Excerpts from "The Stephen Leacock Foundation Summer Literacy Camp: a Formative Evaluation" written by OISE/University of Toronto academic, Dr. Steven Katz:
"It is well known that students' academic skills often decrease throughout the summer. This 'summer lag' has been found to be more prominent among students from a low socio-economic background than among students from a high socio-economic background. Research has shown that while students from a high socio-economic background maintain or even increase their academic skills during the summer, students from a lower socio-economic background lose the equivalent of up to three months of literacy.
All three camps aim to provide students with a summer experience that will increase or maintain academic skills. And each of the three camps meets this goal in some way:
. Camp Coyote delivers a program that positively impacts on students' reading comprehension and numeracy, as well as increasing manners, communication of needs and perseverance motivation;.
. Leap into Literacy delivers a program that was found to impact on students' vocabulary, writing skills, media literacy skills, and academic self-esteem and confidence;
. Literacy for Life delivers a program which students find fun and enjoyable, that impacts positively on their media literacy vocabulary and reading comprehension.
By sharing these practices across the three camps such that each learns from one another's successes, all three sites could have the potential to deliver future programs that are potentially even more powerful."
Excerpts from the Executive Summary of "The Review of the Roots of Youth Violence", established to help identify and analyze the underlying causes contributing to youth violence and provide recommendations for Ontario to move forward:
. "Education is universally seen as one of the best ways out of poverty and as a sound investment in the future of individuals, families and communities, and thus in the social fabric of our entire society."
. "The significant new investments in education are not reaching many of the children who need the help the most because long-identified barriers to learning are not being addressed."
. "The circumstances of poverty in which service and facilities that most of us take for granted are not locally available or are denied by reason of cost of accessibility, or both, to those that need them the most, eliminating from the lives of too many the positive factors that can impede the growth of roots of violence involving youth."
. "Many single parents cope with the daunting task of raising children alone very well, but may need additional supports to do so, especially if they are dealing with those additional stresses. When those supports are provided, children can be raised with hope and bright expectations."
. "Youth from immigrant or refugee families are often the most vulnerable to the conditions that can give rise to the immediate risk factors for violence involving youth, including racism and poverty. Parents who are recent immigrants or refugees dealing with urgent settlement problems may not be able to turn their attention to difficulties their children are having in school, or they maybe unable to help because they cannot communicate with the teachers or are reticent to engage with authority figures. Schools often lack the capacity to help them adjust, or the creative outreach that would make them welcome, and settlement services to assist them are often far short of what is needed."
. "A major concern was the lack of anywhere for youth to go. We found neighbourhoods characterized by unwelcoming environments and a disturbing lack of places for youth to gather, play or create. This leaves youth with the greatest needs for such facilities with no positive outlet for their energy and time, no space or facilities for creative self-expression and no place that fosters contact with coaches or other positive mentors."
A summarizing excerpt from "Literacy Matters: A Call for Action" a 2008 17-page report on literacy commissioned by the Toronto Dominion Bank:
"A high level of literacy is an absolute necessity for today's knowledge-based economy. It is the foundation on which other skills are developed and it enables individuals to keep pace with the changing times.
Although the majority of Canadians have adequate literacy, too many simply don't. This situation is not just unacceptable, it is critical in light of the evolving structure of the economy. Ever higher literacy skills will be needed in the future. It is worrying that there is no compelling evidence of improvement in literacy skills in Canada over the past three decades.
To address this challenge, we need public policies and business initiatives that target the weakest areas with the greatest long-term gains coming from investing in the young. The best news is that efforts to improve literacy can have dramatic and far reaching effects. Higher literacy can boost the economic and financial success of individuals and the economy as a whole. It can reduce poverty, improve health, lift community engagement and lead to a higher standard of living. In fact, it's hard to identify any other single issue that can have such a large payoff to individuals, the economy and society."
Craig Alexander, Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist, TD Bank Financial Group
Excerpts from "Language Support for Newcomer Students" a publication of People for Education, an Ontario-based Education Advocacy Group:
. "Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that more than one quarter of Ontario's population is foreign-born - the highest proportion of all in 10 provinces and the highest in Ontario's History."
. "Many if not most immigrants come to Canada in search of a brighter future for their children. But in Ontario, there remains a wide gap between the percentage of students who require English language support and the percent actually getting it."
. "Nearly half the secondary schools report they have ESL students, but only 1/3 have ESL teachers."
. "48% of Elementary Schools with ESL students have no ESL teacher."
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