have opportunity to meet with PAL Coordinators at Parent/Teacher interviews, or in the PAL office or the family home. PAL Projects are closely associated with other family literacy programming in communities, recognizing the very important link between family literacy development and life long learning skills for an individual.