Frontier College will help keep 7,500 children reading and learning this summer

Launch of Summer Literacy Camps will provide access to free books and opportunities to reduce summer learning loss


TORONTO, July 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Starting this week, Frontier College will offer Summer Literacy Camps to 7,500 First Nation, Métis, and Inuit children aged 5–15 years old, throughout Canada. Frontier College has partnered with communities to create programs that support each region’s desire to give their children a fun—and educational—summer. Frontier College focuses on developing fundamental skills in reading and writing, which will help students to be more successful in the following school year.

Staff in over 130 communities will work to keep kids motivated to learn, and actively developing their literacy and numeracy skills. The objective of the camp program is to help prevent the learning loss that often occurs over the summer months before returning to school. Frontier College will hire and train over 400 camp counsellors, many of whom are local community members.

The summer camps, now in their fourteenth year, are offered at no cost to parents. Through storytelling, arts and crafts, science experiments, and writing, campers will increase their reading and math skills and expand their vocabularies. Last summer, campers spent an average of 54 minutes reading each day. In addition to the academic benefits they experience, parents and educators agree that campers return to school with more confidence and enthusiasm because of their personal achievements at camp.

Frontier College will also distribute up to 25,000 new books to campers and communities this summer. For many kids, the highlight of the day is choosing a book to take home.

“I would often begin reading aloud the book I had read the night before; this was my way of encouraging campers to take books home to read. Through this, I learned that many campers didn’t have many books at home, or if they did, they would say ‘they are old and not interesting’. Every time I heard this, I would send them home with seven new books. This is what encouraged campers and their parents to read at home,” says Sarah Almeida, camp counsellor.

“The camp has had a lot of benefits for the children including opportunities to read both at the camp and at home because of the multiple books the students take home. It also allows them to be social with friends over the summer when some may not have had the opportunity,” says a teacher from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

“The camps combine imagination, creativity, reading and writing skills in a collaborative, social environment,” says Stephen Faul, President and CEO, Frontier College. “Parents, Elders, and community members are invited to join camp counsellors to teach local languages and share traditions with the campers. We are proud to support children’s literacy through the support of great partnerships and generous funders.”

Frontier College began offering the Summer Literacy Camps to First Nations communities in 2005, following the vision of former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario James K. Bartleman. This year, Frontier College will offer camps in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and Yukon. To date, over 52,000 children and youth have attended camp and created lasting summer memories.

Summer Literacy Camps are made possible with support of host communities. TD Bank Group is the lead national sponsor, and the camps are also funded by all levels of government, corporate donors, foundations, public sector unions and institutions, and Indigenous communities.

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About Frontier College

Frontier College is a national charitable literacy organization, established in 1899 on the belief that literacy is a right. We work collaboratively with community-based agencies throughout Canada to provide targeted, innovative literacy and numeracy support for the most vulnerable individuals. Each year, over 40,000 children, youth, and adults participate in our free programs in more than 150 communities throughout the country. For more information about Frontier College visit www.frontiercollege.ca and follow Frontier College on twitter: @frontiercollege

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Campers in Fort Albany First Nation play a word game and collect all letters of the alphabet during Summer Literacy Camp.

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