Victoria Literacy Connection: A Brief History

The Victoria Literacy Connection (VLC) was formed in early 2017, but its roots reach much further back than this date indicates.  The VLC was created when the Boards of The Victoria READ Society and Literacy Victoria decided they could be more effective organizations if they worked together to reach a wider and broader range of people who struggle with literacy in its many and varied forms.

The READ Society has operated in Greater Victoria and the Saanich Peninsula since the 1970s.  Over the years it has supported thousands of children and youth who have needed help with literacy in the early stages of their education.  For many of its young learners, the work done by The READ Society was transformative and they have gone on to lead productive lives, gain a good education and contribute significantly to our society.

In the mid 1980s, Literacy Victoria (LV) was formed as a breakaway charity from The READ Society.  It was believed that the reason many children struggled with literacy was because their parents did as well.  LV was dedicated to helping a wide range of adults who had challenges reading, writing, or doing basic mathematics.  Over the years, services extended to include help with computer literacy.  LV had two hard and fast rules: all tutoring would be undertaken by dedicated, trained volunteers, and no individual would be charged for tutoring services.  They felt cost should never be a barrier to literacy.

As so often happens in life, things came full circle.  Rather than maintaining distinct separate services and competing for financial support, the folks at READ and LV decided there would be significant benefits to working together.  Now, under the brand of Victoria Literacy Connection, we offer a more holistic literacy service and make our hard earned donations stretch even further.  We invite you to read about our various programs on this website.  If you know of someone who would benefit from our services, we hope you will point them in our direction.  If you would like to be part of our volunteer team, we would love to hear from you.  Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or suggestions.

Children & Youth Programs

E-Reading Book Club, Child and Youth 1:1 Volunteer Literacy Tutoring, Advantage Tutoring for Children & Youth, Language Arts and Mathematics Diagnostic Assessments,

Programs for Adults

Adult Literacy Programming, Adult Literacy Tutoring Program, English as a Second Language Group Sessions