Quebec Literacy Working Group VOX Newsletter

What's Inside

"the literacy resource for adult education teachers"

Defining Success

QLWG’s Working for You

Joy Learning

Contacting QLWG reps

Low Literacy Learners

Thank you LVQ







It's a fact

“Fewer than half of
those who contact
a literacy organization
actually enrol in a
program and of those
who enrol, 30 per cent
drop out.”

“Research indicates
that barriers
like job or money
problems,
lack of childcare and
transportation
are some of reasons
preventing people
from enrolling.”

ABC CANADA: Patterns of participation/
Who Wants to
Learn? and ABC CANADA; Patterns
of Participation in Canadian
Literacy and Upgrading
Programs



QLWG Contact Details

Quebec Literacy Working Group
Patti Moore, Coordinator
Eastern Quebec Learning Centre
3005 William Stuart
Sainte-Foy (Québec) G1W 1V4
Tel: (418) 651-3022
Fax: (418) 651-3025
Email: moorep@CQSB.qc.ca
Web: www.qela.qc.ca


  

QLWG: The Success Issue!

A woman with a key

How does one define success when it comes to literacy?

The members of The Quebec Literacy Working Group (QLWG) know that improving your reading, writing and numeracy skills is about so much more than ‘finishing high school’. It is about learning to better function in your day-to-day life.

While successes in our adult education centres are often measured by the obtainment of a certificate or a diploma, in the field of literacy, we must measure success more slowly and more gradually: by tallying up the daily struggles and the daily successes that our students quietly add to a growing roster of accomplishments and abilities over time.

Learning to successfully fill out a form when you have always had to rely on a friend, a partner or even your own children is an accomplishment that is difficult to measure but priceless for the adult who has achieved it. For adults with low literacy skills, success may mean being able to read to their children; understand their Hydro bill; reading a menu in a restaurant; signing a lease or buying their groceries within a set budget. In the words of one QLWG representative, “What about the adults who come to our programs to learn ‘to fill out a form’? How do you measure that kind of success?” How indeed?

QLWG’s Working for You:

Warren Halligan and Patrick
Warren Halligan and Patrick
Western Quebec School Board

The QLWG Skills for Life Series

Teams of teachers, students and local animators in 10 of our member school boards have just finished field-testing the 28 units of the QLWG Skills for Life Series. We plan to launch the units to literacy teachers province-wide next fall. Here are few examples of our students’ successes since they began working on the units in the QLWG Skills for Life Series:

  • Canada is richer at least two citizens thanks to our Canadian Citizenship unit: students from the Lester B. Pearson School Board and the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board completed the unit and went on to write - and pass – their Canadian Citizenship tests! We have students from other boards who are currently working to obtain their Canadian Citizenship with the help of this unit.

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