Family Literacy: The Missing Link to School-Wide Literacy Efforts (original) (raw)
Cambridge Journal of Education
This paper is based on a large study of family literacy provision in England, which was carried out between July 2013 and May 2015. It explored the impact of classes on parents' relations with the school and their children, and their ability to support their children's literacy development. The study involved 27 school-based programmes for pupils aged between 5 and 7, and their parents. It used mixed methods, which involved surveys of 118 parents and 20 family literacy tutors, telephone interviews with a sub-sample of 28 parents, analysis of teaching plans and observations of classes. Findings showed that parents wanted to learn the ways the school was teaching their child to read and write, and by demystifying school literacy pedagogies and processes, the programmes developed greater connectivity between home and the school, and parents felt more able to support their children's literacy development at home.
A Family Literacy Approach In A Second Grade Classroom
2017
Term Spring 2017 Capstone Thesis Degree Name MALED Primary Advisor/Dissertation Chair Karen Moroz Secondary Advisor/Reader One Paula Seaman Peer-Reviewer/Reader Two Julie Landau Abstract The research question addressed in this project was, how does a family literacy approach affect students reading comprehension growth in a second grade classroom? It documents one teacher’s creation of a before and after school family literacy program. The family literacy program focused on teaching students and families explicit reading comprehension strategies that were being used in the classroom. The author documents the research analyzed that led to the creation of a family literacy program based on the parent involvement family literacy model. The author describes the implementation of the program and concludes that: 1) using a family literacy approach had no effect on reading comprehension growth based on the small sample size and the inability to regulate outlier scores; 2) further study is ...
2001
The family is the beginning point for the development of human resources within a culture. Families provide an intergenerational transfer of language, culture, thought, values, and attitudes throughout the formative years of their children's lives. Families help children construct meaning about life, culture, language, learning, and literacy.
All in the family: Connecting home and school with family literacy
Early Childhood Education Journal, 2006
Family literacy has come of age during the past quarter of a century. This article provides a brief review of family literacy history and components. Pedagogical implications for teachers of primary grade students are considered, and suggestions given for increasing home-school literacy involvement through the following types of initiatives: sharing information, increasing access to materials, and implementing strategies that invite family involvement.
2021
Family Literacies demonstrates, through reference to empirical research, how shared reading practices operate in a wide range of families, with a view to supporting families in reading with their preschool children. At the heart of this book, written by two highly experienced experts in the field, is a fascinating project that captured diverse voices and experiences by parents, children and other family members. Rachael Levy and Mel Hall deploy a rich and distinctive theoretical framework, drawing on insights from literacy studies, education and sociology. Family Literacies presents an account of shared reading practices in homes, focusing attention on what motivates parents to read with their children as well as revealing what parents may need if they are to begin and sustain shared reading activity. The authors show the many ways in which reading is centrally embedded in many aspects of family life, arguing that this has particular implications for children as they start school. Situated within a socio-cultural discourse, this book explains why it is important to understand how and why shared reading takes place in homes so that all families can be supported in reading with their children. Family Literacies is essential reading for all those who are studying and researching literacy practices, especially those involving young children. The book will also be of value to students, practitioners and researchers in education and applied linguistics who are working with families and have an interest in the study of family practices. The authors' findings have major implications for how parents can be encouraged to develop positive reading relationships with their children.
Toward a Social-Contextual Approach to Family Literacy
Harvard Educational Review, 1989
The increasing realization that family members can contribute to children's literacy development has given birth to family literacy programs designed to support immigrant and refugee families' participation in their children's education. Elsa Auerbach critically analyzes those family literacy programs that focus on teaching parents to do school-like activities in the home and to assist children with homework. She contends that the theoretical stance of these programs is not based on sound current research. Furthermore, she argues that in practice these programs function under a new version of the "deficit hypothesis," which assumes that the parents lack the essential skills to promote school success in their children. The author proposes a broader definition of family literacy that acknowledges the family's social reality and focuses on the family's strengths. As an alternative framework to program design, the author presents a social-contextual approac...
Family literacy: a project to get parents involved
South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, 2013
In this article family literacy as a strategy to address the problem of a lack of preliteracy skills in preschool children will be discussed. A family literacy project developed by the Children's Literature Research Unit in the Department of Information Science. at Unisa in partnership with Project Literacy will be described. This project was started in 2000 in four creches and has now expanded to 19 sites in KwaZulu Natal. Eastern Cape. Limpopo Province and Gauteng. The methodology used and the results from one of the sites will be given. Finally. the role of community libraries in implementing family literacy programmes. and the importance of this as an outreach programme. will be discussed.
Family Literacy Programs: Who Benefits?
Designing and delivering literacy programs that benefit both parents (or other family members) and children makes sense. But do family literacy programs really work? And if so, who benefits? The concept of family literacy is firmly rooted in a substantial research base from several disciplines, including adult literacy, emergent literacy, child development, and systems analysis. A review of literature from each of these disciplines showed that family literacy programs do work and that at least the following four groups benefit: children, parents, families as units, and the larger society. Some of the benefits include the following: (1) children's achievement in school, reading achievement, social skills, mathematics and science, health, and confidence improves; (2) parents are more likely to persist in family literacy programs than in other types of adult literacy programs, and their reading, writing, and parenting skills increase; (3) families learn to value education, become more involved in schools, become emotionally closer, and build foundations for lifelong learning; and (4) family literacy programs affect nutrition and health, teen parenting, joblessness, and social alienation programs positively. (Contains 85 references.) (KC) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Emulating what's valued: Family practices in literacy learning
2006
Children learn about literacy through their interactions with more experienced members of the culture (teachers, parents, siblings, peers, extended family members, etc.) in a process of guided participation (Rogoff, 1990). This means that their learning of literacy occurs in participation with and is mediated by others in culturally valued activities. Differences in what the members count as literacy and which literacy they consider worth transmitting to children affects the latter's literacy learning and their disposition to texts. This paper presents data from two families with different approaches to literacy learning. In one family, the child is exposed to meaning-based activities in literacy instruction where the parents and other adult members engage in extended discourse around texts and encourage intertextual references. In another family, the child learns that literacy means learning the grammar of reading and writing (decoding, punctuation and intonation), a practice that appears to cohere with the family's devotion to learning to recite religious texts and perform religious rituals where meaning and comprehension are often relegated to a secondary activity. The two children will enter school with fairly different cultural resources towards literacy learning, and their educational attainment will depend on how teachers make efficient use of these resources and design pedagogies that meet the needs of different children.
Family Literacy Programs: Who Benefits? Occasional Paper #2
1994
Family literacy programs have been demonstrated to have significant and widespread benefits for children, parents, families, and society. Documented benefits of family literacy programs to children appear in the following areas: children's achievement in school, school attendance, oral language development, reading comprehension and vocabulary, writing, self-esteem and school attitudes, and health. Studies have also shown that parents who participate in family literacy programs achieve gains in employment status and job satisfaction and demonstrate improved attitudes about education, reading and writing ability, math and science knowledge, and knowledge of parenting skills and child development. Families who have participated in family literacy programs have been shown to learn to value education, become more involved in schools, and become emotionally closer. Research has also confirmed that family literacy programs have positive effects on the following social problems: nutrition and health problems, low school achievement and high school dropout rates, teen parenting, joblessness and welfare dependency, and social alienation. (Contains 58 references.) (MN)
Learning Families: Intergenerational Approaches to Literacy Teaching and Learning
2015
All of the literacy programmes featured in this publication share valuable experiences and lessons. They reflect a view of effective learning families whereby each child is a member of a family, and within a learning family every member is a lifelong learner. Among disadvantaged families and communities in particular, a family literacy and learning approach is more likely to break the intergenerational cycle of low education and literacy skills and foster a culture of learning than fragmented and isolated measures to address low levels of learning achievement and the lack of reading, writing and language skills (Elfert and Hanemann, 2014). However, to make such an approach successful, it is necessary to provide sustained teacher training, develop a culture of collaboration among institutions, teachers and parents, and secure sustainable funding through longer-term policy support.
Families as social contexts for literacy development
New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 1993
This chapter presents an overview of a number of ways in which social interactions within the family support literacy acquisition. There has, of course, been a substantial amount of research devoted to this topic, much of it starting from the observation that middle-class and highly educated families typically produce more successful school learners than do working-class families. A major site for looking at family interactions has been book reading, on the assumption that early exposure to literacy promotes later literacy skills. The research I discuss here differs from previous efforts in two major ways. I have not engaged in social class comparisons, preferring to compare within relatively high-risk samples the families who successfully support their children's literacy development to those who do not. And I have focused less on literacy-specific interactions than on language interaction in general as a source of skills that are relevant to literacy.
Co-production of family literacy projects to enhance early literacy development
Journal of Children's Services, 2015
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