We interrupt the regularly scheduled post for a New Brunswick Literacy Minute

Not quite a heritage moment, but the post below is the first in a series by my friend Julie, who is very passionate about books, learning and literacy in New Brunswick. Here's the standard disclaimer: her opinions do not reflect the opinions of her employer etc. etc.  If you're not careful you might change your mind about something!

Hello readers!
Now that we have that out of the way….

I am passionate about a lot of things (for better or for worse!). Two of my biggest hot button topics are my love of my home province of New Brunswick, and literacy. This mostly works out for me because I work as a library manager in the town Florenceville-Bristol,  and I get to connect with other people who are passionate about these topics.

I recently attended a workshop that was put on by the Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick with Anne Hunt and Lynda Homer facilitating. There were people from all areas of the province who work with families of children ages 0-5.

In her opening remarks, Anne said something that really resonated with me when she was talking about different kinds of literacy. Commonly the term ‘literacy’ is defined as “the ability to read and write”. Amongst scholars, the term is expanded by adding qualifiers such as “prose literacy” or “information literacy”.

The International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS) looks at four separate domains

•  prose literacy - continuous text, like what you are reading now
•  document literacy - written information that is discontinuous (ie. a pamphlet with charts/graphs)
•  numeracy - mathmatical concepts
•  problem solving - analytical reasoning

It seems to me that a lot of fuss has been made over the low literacy levels of New Brunswickers. And there should be!

When Statistics Canada released their report on the IALSS, they found that 56 per cent of adult New Brunswickers have unacceptable reading and writing skills.

The Survey rated the respondents’ proficiencies on a point scale they were assigned one of five levels, one being the lowest level of ability and 4/5 as the highest. Level 3 was selected as the “desired level of competence for coping with the increasing skill demands of the emerging knowledge and information economy”.

 The breakdown for New Brunswick was:

                                  Level 1     Level 2      Level 3      Level 4/5

Prose Literacy             22.7           33.3           31.6            12.4

It is important for the future of our province that we produce citizens who are able to function in society.

However, I think that we also need to assign value to traditional forms of literacy. I’m thinking of the way a fisherman can “read” the sea and know when it is time to haul in the nets and head for shore, or how a gardener can “read” the conditions and know when to plant and when to harvest. After all, the people of our province will all still need to eat, and reading about a garden alone won’t make it grow.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have every adult in NB reading text at the “acceptable” level? Of course it would.

Is it realistic? That is up for debate.

Perhaps some of these low scores can be attributed to the “use it or lose it” principle. What happens to prose literacy skills once the student has graduated if they choose not to read? There are excellent programs out there that are staffed by wonderful volunteers, like Laubach Literacy, who work with adult learners to improve their prose literacy skills. The catch is that the learners have to WANT to do the work.

There are many people out there who simply are not readers. For example, my Grandfather can pick out most words, but I remember pretty clearly the day that as an elementary student I climbed up on his knee and took over the reading duties. Just because he isn’t much of a reader does not mean that he doesn’t have a wealth of knowledge to pass on.

If we as New Brunswickers really want to improve our literacy situation, we need to have a dual focus:

1) Value and appreciate the transmission of ‘traditional’ knowledge – what I mean by this is to not discount our elders, and to take the time to learn what they have to teach. When the nukes hit, we might not be able to stock up on everything we need at the Superstore…then you’ll be glad you learned to plant a garden or sew a quilt!

2) Focus on the future – it is a great a noble goal to teach everyone to read…but I think that if we spend for time and energy on making sure our kids have strong literacy and numeracy skills before they leave elementary school then we will be helping to improve the future of our province. I’m not saying that adults aren’t worth the time, only that our return on investment will be greater if we get at the young ‘uns!

While statistics are merely numbers and can’t tell the whole story themselves, I would encourage you to look at the Statistics Canada report, it is really eye opening. And once you’ve done that I would challenge you to come up with some ideas of how we can help make our community a more “literate” one.