Core Skills
Introduction
| Skills Common to All Literacy Practitioners | Literacy Skills by Sector | Emergent Skills for Literacy Practitioners |
Literacy Skills by Sector
The OLC Adult Literacy Educator Skills List provided a starting point for Ontario's literacy sectors to begin a closer examination of the needs of their practitioners within the framework of a new Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) initiative called the Practitioner Training Strategy. MTCU's Practitioner Training Strategy was intended to develop an approach to integrated practitioner training and recognition to support high quality delivery of Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) programming. While all literacy practitioners have a core group of skills, the various literacy sectors and streams attract different client groups with diverse learning needs and often practitioners require different skills to meet these needs.
Literacy programming is delivered by three sectors in Ontario (community-based, college and school board) and by four streams (Anglophone, Francophone, Native and Deaf).
One of the ways that sectors and streams are able to respond to learners' unique needs is by ensuring that their practitioners have specific as well as general skills. Research for the Practitioner Training Strategy resulted in sector-differentiated skills lists for entry-level practitioners, completed in 2000-2003. Less general than the OLC list, the lists generated by the sectors describe specific and relevant entry-level skills for their programs. The sector-generated lists showed distinct differences in language, emphasis and priority.
The OLC Skills List was created with feedback from practitioners and sector representatives and it was based on extensive research in the field and an examination of similar lists in other jurisdictions. The sector lists were created after extensive consultation with practitioners with each individual sector. All lists were validated by practitioners and thorough research processes, and the skills are still relevant.
