Resources

Every adult learner has a unique story to share. In today’s increasingly complex world, it is vitally important that adults continually work to maintain and improve their literacy levels. There are many community organizations offering adult literacy support. Please visit the links below to learn more.

Community Adult Literacy Programs (CALPs)
Community Adult Literacy Benchmarks
Credentials and Badges for Learners
West Coast Reader
Burnaby Public Library Adult Literacy Collection

Civic literacy is the possession of the knowledge and skills that allows an individual to participate in the political and decision making processes within your community. This includes voting, knowing how the government works, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens and elected members of government. When you have strong civic literacy skills, you know how to make your voice heard by all levels of government – before, during and after an election. Please visit the links below to learn more.

Elections Canada – Everything a Voter Should Know
Burnaby Local By-Elections
Writing Letters To Your Civic Representatives
Community Organizing 101
Wikipedia’s Introduction To Community Organizing

Digital literacy is the knowledge, skill and confidence to use information technology that allows you to thrive at work, home, and in the community. Computers are increasingly becoming an essential part of everyday life. They’ve changed how we do things, and will continue to do so. To keep up, we need to strengthen our digital literacy. Please visit the links below to learn how.

Burnaby Neighbourhood House’s Digital Cafe
Burnaby Neighbourhood House Website
Computer Basics – GCF Global
Digital Equity BC PowerPoint Presentation
SD 41 CCE Computer Courses
Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy

Environmental literacy is the knowledge and skills that enables you to make responsible decisions with regards to our relationships to nature, communities and future generations. It is essential to recognize humanity as an active participant and steward of ecosystems. Our health, prosperity and survival depends on making the right choices for our environment. Please visit the following links to find out more.

What is Environmental Literacy?
10 Things You Can Do To Fight Climate Change
Human Impact On The Environment
How Humans Are Causing Climate Change
Top 10 Most Important Environmental Issues

Family literacy programs focus on parents as the means to improve the reading and writing skills of all family members. In a family, adults model literacy as an important skill needed to take part in society. Family literacy programs can increase adult literacy when literacy instruction for adults is incorporated into programs. Adults also learn how to support their children’s learning.

ABC Life’s Family Literacy Day
helpingchildrenlearn.ca
Burnaby Public Library for families
15 Min Outdoor Activity for Family Literacy
15 Min Kitchen Activity for Family Literacy
15 Min Everyday Activity for Family Literacy
15 Min Fun Story Telling Activity

Financial literacy is the set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions with all of their financial resources. Numerical literacy is the basic understanding of arithmetic and other simple operations that enables a person to respond to the mathematical demands of life. The following links are excellent introductory materials for bolstering your financial and numerical literacy.

Investopedia’s Guide to Financial Literacy
Investing for Beginners – Wealthsimple.ca
TFSA vs RRSP – Moneysense.ca
The Government of Canada’s Guide to Mortgages
Money Math Workbook
Home Math Workbook
Kitchen Math Workbook

Health literacy is the knowledge and awareness to manage one’s health and to make healthy decisions for you and your family. Strong health literacy skills will allow you to avoid harmful health practices such as a harmful diets high in unhealthy ingredients. When you’re able to make intelligent health choices, you can avoid common diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cancer, and tooth decay.

Top ten Health Literacy Websites
ABC Life: Health Literacy
B.C. Cancer Agency
Fraser Health Nutrition Resources
Building Resilient Workers
Health Information Geared to Readability Levels
Wikipedia’s Complete Guide to Tooth Decay

Multilingualism is an important part of life in Burnaby. According to the 2016 census, 58% of Burnaby residents have a mother tongue that is neither English nor French. People in multilingual families in Canada can face challenges in developing English language skills while maintaining their home language. Young children in such families are tasked with learning more than one language at once. Literacy Now Burnaby has prepared the following resources in support of multilingualism.

Tips For Raising A Multilingual Child
21 Insightful Tips to Raise a Trilingual Child
Burnaby Public Library’s Books on Raising Bilingual or Multilingual Children
Burnaby Public Library’s Bilingual Books for Kids
Books in Different Languages at the Burnaby Public Library