ELLA: Early Learning Literacy Alliance of Waterloo Region

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ELLA: Early Learning Literacy Alliance of Waterloo Region

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Our goal is to improve literacy skills for all children (birth to 6) in our community.

10/22/2026

Dr Junlei Li pointing out the obvious - the best childcare centres in the world are not about the architecture but rather about the relationships between staff and children.

Happy Childcare Worker and Early Childhood Educator Appreciation Day! Everyday you make our world a better place. 👏🎉💖✨

10/20/2026

Yesterday our friend Dr Junlei Li spoke to a crowd of 2,300 ECE’s and early learning professionals from across Waterloo Region. Grounded in the convergence of developmental theory and research evidence Dr Li and colleagues have developed Simple Interactions. The Simple Interactions approach / framework affirms the importance of human interactions in children’s lives. It also subscribes to the idea that we cannot have an impact on the lives of children without including the helpers in relationship with them. Simple, everyday interactions are the active ingredient of early childhood education. You can listen to Dr Li & Find out more on our website www.Ella-wr.ca

10/14/2026

Lunch & Practice with Dr. Junlei Li
October 21st, 12 to 3pm.

If you’ve been learning about Simple Interactions through Dr. Li’s lectures and workshops, this is your next step: bringing those ideas into practice in your own organization or community.

We’ll explore SI as a language, a framework, and a reflection tool using real footage Dr. Li collected locally at Ga’nigǫhi:yo Indigenous Child Care and Family Centre.

Leave with ideas and actions you can actually use. Spots are limited.

Register here: https://forms.gle/simzekWvDtZ3tnEr8

09/28/2026

We promised you a second reveal from AI Build Day. This one was voted on by the participants themselves.

At the end of the day, every team in the room got a vote. No jury, no scorecard... just participants of the event deciding whose tool they'd want to use themselves.

Congratulations to the Somali Canadian Association of Waterloo Region (SCAWR) who was voted the People's Choice winner by their fellow participants! 🎉

Two wins, two different lenses on what made the day work. Grateful to everyone who showed up ready to build.

09/25/2026

Yesterday’s meeting of the Belong Steering Committee of Waterloo Region Immigration Partnership was hosted at Pfenning's Organic Farm It included a wagon tour of their operation. Such a lovely, informative experience connecting a celebration of the harvest season with the unseen labour that makes it possible 🙏❤️🌾🥮

09/22/2026

ELLA and our member organizations were recently invited to be a part of an AI Build Day Hackathon at Communitech, as part of Waterloo Tech Week.

There were 16 people of us spread out across 9 organizations and we spent the day mapping how our work actually happens, finding the one step eating up the most time, and building a tool that fixes it. So far, the feedback from our participants has been positive, stating they really enjoyed the day.

And now, the part you've been waiting for...

Congratulations to the Overachievers from Waterloo Public Library, who were voted the winning team by our jury! 🎉

But that's not all...stay tuned! We had a second winner, voted in by the participants that day. We will share who that second winner is very soon! 👀

09/17/2026

ELLA & EdTech Solutions AI Build Day at Communitech was an amazing experience. Under the guidance of Ed, Bill and their ‘kids’ we learned, played and supported one another as we collectively explored how tech can help in our service and non-profit work. So much gratitude for everyone involved and all the attendees and judges 👏

08/25/2026

Dr. Junlei Li puts it plainly: relational health is the bedrock of our physical health, our mental health, our behavioural health.

Not one piece of the puzzle. The foundation the rest of it sits on.

It's an idea we hear again and again, from different experts, in different words: relationship isn't secondary to a child's development. It is the development.

08/22/2026

Dr. Stella Louis describes babies as methodical, logical little scientists. They are constantly gathering information through their senses, their movement, their relationships.

And she's clear that this doesn't stay contained to early childhood. It shapes how we engage with the world as adults.

The relationships around a child aren't only doing something for right now. They're doing something for the rest of a life.

08/19/2026

Literacy researcher Dr. Maryanne Wolf points out that reading doesn't start with letters or sounds — it starts in someone's arms.

Long before a child can decode a word, they're learning whether reading feels safe, warm, wanted. That's a relationship doing work we usually credit to education.

Even a skill as specific as reading turns out to be relational at the root.

Address

Waterloo, ON

Website

http://www.ella-wr.ca/, https://linktr.ee/ellawaterlooregion

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