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We are excited to celebrate Family Literacy Day on January 27! This day has been celebrated across Canada since 1999. This year, the theme is Learning in the Great Outdoors and we are encouraging families to take their learning outside! January may be cold, but the sun shines bright, and there is so much we can learn outdoors. Learning together outside has many benefits for everyone. When… Read more.

This is the fourth blog in our annual holiday book suggestions. For our final week, here are our suggestions for books you should check out in 2022. You can read each of the previous blogs in the series here. Families, by Jesse Unaapik Mike and Kerry McCluskey, follows Talittuq on his first day of grade two as he learns about the variety of families his classmates have. Some have one parent,… Read more.

This week we are continuing with more suggestions of books for the holiday season. This week our focus is books that we have discovered (or rediscovered) and enjoyed over the last year. This summer my four-year-old selected Crunch, the Shy Dinosaur by Chirocco Dunlap from a book store shelf. At first glance it looked like a cute book about a dinosaur, but it also teaches about self-regulation… Read more.

This is the second of our annual book recommendation blogs. Check out last week’s blog here to read more recommendations and watch for next week’s as well. This list focuses on biographies and memoirs. As I didn’t manage my goal of reading 10 books in 2021 (yet… there is still time!) I have a few books I plan to read in 2022. I am a big fan of fiction, especially stories that create intricate… Read more.

Each year NWTLC staff recommend books that we have read through the last year, books we are planning to give as gifts this holiday season, and books we hope to read over our holiday. We have a mix of children’s books, non-fiction, biographies, fiction and more. Check out all three of our blogs in December to find great book suggestions. This week we focus on books for gifts that keep giving. For… Read more.

The NWT Literacy Council, in partnership with the Yukon Literacy Coalition and Ilitaqsiniq- the Nunavut Literacy Council, has begun the process of developing the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy program (YESS). This is a federally funded program designed to help youth from the ages of 15 to 30 develop their skills and enter meaningful employment. Our three organizations met in Vancouver… Read more.

In March 2021, we began our very successful Reading Together program at the North Slave Correctional Centre (NSCC). Throughout the program, and in feedback after, we heard from many of the fathers that they would love the opportunity to send their children Christmas gifts. We agreed that this would be a great time to continue the program and were excited to head back to NSCC this fall.… Read more.

Post-secondary education might still seem like a far-off milestone in your child’s life, but it is never too early to start saving! The Government of Canada has set aside money to help make post-secondary education more affordable for all Canadians, and the NWT Literacy Council is committed to raising awareness of this program and supporting families in signing up so as many children as possible… Read more.

With all schools in Yellowknife, Ndilo, Dettah and Behchokǫ̀ closed and all children’s extra-curricular activities cancelled, families are thinking about the many days at home and how to pass the time together. As a parent at home with my three- and five-year-olds, I’ve been trying to think of activities we can do. I decided to revisit a blog post I wrote last year, hoping it helps other families… Read more.

Most instructors and students who experienced the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 academic years will remember these years. They’ll pass their stories down to future generations. "When I was your age …", "Remember when … ". Much like the current stories about the Spanish flu of 1918. In March 2020, college and university life everywhere changed dramatically from face-to-face learning to online learning… Read more.