Let’s Chat: Literacy is key

By Linda Tooth on May 14, 2025.

People will often ask me how I decide on the topics I write on, or if I ever run out of article ideas. The answer is I never run out of things to say, and I write on what I am passionate about. Often the topics come to me via news or journal articles, books I have read, or conversations I have with people.

This week I’d like to touch on literacy and the importance of reading books, and the idea came from a news story I saw online. On the day this prints I will be in Calgary. I am going to be doing a bit of shopping, picking my niece up at the airport, and I was not sure what else I would do to pass the time until I saw a news story on Calgary Reads and a huge book sale taking place from May 9-19 at the Calgary Curling Club.

Bingo!

The Rotary Club of Calgary is the steward behind this incredible opportunity to promote stronger reading skills in children. The Rotary Club is also a partner in Left Unread.

According to this organization “1 in 6 Canadian children struggle with low literacy.”

They go on to say that low literacy rates in children are often connected to mental health struggles, poverty, addiction, homelessness and incarceration. Are low literacy rates contributing to the rough-living situations we see today with some of the vulnerable people in our communities?

In September of last year, CBC radio show The Current aired a segment called, ‘Low literacy rates in Canada prompt reading curriculum changes.’

They reported school boards in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Alberta and New Brunswick are implementing a “structured literacy” approach in how they teach reading skills.

Jamie Metsala, a professor of education at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, believes that if we do not instil word-reading, spelling skills, oral language and all forms of communication into a child while they are in school, we have failed them as they move forward in their education and also in their social emotional well-being.

Can you imagine being at a book sale with a choice of more than 300,000 books to purchase? If you do not live in Calgary or cannot be there during those dates, let us not forget that a book sale is taking place in our own community on June 14. The Redcliff Public Library is hosting a book sale during Redcliff Days as a way to bring the community together for the love of reading.

Do you have books at home you would like to donate? The library staff are accepting book donations until May 31. All funds raised, like those in Calgary, stay within the community to help support literacy programs for people of all ages.

Always remember, a book can change a life.

Have a Meowtastic Day and keep reading!

Linda Tooth is a part-time communications instructor at Medicine Hat College

15
-14