Family Literacy

1. Family Literacy

3. Jot them down on a piece of paper…. If you could change two things…

4. What are your parents already doing to help support their children at school? What do your parents need so that they could be more supportive? Think about strengths and needs

5. What do WE have control over? As educators, what can we help to change?

6. Jot them down on a piece of paper…. What are potential roadblocks?

7. Parent Involvement is Important • Regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnic/racial background or parents’ educational level • Behavior is more pro-social and positive and academics are significantly better when parents are involved

8. Parents as Models • Don’t ask parents to create an artificial literacy environment. Have them use what they already have. • Reading newspapers, TV guides, crossword puzzles (Purcell-Gates, 1996) • Parents can share the reading of these materials with their child. Show the child how these types of text are beneficial. • Parents with low literacy can focus on oral retelling of family events, and making up stories to go along with picture books (Wolter, 1995) • Parents should begin reading to their child even before the child can speak (Purcell-Gates, 1996)

9. How Parents Can Help • Oral language/vocabulary development • Home literacy environment • Development and support of desired behaviors • Academic (homework) and behavioral • Writing

10. Effective Family Literacy Nights • The whole family should be involved - everyone should feel welcome and useful • Families can be recruited - newspaper, radio, school bulletins • Scheduling, transportation and child care issues should be addressed, and solutions provided • Parents generally only attend 30% of the sessions. They need to go in order for the activities to be implemented.

11. Overview • (1) Developing the Home-School Connection • (2) Homework Night • (3) Behaviors That Are Important for School Success • (4) Oral Language – Having Conversations • (5) Oral Language - Classroom Tour • (6) Oral Language – Oral Family Traditions • (7) Oral Language - Reading Aloud • (8) Non-fiction Night • (9) Writing Night

12. Session Structure • First week of the month. • In preparation for the following month, teachers should meet and plan for the next session in the third week. • Each session will begin with a quick review of the prior session and Q & A that emphasizes family input. • Each night teachers or other staff model literacy behavior that is being taught during that session.

13. Session Structure • Children are dropped off in their classrooms with their teacher. • Parents go to common meeting place for overview and lecture portion. • Parents go to classroom and join their children for the associated activity.

14. Session Structure • Families take home a calendar of seven possible activities. An artifact is produced and brought back to the next session. • To encourage parents to attend and take part in literacy activities throughout the month, a small reward will be given to the family when they produce evidence of having completed 4 out of 7 activities.

16. Workshop #1 – Developing the Home School Connection • Welcome- Mission and Vision – School’s goals for every child. • Importance of family involvement. • Stress the importance of attendance at each session throughout the year.

17. Workshop #1 – Developing the Home School Connection • Are there any issues that will prevent regular attendance? • Transportation issues? • Time of the day? • Who is invited? • Child care? • Food? It is the school’s responsibility to come up with possible solutions.

18. Workshop #1 – Developing the Home School Connection • Offer ideas and suggestions to parents to get print resources into their homes. • Lending Library • School Library • Universities and Colleges • Book Swap Club

19. Activity for the Session • Make a Book

20. Efficacy of Homework • Homework is not the great equalizer • Homework is not always effective • How much and how often depends on the support at home and the age/grade of the student • Students need to be able to complete the assignment independently • The parent needs to be made aware of the how the assignment should be completed • Homework should not result in stress for the parent and/or child • Homework should be completed by the child

21. Homework: How Parents Can Help • Foster independence • Problem-solving • Quiet environment • Placing value on academics • Homework could be done before we go home

22. Workshop #2- Homework • Monthly Teacher Meeting • When the teachers meet together to plan the upcoming homework family literacy night they should be encouraged to discuss the following: • Homework should be something the students do independently • Parent support should be designed to support autonomy • Not doing the homework or teaching the student how to do the assignment

23. Activity for the Session • Make a homework calendar • The student will write down the homework assignment each day at take it home with him/her (parents should be looking at this daily) • Parents can help the students schedule their activities • Sports • Clubs • School • Play • Discuss at least 5 ways that the home environment can be structure to accommodate quiet study • Teachers can help problem solve at this time

24. Behavior • Children with more secure attachments respond better to family literacy programs (St. Pierre, Ricciulti & Rimdzius, 2005) • Parent discipline (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002) • Low SES parents are more likely to spank or use harsh punishments with their child • Coercive environment with negative reinforcement being most often used • Use Positive Behavior Support • Negative reinforcement trap • Behavioral expectations

25. Workshop #3 – Behaviors That Are Important for School Success • First 10-15 minutes of the night should be used to discuss the first session and answer any questions that the parents may have.

26. Workshop #3 – Behaviors That Are Important for School Success • Goals for this workshop • Classroom Rules • Mission Statement • Description of positive behaviors for school success • Discuss how parents can support those positive behaviors • Discuss how the desired behaviors at school are the same and different from desired behaviors in different situations • Discuss how the parents can support appropriate positive behaviors when the child is not at school

27. Workshop #3 – Behaviors That Are Important for School Success • This means that teachers need to know and be able to discuss… • School rules • Classroom rules • How they are the same or different • The implied, but unwritten rules

28. Activity for the Session • Parents break into small groups. • Discussion of things that their children do that are inappropriate or cause problems at home. • Working together, come up with better replacement behaviors for the child. • Discuss how the behaviors needed for school success can be supported at home. • They problem-solve this together, instead of having the session leader tell them what they should be doing.

29. Oral Language and Reading Comprehension • A student’s oral language skills in kindergarten is a very good indicator of how well they will be able to comprehend written language in fourth and seventh grade (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998)

30. Oral Language and Decoding • Oral language skills help facilitate acquisition of early decoding skills (Connor, Morrison & Katch, 2004) • Kindergarten vocabulary level also influences phonological awareness, even after controlling for parent literacy, invented spelling, listening comprehension and alphabetic knowledge (Sénéchal et al., 2006)

31. Language in the Home • Student that come from a home with less sophisticated language and less frequent conversations, come to school with smaller vocabularies (Biemiller, 2006) • The home literacy environment accounts for the most variance in emergent literacy skills (Jordon et al., 2000)

32. Language in the Home • Children in low SES homes hear fewer than 100 different vocabulary words in one hour - high SES hear over 500 different words (Hart & Risley, 1995) • Number of words heard by age 3 • Professional - 40 million • Working class - 20 million • Welfare - 10 million • Vocabulary knowledge (White, Graves & Slater, 1990) • Low SES 3rd graders - 10,000 words • High SES 3rd graders - 15,000 words

33. Workshop # 4 – Oral Language Having Conversations • Quick review • Conversations- an explanation of oral language development and how having conversations benefits literacy learning.

34. Activity for the Session • Have a conversation with your child about what you do at work, or at school or at home while your child is at school. Include details regarding things you find rewarding, challenging or difficult. Ask your child to share his or her thoughts on the subject.

35. Activity for Home • As a family, plan an activity that you will do on the weekend. Discuss and make a list of things to bring.

36. Activities for Home • Build your child’s awareness of language by checking out and sharing a joke or riddle book from the library. If your child does not understand why the joke is funny, explain it to him. • Read a book together with your child that has been made into a movie. After reading the book, watch the movie together. Have a conversation about what was the same or different in each.

37. Workshop #5 – Oral Language/Classroom Tour • Quick review • Prior to the event, students and teacher work together to construct an agenda that will lead the families through the evening’s activities. • Families move throughout the classrooms in a planned and organized fashion, according to the prepared agenda.

38. Workshop #5 – Oral Language/Classroom Tour • When the family is ready to leave, have someone take a photo of the family with the teacher. After it is developed, post one copy in the classroom and send another copy home with the child. Have the child write a paragraph that explains how learning happens at school and at home.

39. Workshop #6 – Oral Language- Oral Family Traditions • Quick Review • Telling Stories • Children learn about themselves and others through hearing and telling family stories. • Adults can purposefully use rich language to describe family events from the past.

40. Activity for the Session • Make a Timeline • Parent creates a timeline of his life beginning at birth and ending with “Today”. Through conversation, parent adds significant events to the timeline. • Child is encouraged to ask questions as parent tells about life events. • Child illustrates the timeline by drawing pictures that represent stories told as the timeline was created.

41. Workshop #7- Read Alouds • Teaching method for sharing a story • Used to develop vocabulary • Model story structure and reading fluency • Introducing new content

42. Scaffolding of Read Aloud • Non-readers and emergent readers • Parents read the story to the child, with the child being encouraged to interact and ask questions • Beginning readers • Parents will read the story to the child, with the child be encouraged to read words that he/she is familiar with • More experienced readers • The child can read to the parents, with the parents providing corrective feedback when he/she misses a word

43. Sample Questions for Read Aloud • Younger, less proficient readers • Alphabetic principle questions • Ask the child to provide the sound that a letter makes • Written conventions • The parent can point out punctuation to the child, and then later ask the child to identify commas, periods, etc.

44. Workshop #7- Read Alouds • Older, more proficient readers • Fluency • If the child is reading, the parent should help the child maintain fluency and use the sentence grammar • Remind the child to pause at the end of a sentence and after a comma • Comprehension • If there is an idiom or concept that the parent does not think the child understands is encountered in the text the meaning should be discussed

45. Probes for Comprehension • Did this story end the way you thought it would? • If yes, what clues in the story helped you predict what was going to happen? • If not, how was the ending different than you thought it would be? • What questions do you still have about the story?

46. Activity for the Session • After the overview • Parents should have an opportunity to ask questions • Parent then models the activity for the group with his/her child • The parent should have volunteered earlier to do this, and be familiar with the book • Other parents in the group can discuss the read aloud after the parent is finished • The session leader (classroom teacher) can provide feedback, but it should be framed positively

47. Workshop #8-Working with Nonfiction Text • Benefits of Nonfiction Text • Used to convey information about things in the immediate environment and world. • Help show students how to include factual details, vary sentence length and complexity, use different language.

48. Teacher Demonstration • The teacher should model an interactive editing lesson based on the IAW/IAE book • The teacher can choose which type of interactive editing lesson to do with the parents, but this should be the same type that the parents are then asked to do with their children later in the night.

49. Activity for the Session • The parent should then interactively edit a piece of text with their child • Parents will be given one of the worksheets from the IAW/IAE book (depending on the activity the teacher has chosen) • The teacher will provide feedback and support during the parent-child activity • The parent should be encouraged to choose and edit another piece of information with their child during the month • The can bring the edited piece to the next family literacy night

50. Writing • Reading and writing skills are acquired simultaneously, and are equally important in emergent literacy (Saint-Laurent & Giasson, 2005) • Writing activities should be introduced early in the child’s life • Parents should provide the least amount of support necessary