“No peeing on the sidewalk!”: Family literacy programs in culturally, linguistically, and socially diverse communities

Jim Anderson,Ann Anderson

doi:10.53956/jfde.2018.121

Jim Anderson, Ann Anderson

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.53956/jfde.2018.121

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Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reflect on three decades of working in family literacy initiatives in diverse communities. We review the literature on children’s emergent early literacy development and family literacy and describe the conceptual framework, including socio-cultural theory, cultural models of learning and ethnotheories, culturally responsive pedagogy, and bilingualism and first or home language maintenance. We also describe the development and evolution of the various projects and their contexts after which we share some of the key things we learned from working with families and communities, including challenges. In conclusion, we highlight key insights garnered from this body of work for various stakeholders including teachers.

Highlights

Over the last half century or so, studies have consistently shown that young children develop knowledge about literacy prior to formal instruction in school or preschool (e.g., Clay, 1972; Ferreiro & Teberosky 1982; Flewitt, 2014)
We identify the following principles from this literature: 1) young children’s language and learning in a second language is facilitated if their first language is intact (Snow, Griffin, & Burns, 1998); 2) cognitive and linguistic skills transfer across languages (Cummins, 2013); 3) bilingualism offers cognitive and other benefits across the lifespan (Bialystok et al, 2016); and 4) intergenerational family communication is enhanced when children maintain their first or home language
We revised the two-day professional development institute to focus on issues such as first language maintenance, culturally appropriate pedagogy, working with immigrant families, and so forth; we provided twice yearly one-day professional development sessions over the three-year development and implementation stage

Summary

Background

Over the last half century or so, studies have consistently shown that young children develop knowledge about literacy prior to formal instruction in school or preschool (e.g., Clay, 1972; Ferreiro & Teberosky 1982; Flewitt, 2014). Based on the research showing the important roles that families play in children’s early literacy learning and the strong positive correlation between children’s early literacy knowledge and achievement at school, in the 1980s educators began developing family literacy programs to assist parents in supporting their children’s learning. Having outlined these conceptual underpinnings, we describe family literacy projects in different contexts in which we worked

A Rural Village

Conclusion