The Importance of Knowing Your ABCs and 123s
Reading and math skills are two of the most important building blocks that can help kids with continued success in school, work, and life. The skills children gain in their earliest school years, from kindergarten to Grade 6, are known to influence their ability to graduate from high school and pursue post-secondary education.1
Math and reading are known to help children think critically, learn how to problem solve, and understand relationships and patterns. Having abilities in these areas can help kids with their personal finance in the future and are seen to have an influence on financial earnings.2
This is why we are supporting initiatives like the National Girls Program by Actua, which has the mission to inspire young women to pursue their passions in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Each year, 10,000 girls across Canada are engaged through their work, with a focus on those who face socio-economic barriers, and underrepresented groups such as Indigenous youth. With only one female engineering graduate for every four males in Canada,3 this program is helping to prepare its participants for the jobs of tomorrow while contributing to a more inclusive economy.
Through the TD Summer Reading Club, we are tackling the effects of summer reading loss on kids. On average, students lose two months of reading skills over the summer and spend six weeks of the school year catching up. As Canada’s largest bilingual summer reading program for kids of all ages and abilities, 2,000 libraries open their doors to more than 600,000 kids each year. In 2018, the program hosted their annual kick-off event for the first time in collaboration with an Indigenous community, in Walpole Island First Nation.
For more stories like this, read TD's 2018 report on The Ready Commitment.
Sources
1TD commissioned research by Mission Measurement in 2018.
2OECD/Statistics Canada (2011), Literacy for Life: Further Results from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264091269-en.
3https://newsroom.td.com/insights/moving-the-dial-on-women-in-stem-a-td-economics-report
