Innovating Adult Literacy: Stories from Across Canada
In our first season, we heard from experienced practitioners and learners who shared practical advice, effective strategies, and best practices to help inspire and guide those just starting out in the world of literacy instruction. This season, we’re taking things a step further. Exploring Canada’s Literacy Landscape: Innovative Approaches is a 13-part series where we’ll travel across the country—province by province, territory by territory—to uncover creative and effective literacy programs that are making a real difference in people’s lives. This season builds on our original Literacy Legacy initiative, expanding our focus from best practices to the innovative approaches shaping the future of literacy in Canada. So join us as we explore Canada’s literacy landscape—one story, one program, and one inspiring community at a time.
Episodes
This episode takes us to Winnipeg’s North End to explore how one adult literacy program is weaving mental health directly into the classroom through “Mental Health Mondays.” Instructor Chelsea Vanessa shares how her own lived experience with anxiety, depression, and trauma informs a learner-led approach that builds safety, confidence, and community, from support dogs and sharing circles to practical coping tools that ripple out to ...
Today’s conversation takes us north, where learning is shaped by land, culture, and community. In a place where traditional schooling hasn’t always worked for everyone, literacy is being reimagined through hands-on, real-life experience. In the Yukon, literacy can look like navigating a lake when the weather turns, reading the land to find your way home, or knowing how to adapt when resources are limited.
In this episode, we’re joi...
In this episode we are travelling virtually to Prince Edward Island to a program Workplace Learning PEI, to explore how shifting demographics, new expectations for work, and rapid digital change are reshaping what adult literacy looks like on the ground. We talk about how programs are evolving to meet learners where they are, and why flexible, innovative approaches from open-intake models to apprenticeship learning supports and AI-...
Today we are travelling virtually to a program in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. This is a conversation about adaptation, trust, and what it really means to meet people where they are. This conversation matters because the skills people need to participate fully in society have evolved faster than the systems designed to support them. Reading and writing are still foundational, but so are navigating technology, understanding finances, co...
Today we're going to be shining a light on spotlight on literacy. It's a community initiative rooted in the Kingston, Galloway, Horton Park neighborhood of East Scarborough in Ontario.
It all started back in 2012, in a small elementary school, and over the years has grown so much. Last year alone, more than 800 children and families came through the festival. What began as a way to bring the community together and raise awareness a...
Today, we’re diving into United for Literacy's unique and powerful story—one that takes us inside correctional facilities in Canada’s Arctic regions. It shows how literacy and education can transform lives, even within a correctional institution. It’s a reminder that support, persistence, and creativity matter in ways that ripple far beyond the classroom.
Today’s episode takes us to Saint John, New Brunswick, where adult education looks very different from what many of us experienced in school. We’re exploring a wraparound, project-based approach that’s creating real pathways into the labour market—especially for learners who’ve often been left out of traditional systems.
We’re talking about education in the context of multi-generational poverty, housing and food insecurity, and wha...
Today's episode takes us to rural southern Alberta, in Pincher Creek, a community whose innovative approach to programming celebrates personal strengths and, at its heart, promotes connection with self. In this story, we highlight the incredible co-creation between indigenous and non-indigenous communities, whose partnership embodies this spirit of intentional, human-centered work. We’re exploring a powerful idea: that...
The DUDES Club started as a simple idea: create a safe, welcoming space where men — especially Indigenous men — could connect, share, and support each other. What’s grown from that is a movement built on laughter, honesty, and something our podcast guests call therapy over dinner. A movement that helps men strengthen not just their bodies, but their voices and their sense of community.
Reading Together is a partnership between the NWT Literacy Council and the North Slave Correctional Complex. Fathers and male caregivers incarcerated at the complex can join the program where they choose books, stuffed animals, pyjamas and other bedtime comfort items for their children. They will read the chosen books as a video, and mail to their child who can read along with the book.
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