Learning Differences Centre of BC

September Literacy Month - Decoda Literacy Solutions Celebrate Literacy Month in your community as part of Decoda Literacy Solutions' awareness and fundraising campaign in September.

Dolly Parton leaves music, memory and more than 300 million books bearing children’s own names.

She knew the ache of watching her father live in a world whose words were closed to him, so she transformed his lack-of into imagine the possibilities…and thus the Imagination Library was born, sending free books each month to children from birth to age five.

More than five million of those books have reached children across Canada.

Today, Decoda joins readers around the world in mourning a beloved artist and honouring an extraordinary literacy champion.

Forevermore, children will read books with their names on it, and we will all listen to songs full of her stories. There are few legacies more beautiful than that.

I was so excited to hear that teaching affixes is written into the school curriculum this year!

I also attended an online science of reading summit this summer, and the big buzzword was definitely morphology!!

I teach the affix concept to students regularly using this tree and I teach prefixes, suffixes, and roots to my students as a part of their literacy instruction.

English is a morphophonemic language, which means that because we have affixes in our language that carry sound and meaning the spelling patterns are influenced in ways that they aren't in other languages.

This is why teaching about affixes as a part of literacy instruction is so important, and teaching affixes is a big part of the Orton-Gillingham approach.

I have a few spaces left for students who need help with literacy instruction in Salmo and Fruitvale (currently full in Castlegar, but no one is on the waitlist yet) or online for ages 12 and up.

If you would like to help your students/children succeed in literacy I will be offering the Orton-Gillingham Structured Literacy Instruction course Selkirk College Community Education & Workplace Training in July 2027, and I am happy to work with your school or organization to give pro-ds and workshops before that.

Orton-Gillingham means success for every learner, and every learner deserves success!

Some of the best literacy lessons are already waiting at the kitchen table.
Families can

• read a recipe together
• count and measure while cooking
• write or draw a grocery list
• talk about the people and memories behind a favourite meal

Decoda’s free family literacy collection includes activity sheets and ideas for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and school-aged children.



Choose an activity and make learning part of the day:
https://decoda.ca/resource-category/family/

Fun activities to help children learn – The Westcoast Reader Are you a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, older brother or sister? Here are fun activities to do with young children. These activities can help them become successful learners.

📣 Coming soon! Two Little Free Libraries will be popping up at Cedars Christian School, thanks to the Head of the school and the Librarian. We’re looking forward to seeing them installed. Here’s a Work In Progress photo.

The Westcoast Reader – A newspaper for learners. The articles in The Westcoast Reader are labelled with Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3 book icons. The levels are comparable to Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) 2 to 6.

Touch a Truck is back to wrap up the 2026 Summer Reading Club! 🚚😎

Come to Canada Games Plaza to meet all your favourite vehicles and things that go vroom! This year you can enjoy a BBQ hot dog by donation.

Thank you to Integris, PG Tourism and Save-On-Foods for their generous support.

TOUCH A TRUCK
All ages | Free drop in
Friday, Aug 21, 2026
11:00 am - 3:00 pm
Bob Harkins Branch, downtown

Its the last week for all the Summer Challenges! 😎📚

Make sure you finish the last few tasks, track on your reading tracker, and get your ballots in by August 22nd.

To find out more info on Summer Challenges head to www.pgpl.ca/events