A Portrait of Family Literacy

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the domain of home, with a portrait of literacy in the everyday lives of one family. The literacy practices of Katie, her dad, Colin, and her brother, James, illustrate the contribution of different means of communication to the negotiation of everyday life. The chapter examines how everyday literacy practices reflect the idea of family as a site of active negotiation. It challenges assumptions often seen in social and education policy, where the family is a site of need for specific pedagogic support to develop officially mandated skills. The portrait of Katie and Colin presents both “family” and “literacy” as processes of shared learning and collaboration: as something that people “do” together.