Programme d’aide à l’éveil à la lecture et à l’écriture

dans les milieux défavorisés (PAÉLÉ)

1) Category:
• Specific program

2) Issues Behind the Program:

• Literacy awareness is one of the crucial factors in smoothing children`s way into school.
• Children do not all have the same opportunities for emergent literacy and the support
that parents provide varies from one family to the next.
• Parents who have poor reading and writing skills and do not read or write very often
have limited access to information that enables them to know what their children`s
needs are in terms of discovering the written language and that would equip them to
walk their children through the process. These parents feel powerless to act.
• Literacy awareness calls for the involvement of everyone within the children`s and the
family`s environment. It requires new know-how and knowledge in a wide range of
fields (e.g. child development; adult education; parenting skills; family intervention;
and early cognitive stimulation). Youth and family organizations therefore have an
important role to play.

3) Objectives:
• Make families in disadvantaged communities aware of what they can do to foster their
children`s emergent literacy.
• Use various means to inform the organizations that could be enlisted to foster emergent
literacy and to make literacy awareness part of family practices.
• Provide the members of organizations who work with the target groups in disadvantaged
communities with training on how to awaken children`s emergent literacy and on how
to help parents in this respect.
• Provide parents with training on how to awaken their children`s emergent literacy.
• Promote and distribute children`s literature to the target parents and organizations
through information and access to books and literacy activities.
• Craft strategies to encourage fathers to participate in their children`s emergent
literacy.

4) Environment:
• Childcare services and primary schools in disadvantaged communities
• Families
• Community (public libraries, CSSSs, community organizations, literacy organizations or
adult education, etc.)

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5) Target Group:
• Children from 0 to 5 years old
• Their parents (Special efforts are made to include single parents or unemployed
parents.)
• Organizations

6) Key Words:
• Programme d’aide à l’éveil à la lecture et à l’écriture dans les milieux défavorisés,
PAÉLÉ, coeuréaction, school-family-community partnership, specific program,
awareness, reading, writing, preschool, parents, training, stimulation, disavantaged
community, student success

7) Description:
• PAELE is an assistance program aimed at supporting the integration of emergent literacy
activities in the practices of families, community organizations and other places where
families gather and receive services in disadvantaged communities.
• Partnership approach:
o The program stems from the Government of Québec`s action plan under the
Government Policy on Adult Education and Continuing Education and Training. The
Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport (MELS) is responsible for the program,
which is implemented in collaboration with the Ministère de la Culture, des
Communications et de la Condition féminine, the Ministère de l’Emploi et de la
Solidarité sociale, the Ministère de la Famille et des Aînés, the Ministère de la Santé
et des Services sociaux and, in certain regions, the Ministère de l'Immigration et des
Communautés culturelles.
o The program hinges on rallying of all stakeholders and government, institutional and
community partners on the provincial, regional and local level.
• Eco-systemic approach:
o The program identifies children, families and communities as three systems that can
play a crucial role in emergent literacy and literacy awareness.
• Kind of assistance:
o In order to support local joint action, MELS grants an annual amount to each
administrative region based on the number of local committees to establish or
maintain.
• The co-projects presented to the regional commitees must meet the following criteria:
o be feasible for the territories serving the schools in communities with
socioeconomic environment indexes of 9 or 10 according to MELS`s school territory
map;
o be created and carried out by the following partners: CPEs and other childcare
services; CSSSs; public libraries; educational preschool; adult education; family and
youth community organizations; literacy or popular education organizations; CLEs;
and any other organization. Ideally, all these partners should be involved in the
project;
o reach the target group(s), namely, children, parents and other family members, and
the organizations in the target territories;
o contribute to achievement of all the program`s objectives;

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 o use an approach to literacy awareness consistent with that set out in the program;
o be such as to enable the organizations in question to integrate literacy awareness
into their mandate, strategic plan, aims and objectives, action plan, program or
activities.

8) Steps:
I. Mobilization and initial training of local committee partners
II. Analysis of the situation using quantitative and qualitative data available from
organizations in the community, of the slate of services by community organizations,
and of the organizations` status regarding the protection factors identified
III. Sharing and analysis of this information and pooling of observations
IV. Determination of the objectives and activities to be integrated within each of the
organizations
V. Tabling of the co-project with MELS` regional coordinator and analysis by the regional
committee
VI. Feedback meeting between the local and the regional committee
VII. Any required adjustments made to the co-project
VIII. Tabling of an annual activity report with the regional committee; follow-up

9) Activities/Actions:
• Literacy awareness activities carried out by the partners from 2006 to 2009:
o Provincial level:
 Literacy awareness campaign (keyword, poster, bookmark, etc.) by Télé-Québec
and the government departments involved in the program
o Regional level:
 Addition of a parent training program on literacy awareness to the Direction de
la santé publique`s educational support program
 Information to parents who receive employment insurance concerning training
offered to parents through regional services
o Local level:
 During vaccination clinics organized by the CSSS, the Maison de la famille
promotes the book. The local library loans the books.
 CLEs set up a reading corner in their waiting room.
 The adult learning center offers literacy awareness workshops to young mothers
enrolled in Ma place au soleil.
 CPEs make the theme of literacy awareness part of their parent meet-and-
greets.
 Passe-partout workers offer parents information, awareness and interactive
activities on emergent literacy strategies
• Activities for organizations:
o Training on intervention in disavantaged communities given to the local committee
partners
o Toup’tilitou training given to educators
o Annual training on literacy awareness given to educators: CPEs and school boards

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10) Resources Required:
• Human resources:
o A project coordinator who facilitates joint action, who supports the committee in
crafting, carrying out and monitoring the co-project, and who liaises with the
regional committee
• Material resources:
o The tools recommended by MELS
o Information on the populations, services and programs within the community

11) Roles of the Participants:

• Provincial level - MELS, in collaboration with the Ministère de la Culture, des
Communications et de la Condition féminine, the Ministère de l’Emploi et de la
Solidarité sociale, the Ministère de la Famille et des Aînés and the Ministère de la Santé
et des Services sociaux:
o determines the thrusts of the program;
o supervises and evaluates the program;
o specifies the literacy awareness activities that can be integrated province-wide;
o supports the regional and local partners in implementing the program.
• Regional level - MELS is responsible for forming and moderating a regional committee
composed of representatives of the following government departments: Culture,
Communications et Condition féminine, Emploi et Solidarité sociale, Famille et Aînés,
Santé et Services sociaux and, in certain regions, Immigration et Communautés
culturelles.
o The regional committee is entrusted with implementing and monitoring the program
locally by:
 analyzing the territories served by the schools in communities with a
socioeconomic environment index of 9 or 10 and establishing a five-year action
plan;
 determining strategies for implementing the program in the target territories;
 facilitating the partnership required for implementing the program in the target
territories;
 calling for projects from these communities;
 participating in monitoring and evaluating the projects;
 fostering the integration of sustainable activities;
 specifying the literacy awareness activities that can be integrated regionally.
• Local level – Local committee partners:
o plan, carry out and evaluate the project concerned;
o identify the literacy awareness activities that could be used within their
organizations and the ways of doing so;
o ensure that the activities and expected outcomes are integrated within their
respective organizations;
o make the required adjustments.

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12) Scientific Basis or Validity:
• The program is based on recent studies by Strickland and Morrow, 1989; Giasson, J,
1995; and Thériault, J., 1995.
• It is also based on a study showing the importance of whetting young children’s appetite
for reading and of having various activities that encourage emergent reading and
writing (Hélène Tremblay, 1997).
• It also relies on research that pinpoints a number of factors that can have a positive
effect on literacy awareness in children.1
• Since 2003, the regional committees have established some 75 local projects lasting an
average of two years. The projects are implemented by over 900 partner organizations
in the territories served by target schools in communities with a socioeconomic
environment index of 9 or 10.
• In 2009-2010, more than 40 local committees were operational and some 10 new ones
are being planned. Evaluation of the impact of the program was carried out by a
Université de Sherbrooke team under the auspices of the Fonds québécois de recherche
sur la société et la culture. The final report was slated for February 2010.

13) Program Material:

• Website of the Programme d’aide à l’éveil à la lecture et à l’écriture dans les milieux
défavorisés: http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/DFGA/politique/eveil/index.html [in French
only]
• The site presents the following along with other items:
o program implementation handbook;
o a section on the process and the tools;
o literacy awareness material: Le plaisir de lire et d’écrire, ça commence bien avant
l’école (keyword, slogan, poster, etc.). The material, reproduced by MELS, is
intended for local committee partners;
o online tutorial on emergent literacy – kit entitled De A à Z, on s’aide!.

14) Additional Information:

• The information contained in this factsheet was taken from:
http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/DFGA/politique/eveil/renseignements/pdf/cahiermiseeno
euvre.pdf.
• In 2008-2009, MELS began the work of revising the program. The suggested adjustments
are being tested by new local committees formed in 2009-2010. The review process and
the revised tools will be posted on the program website in 2010-2011.

1
A review of the international literature on emergent literacy in children 0 to 5 years old carried out by Manon Théoret and Élisabeth Lesieux
(Université de Montréal) was used by MELS for the program update underway. This work should make it possible to identify the most significant
protection factors for the children, families and the community. The literature review and the results from the program update will be posted
on the program website.

This factsheet was taken from the following website: http://rire.ctreq.qc.ca/. Page 5 of 6
15) Contacts:
• Jovette Légaré
Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport
600, rue Fullum, 9e étage
Montréal (Québec) H2K 4L1
Tel.: (514) 873-0707, extension 5410
Email: jovette.legare@mels.gouv.qc.ca

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