Welcome to Literacy Basics

Literacy Basics is a free, self-directed online training website for Ontario literacy practitioners. This innovative training website was researched, written and designed by Community Literacy of Ontario.

About Literacy Basics

Literacy practitioners have challenging jobs with an ever-increasing demand for new skills and knowledge.

Literacy Basics has been designed to help busy literacy practitioners access needed training at convenient times and locations.

Discover Literacy Basics

Community Literacy of Ontario (CLO) designed Literacy Basics for adult literacy practitioners in Ontario.

Literacy Basics removes many of the barriers to training faced by literacy practitioners. It reduces travel time, travel costs, and scheduling conflicts. It also minimizes the lack of local availability and the lack of time to attend training in more traditional settings.

Who the Website Is Designed For

Literacy Basics is designed to benefit you if:

  • You are new to the literacy field

  • You are already working as a literacy practitioner and want to upgrade your skills

  • You are a literacy practitioner with new responsibilities or a completely new job description

  • You are a volunteer in a literacy program

  • You are a board member who wants to learn more about literacy training

While Literacy Basics was designed for Ontario literacy practitioners, others will find our website valuable as well.

Learn more about who the site is designed for.

Modules

A variety of innovative self-study modules to help organizations develop and strengthen literacy basics training opportunities


Board Governance

This module will examine effective governance in the areas of board roles and responsibilities, governance structures, risk management, development, board meetings, and evaluations.

Community Literacy of Ontario has designed this self-study module to help organizations further develop and strengthen their board governance practices.


Learner Retention

The reasons why adult students decide to enroll in a literacy program and then choose to either continue or drop out are multiple, complex and varied.

Adult students come to literacy programs with their individual sets of motivations, barriers and personal needs. In this training module, Community Literacy of Ontario explores issues around the important topic of student retention.


Strategic Planning

This module is designed to provide literacy agencies and others with insights, step-by-step procedures and the tools to take an organization through an effective strategic planning process.

Community Literacy of Ontario presents this online, self-directed training module on strategic planning. A disciplined effort in fundamental decision-making regarding the operations of an organization, such as concepts, procedures and managers’ tools.


Volunteer Management

Volunteers have been a critical part of the Ontario literacy field since the beginning of the literacy movement in this province.

Literacy organizations have been tutoring adults in small and large communities throughout Ontario for over 100 years. Volunteers were important many years ago, and they are still an integral part of Ontario literacy organizations today. In this module, learn what special value volunteers bring to your agency including national volunteer trends that reflect what’s happening at your agency.


Learner Recruitment

Literacy practitioners and from our knowledge of our local communities, including the results of provincial and national surveys, there is a need for literacy programs and tools for learner recruitment.

CLO’s June 2016 survey of Ontario’s community-based literacy agencies notes that meeting mandated learner numbers is still a top issue for programs.


Service Delivery

This module is an overview of the Information and Referral service for practitioners in LBS agencies’ delivery of service.

Create and foster a culture of service delivery in an organization by providing information on the many offerings of LBS service providers’ literacy training opportunities and their importance to learners, clients, volunteers, and referring organizations.


Succession Planning

This resource is a tool kit with a wealth of tools for agencies to use as they consider the future human resource requirements of their agency.

This project aims to help learn about the value of succession planning and being proactive in implementing a succession plan to allow even very small LBS agencies to continue to serve learners through staff replacement due to retirement, transition or unforeseen circumstances.


Orientation for New LBS Managers

This self-directed, self-study module gives an overview of how LBS-funded agencies in Ontario operate and the job of an LBS program manager or coordinator. 

This orientation is intended to be a starting point to become familiar with the various aspects of your job, before the orientation meeting with Regional Network support organization staff. 


Copyright Policy

All print and web-based materials produced by Community Literacy of Ontario are the copyright property of CLO. All rights are reserved.

Our Funders

Government of Ontario Logo
Employment Ontario Logo
Government of Canada Logo

This Employment Ontario service is funded in part by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario through the Canada-Ontario Job Fund Agreement.

Join the Community Literacy of Ontario

CLO’s 2024 Membership Registration

We invite you to join the Community Literacy of Ontario and become a member. CLO has its benefits!

Enjoy the benefits of CLO’s research, training opportunities, resource development and a combination of communication tools.

2024 Membership

Enjoy the benefits of CLO’s research, training opportunities, resource development and a combination of communication tools.

CLO Members

Recognized organizational members or associate members on CLO’s website as part of a collective voice for community-based literacy.