Intergenerational Literacy Learning with Bilingual Families: A Context for the Analysis of Social Mediation of Thought

Abstract

This research initiative was undertaken to examine the effects of an intergenerational literacy program, held weekly for 2 hours over a 6-month period, on the measured English proficiency of nine bilingual families (9 parents, 15 children). The research was also conducted to explore the relationships among changes in the participants' use of identified categories of discourse during literacy activities and changes in their second-language competency on tests of literacy. Program goals were to encourage the parents to read storybooks to their children in the home as well as to provide literacy-based activities to family members, including storybook reading, hands-on projects related to the stories read, formal English instruction for the parents, and free play for the children. Sixteen observations (24 hours) of participants' discourse were conducted by the researcher and an assistant using a format adapted from research of family-based literacy learning and classroom discourse; semi-structured interviews with parents and teachers were also held. Results of pre-post comparisons of children's scores on the PLS and parents' scores on the CTBS revealed significant improvements. Frequencies of identified categories of parent-and-child discourse between the third and fifteenth observations were also compared and revealed several significant differences. Significant correlations were also found between participant test scores and differences in their use of identified categories of discourse. These empirical results, as well as descriptive findings, are interpreted using Vygotsky's (1978, 1987) sociocultural theory of learning. It is proposed that teacher scaffolding strategies, as well as the parents' and children's efforts to linguistically mediate each other's learning, were integral to the gains in the families' second-language proficiency.