Posted by Sudbury Northern Life 
Tuesday, Jan. 27 is Family Literacy Day across Canada, and Rainbow Schools invite parents/guardians to join the celebration.
"Family Literacy Day gives us another opportunity to engage parents/guardians in literacy learning along with their children," said Jean Hanson, director of education for Rainbow District School Board, in a release.
"By modeling good literacy practices, parents help children develop strong reading and writing skills."
"Parents/guardians are encouraged to make reading together a family priority," added Hanson.
"We invite everyone to visit rainbowschools.ca for a series of literacy tip sheets and videos of teachers demonstrating reading strategies parents/guardians can use at home."
(Click on parents. Click on Reading at Home. The tip sheets and videos were produced by the Rainbow District School Board Parent Involvement Committee with funding from the Ministry of Education Parent Engagement Office.)
Here are more tips for parents to celebrate Family Literacy Day at home:
• Encourage your child to create a custom dictionary. Buy your child a notebook and ask him/her to write two to five new words a week. Look them up in the dictionary together to strengthen your child's vocabulary and memory.
• Ask your child to read a newspaper article to you. Talk about the article and why it's important.
• Make read along cassettes of your child's favourite books. Have every family member read the parts of different characters. Listen to the cassettes in the car.
• Stay up later on weekends to read in bed. Have each family member explain his or her choice of reading material.
• Every few weeks, plan a regular date to visit the local library with your child.
• Start a family journal. Encourage every family member to write a few thoughts about their day.
• Create a family newspaper. Assign each family member one or more family events and write an article about it. Use photos or your child's artwork to illustrate the articles. When your newspaper is complete, send copies to friends and relatives.
To access the series of literacy tip sheets and videos, visit http://www.rainbowschools.ca/parents/ReadingAtHome/readingAtHome.php
