27th January Family Literacy Day

In Canada Family Literacy Day takes place every 27th January to raise awareness about the importance of reading and engaging in other literacy-related activities as a family. What is good about this, is that it acknowledges the fact that parents are a child's first educators. It also  acknowledges, as I said in my blog about the Year of Reading in the UK,  that the more enabling adults are involved in a child's choice to read for pleasure the better.

Since 1999, schools, libraries, literacy organisations and other community groups across the country have taken part in the initiative. ABC creates free learning and promotional resources for anyone that wants to get involved.

Taking time every day to read or do a learning activity with children is crucial to a child’s development, improving a child’s literacy skills dramatically, and can help a parent improve their skills as well.

The 2026 Theme: Make mealtime family learning time. Each year there is a 'tip sheet' to provide ideas. This year author/illustrator Barbara Reid who is the honorary chair  has done the tip sheet. 2025 's tip sheet also has ideas which could be used as part of a homework contract or a reading contract.

Many parents who come to the library complain to me about their child's narrow eating palate and ask for picture books that might help. They also complain about time to read to their children. This plan has ideas to address both. I taught a family of three boys whose father was a good library borrower. He read to his children while they ate dinner. He shared serials, books they wouldn't choose to read by themselves, biographies and other narrative nonfiction. He would tell me what worked, what didn't, how much something was loved ... and these three boys went on to be avid readers, students who read for pleasure and who did well at school. Mealtimes were not rushed, the boys weren't looking to rush off to spend time on a screen and there was plenty of book talk.

There is a large number of food-specific words that children may not learn without discussion at dinner and a variety of meals. Many students I have taken to camp will say, 'I don't eat that' and when you ask what it is they do not know so it is more likely that they have never tried it. 

Maybe a week of looking at other families eating would help widen their vocabulary and knowledge. Try some of these:

• My Food, Your Food, Our Food by Emma Berne, Sharon Sordo and Mark Oblinger

• Let's Eat! Mealtime Around the World  by Lynne Marie and Parwinder Singh

• Stay for Dinner by Sandhya Parappukkaran and Michelle Pereira

• Our Table  by Peter H. Reynolds 

• Pasta Pasta Lotsa Pasta by Aimee Lucido and Mavisu Demirag

• Let's Eat!  by Ana Zamorana and Julie Vivas

• Welcome to Our Table  by Laura Mucha, Ed Smith and Harriet Lynas

• Faruq and the Wiri Wiri  by Sophia Payne and Sandra Prabhat

•  Lunch at Pomegranate Street  by Felicita Sala

•  Kalamata's Kitchen  by Sarah Thomas, Derek Wallace and Jo Kosmides Edwards

•  Dumplings for Lili  by Melissa Iwai

•  Dancing Dumplings  by Eva Wong Nava and Natalie Quek

For more ideas see Pinterest Eating and Mealtimes

The Final Chapter Good Weekend July 5th 2025

The Final Chapter is an article by journalist Greg Callaghan which is published in the Sydney Morning herald's magazine Good Weekend today. It doesn't say anything that passionate literacy and English teachers didn't know, but once again it highlights some of the trends in schools today. We need to do something about Reading for Pleasure!

Schools have made the change towards teaching more systematic phonics in the early years of school, but this doesn't make children readers. It means they can read, but will they choose to read when there are so many other things vying for their time? What is the role of parents in the reading continuum? What is the role of libraries, especially school libraries and teacher librarians? This article talks about this. Children need to hear good examples of oral reading. They need to be exposed to a wide variety of reading resources and yes, this can include eBooks and reading on devices, but not to the exclusion of books.

If I plan a library lesson and it doesn't include me reading something to the students they say, 'but you didn't read to us today, we can't go yet'. More than ever students are enamoured of being read to. It is almost a novelty for them. A kindergarten mum once said to me, 'I wasn't aware that I am meant to read to my child!' We still have so much parent education to impart. So why are school getting rid of libraries and teacher librarians? Why are there school principals who think a school library needs none to very little funding for books? Why does the new NSW English curriculum advocate reading to students and giving students time to read for themselves, but then fills up the time allocated to English with so much teacher instruction? Teachers constantly say 'oh there isn't time to read', we have so much to get through in the published units of work'. 

This also means teachers are not reading much for themselves, unless it is prescribed. If it is prescribed, it then is published elsewhere such as on Spotify, Story Box Library, websites, etc, so teachers do not have to read it. They listen and watch with their students. I am not blaming teachers for doing this, I am just saying if we want teachers to be engaged in their own learning they too need time to explore what is on offer and build their own field knowledge of books. If not, then that is the teacher librarian's role and s/he needs to be able to read to students without other staff members thinking that that is not the best use of their time. 

In a staff meeting held in the library and run by me, I asked teachers to list 6 Australian authors or illustrators of children's books, thinking that would be easy. Yes they know Aaron Blabey, Anh Do, Alison Lester and Mem Fox then it became harder. 6 non-Australian was easier. They know Dav Pilkey, Roald Dahl, Julia Donaldson,... 6 children's poets? Some hadn't even heard of Michael Rosen, so we have to spend more time on building the field and reading it. I tried to run a book club for teachers on the staff and I got six staff to come once a fortnight and we did picture books and short novels, but not one classroom teacher came, citing they just do not have time. 

Schools (and families) really do need to look at their priorities. The parents who frequent our school library generally have children who revel in reading. They are the students that do well at the end of school. I met a mother of a past student in the supermarket this week and she was so excited to tell me that he was doing an English degree and had rediscovered the joys of reading. We do not all have to have or do an English degree to love reading, but it does start at home and in the early years of school. We need to 'catch' children and make them 'readers for life'. Schools need to make it easy for parents to read to their children. Schools need to make time for reading.

The UK has falling literacy rates as well, but it has realised phonics is not enough to make readers. They are implementing Reading for Pleasure programs in schools. Some schools in Australia have had the benefit of input by advocates such as Margaret Merga and they too now stop everyday to read at school. See Queenwood's Just Read program.

Thank you Greg for this article. Hopefully parents and teachers will read it and lobby their schools to do more about Reading for Pleasure so that they too realise what you wrote in your conclusion

'Multiple studies have shown that those who read for pleasure for 30 minutes or more a day enjoy higher self-esteem, a substantially lower risk of depression, are less lonely, and 58 percent more likely to empathise with others.'