Program
Day 1 – Thursday, November 12
- 8:30 am
- BREAKFAST
- 8:50 am
- WELCOMING REMARKS
- 9:00 am
- WHY READING IS SO MUCH MORE THAN LITERACY
We live in an accelerated society in which advances in communications technology have saturated us with information. To navigate the modern world, reading critically and with understanding is as important as ever. Yet those same technological advances can threaten our ability to truly engage with the written word. Ana Maria Machado, internationally acclaimed author, philosopher, and Member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, explores what it means to create – and sustain – a truly literate society. [Video]
- 10:00 am
- BREAK
- 10:15 am
- WHY WE NEED READERS IN A DEMOCRACY: A CONVERSATION
Camilla Gibb, Daniel Poliquin, Dionne Brand and Anosh Irani. Chaired by Carol Off, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.
Can our citizens not only read but also read with enough experience and fluency to weigh complex information? To recognize propaganda when it is presented as news? To make their own ideas known to elected leaders? If not, are we a true democracy? Writers Camilla Gibb, Daniel Poliquin, Dionne Brand and Anosh Irani are among Canada’s finest novelists, poets, playwrights, and essayists. They engage in lively and provocative conversation to lay out the connection between a reading population and a democratic one. [Video]
- 12:00 pm
- LUNCH – SPONSORED BY INDIGO
- 12:30 pm
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Leeanna Pendergast is the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Education, and has helped develop various programs for youth in Kitchener, including the Safe Schools Initiative and the Breakfast Program for Needy Students. [Video]
The Honourable Diane McGifford is Manitoba’s Minister of Advanced Education and Literacy and is now the Chair of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. [Video]
- 1:30 pm
- EARLIEST READERS
Ingrid Bon, Richard Anderson, and Charles Pascal. Chaired by Carol McDougall, founding director of the Nova Scotia program, Read to Me!
Lifelong good readership begins with babies who have had joyful exposure to many books, who have had loving adults read to them regularly and often, and who have communicated the value they themselves place on the written word. But what about those children who have had none of these experiences? Ingrid Bon from the Netherlands, Chair of the Libraries Section of the International Federation of Library Associations, eminent American reading expert Richard Anderson from the University of Illinois, and Charles Pascal, Special Advisor to the Premier of Ontario on Full Day Learning, discuss cutting edge programs that are helping to give every child the chance to become a reader. [Video]
- 3:15 pm
- BREAK
- 3:30 pm
- THE ROLE OF SCHOOLS IN CREATING LIFELONG READERS
Elisa Bonilla, David Booth and Annie Kidder. Chaired by Chris Spence, Director of Education for the Toronto District School Board.
Some students start school knowing how to read. Others may never have held a book before. Some students come from homes that are full of books, magazines, and newspapers while others may be living with adults who cannot read themselves. And some students cope with disabilities while others are simply too tired or too hungry to pay attention. Schools in Canada today have become preoccupied with testing and literacy in only the most utilitarian sense. Advocates within the school system Elisa Bonilla, the former director of reading materials in Mexico’s Ministry of Education and organizer of the Ministry’s ambitious school library project, Professor Emeritus and Scholar in Residence of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education David Booth, and Annie Kidder, founder and director of People for Education and recipient of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation Public Education Advocacy Award, will address the challenges and present strategies and programs that have made a difference in school systems. Chris Spence, Director of Education for the Toronto District School Board, will chair this panel. [Video]
- 5:15 pm
- RECEPTION
Day 2 – Friday, November 13
- 8:30 am
- BREAKFAST
- 9:00 am
- HOW TO DESTROY THE BOOK
Cory Doctorow is an award-winning science fiction writer, activist, journalist and blogger hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “The William Gibson of his generation.” [Video]
- 10:00 am
- BREAK
- 10:15 am
- CIVIL SOCIETY AND READING: A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
Jane Pyper, Patsy Aldana and Raymond Mar. Chaired by Bill Richardson, writer and broadcaster.
Addressing the current rate of 40% functional illiteracy in Canada is not enough. We need people at all ages and at all levels of society to be active, engaged readers who can experience the joys and pleasures of reading, the intellectual sustenance that comes from encountering ideas, arguments and information that comes from books and goes beyond the short, simple, and possibly inaccurate information available on the ubiquitous web. What are countries around the world doing in the pursuit of national reading strategies?
Jane Pyper, City Librarian and CEO of Toronto Public Library, Patsy Aldana, publisher of Groundwood Books and president of the International Board on Books for Young People and Raymond Mar, professor of psychology at York University, present ideas about laying the groundwork for a national reading strategy. They will explore the theme of “what would it take to transform Canada into a reading society?” [Video]
- 12:00 pm
- LUNCH
- 12:30 pm
- STORIES AND THE WORLD: A WASTED LUNCH HOUR WITH THOMAS KING
Thomas King is an award-winning novelist and short story writer who is a recipient of the Western American Literary Association Lifetime Achievement Award Winner and a Member of the Order of Canada.
- 1:30 pm
- NEXT STEPS
John Honderich, chairman of the board of Torstar, and special advisor on the future of the Greater Toronto Area and Creative Cities to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty offers a summary of the summit’s findings.
Working group discussions will lay out the next steps and begin the planning for the 2010 TD National Reading Summit, which will bring the focus to Canada and our existing constitutional arrangements and linguistic lines.
- 3:30 pm
- REPORT TO THE PLENARY
- 4:30 pm
- CLOSING REMARKS AND ADJOURNMENT
