SPIRE Project: Parental Involvement in Young Children’s ESL Reading Development

Madhubala Bava Harji,Kavitha Balakrishnan,Krishnanveni Letchumanan

doi:10.5539/elt.v9n12p1

Abstract

Realising the clear dichotomy between schools and homes, the Malaysia government has now turned its attention to stakeholders and called for an increase involvement of parents, who are critical in transforming the education system. However, a clear line of demarcation continues to exist between the two prime educators of young children. Schools have yet to fully embrace the concept of active parental involvement, particularly in academic matters and have yet to design formalised programmes that provide avenues for active parental involvement. The six month Smart Partnership in Reading in English (SPIRE) formalised programme, which created a platform for non-native parents to play a more active role in developing early literacy skills in young children, particularly, reading skills in English language, was explored as an option. 25 non-native five year old children, 25 parents and the class teacher were involved in the programme. A rich ESL literacy environment was created both at school and homes by making a wide range of English storybooks and multimedia materials available for the children to be taken home. The parent-teacher partnership scaffold the children’s reading development. The teacher reads storybooks in school and the parents at home. Qualitative data gathered via interviews, home visits, meetings and informal conference provided evidence for parents’ positive attitudes towards reading English storybooks and towards being involved in their child’s reading development, a positive link between levels of parental involvement and reading development, and the plausibility of involving non-native parents through a formalised reading programme. The SPIRE programme explored in the Malaysian context can also be adopted in non English speaking countries for similar purposes.

Highlights

The Malaysian government’s aspiration to raise the literacy rates to 100 per cent by the year 2020 is apparent in the constant reminders to parents and teachers to help arrest this shortcoming
The six month Smart Partnership in Reading in English (SPIRE) formalised programme, which created a platform for non-native parents to play a more active role in developing early literacy skills in young children, reading skills in English language, was explored as an option. 25 non-native five year old children, 25 parents and the class teacher were involved in the programme
Consistent with the numerous reading programmes (Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1999; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Saracho & Spodek, 2010) that highlighted the significance of storybook reading and the positive links between parental involvement and literacy/reading development (Marcon, 1999; Jeynes, 2005; Arnold, 2008, Sénéchal & Young, 2008; Roberts, Jergens, & Margaret Burchinal, 2005), this study found similar links

Summary

Introduction

The Malaysian government’s aspiration to raise the literacy rates to 100 per cent by the year 2020 is apparent in the constant reminders to parents and teachers to help arrest this shortcoming. It has been constantly reminding its citizens on its aspiration to develop good reading habits and improve English language proficiency. We are not there yet, that is why the Government is striving to change the mindset of Malaysians toward books to eventually cultivate a reading culture.”. We are not there yet, that is why the Government is striving to change the mindset of Malaysians toward books to eventually cultivate a reading culture.” And he added that ‘... together with the Government, our vision statement is ‘A book in the hand of every Malaysian citizen by 2020’ (Afdeza, 2014)

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Conclusion