A Pediatric Literacy Education Program for Low Socioeconomic, Culturally Diverse Families

Home language and literacy practices among immigrant second-language learners

“…Many other studies found that immigrant parents overall read less often to their children than parents from the mainstream of the host society; this has been observed with Spanish-speaking parents in the United States (Boyce et al 2004; Raikes et al 2006), Turkish parents in Germany (Leyendeckera et al 2011), and Moroccan and Turkish families in the Netherlands (Scheele et al 2010). One study found that the characteristics of children who were most at risk for less reading and literacy stimulation in the home included the immigrant status of their parents, Spanish L1 background, and English spoken as L2, among a sample of culturally diverse, low-income families in the US (Diener et al 2003).…”

“…In many programs, books are offered as the basic means, and the parents’ L1 is adopted as the instructional language to facilitate the interventions (Harper et al 2011; Whaley et al 2011). Although the parents are often invited to attend a program at school, others establish programs at other sites that parents visit regularly, such as their child's pediatrician's office (Diener et al 2003) or the office of a government nutrition assistance program for women with children (Whaley et al 2011). Such contexts seem the most promising for serving larger numbers of families, particularly those with children below school age.…”

“…Although the children showed immediate gains in expressive vocabulary on standardized measures, in both Chinese and English, there were no further statistically significant gains six months later, and children of more highly educated mothers showed more gains than children of less educated mothers. Two programs in which doctors gave low-income families literacy advice and a free book at their child's checkups showed anecdotal success (Diener et al 2003) or mixed results (Billings 2009), perhaps because of the short amount of time the doctors devoted to literacy advice (1–3 minutes), the small sample size or the lack of equivalency between the program and non-program groups.…”

“…These comments suggest that a home-visit program may be an effective way of easing parents into participating in programs and meetings at school. Other interesting settings included a doctor's office (Diener et al 2003) and a government nutrition program office (Whaley et al 2011). Diener et al documented the establishment of a library at a medical clinic, with librarians who helped model effective literacy interactions for waiting parents and their children.…”

“…One study found that the characteristics of children who were most at risk for less reading and literacy stimulation in the home included the immigrant status of their parents, Spanish L1 background, and English spoken as L2, among a sample of culturally diverse, low-income families in the US (Diener et al 2003).…”