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New The Word On The Street Learning Tent to host family-friendly literacy programming

TORONTO, August 7, 2014 —– The Word On The Street Toronto is dedicated to the promotion of local literacy organizations. The festival shows its support each year by providing free exhibit space to 20 literacy groups in its Exhibitor Marketplace to help them promote their programs, attract new tutors and volunteers, and raise funds.

This year, The Word On The Street has partnered with seven community groups to program a new festival venue, the Learning Tent. The Learning Tent will be a family-friendly destination where experts in the fields of literacy and education will share informative and entertaining activities, and introduce the public to a range of community literacy projects.

The Word On The Street is pleased to announce that its Literacy Programming Partners for the 2014 festival are CODE, Frontier College, Literature for Life, ONBIDA (the Ontario branch of the International Dyslexia Association), Ontario Science Centre, World Literacy Canada, The Ontario Cultural Society of the Deaf (OCSD) and Silent Voice.

For a full schedule of Learning Tent activities, visit The Word On The Street’s website.

Learning Tent Highlights:

• In the Demystifying Dyslexia: Recognize the warning signs workshop, speech-language pathologists Jana

Leggett and Sherry Raffalovitch lead a dyslexia simulation, teaching participants how to identify students at

risk, and how to intervene to help students overcome their reading and writing difficulties.

• World Literacy Canada hosts an interactive reading of Gandhi’s Glasses. As the story unfolds, participants will

don Gandhi’s glasses and learn about the Gandhi Way for solving the social injustices witnessed throughout

the story.

• National Magazine Award-winning journalist, community educator, and broadcaster Dalton Higgins and Albert Williams of Literature for Life host a Poetry Race, with prizes to be won!
• Join The Ontario Science Centre for an explosion of brainstorming, building, rethinking and… more rebuilding as you tackle real world problems. Festivalgoers will be invited to design, build and test solutions to real world problems using a variety of materials within unreasonable time limits. The Ontario Science Centre’s informative and entertaining facilitators will guide participants toward innovative solutions and ensure that everyone has a chance to exercise their ingenuity and imagination in a creative atmosphere.
• Children’s book authors Ann Love and Jane Drake will read Shoes That Fit by Watchen Johnson Babalola, a storybook produced in Liberia as part of CODE’s literacy programs in the country.
• In the ASL Storytelling, Rhythms and Rhymes segment, renowned Deaf storytellers bring American Sign Language (ASL), Deaf culture and Deaf heritage to the stage, with rhymes and rhythms, personification, poetry, rap, and storytelling like no other.
• Canada’s original literacy organization, Frontier College, celebrates the joy of reading and writing with fun-filled literacy games, including SCRABBLE® SLAM, group storytelling, and correction chorus.

About The Word On The Street:

Each September, in the cities of Toronto, Halifax, Lethbridge, Saskatoon and Kitchener, The Word On The Street unites the country in a national celebration of literacy and the written word. Annually attracting more than 200,000 visitors to its Queen’s Park Circle location, The Word On The Street Toronto is the largest book and magazine festival in Canada. This year’s event takes place on Sunday, September 21st.