Constructing a family literacy program: Challenges and successes

Abstract

This paper describes a family literacy project that involved parents whose children were attending a pre-school centre in a low socio-economic suburb of Perth, Western Australia. A formative experimental design was used to examine the home literacy practices of the families as described by the parents, and to construct a series of workshops. The parents described a range of literacy practices that took place in their homes; the workshop series aimed to value and build on these practices and the parents’ prior knowledge of children’s literacy development. After some initial difficulties, the parents and the teacher/researcher jointly constructed the workshop topics, which included early literacy development, viewing and computer practices, personal, reading and reading to children. At the end of the program the parents reported that they had gained new knowledge, had become more aware of the literacy practices of their homes and how these might influence their children’s literacy development, and had experienced some change of behaviour. Factors that appeared to facilitate the program and some of the difficulties encountered are identified and discussed

Patterns in Participation: Factors Influencing Parent Attendance at Two, Centre-Based Early Childhood Interventions

“…These include work demands, lack of childcare, training sessions conflicting with family schedules, other competing family demands, and transportation difficulties (Breitenstein et al, 2014;Duppong-Hurley et al, 2016). Methods of improving parent attendance include locating workshops in welcoming, familiar and informal surroundings; keeping group size small; including regular group discussion and betweensession tasks; sending reminder notes before each workshop; and audio-taping sessions for those unable to attend (Jay & Rohl, 2005). Parent-related variables that have been reported to impact on parent attendance and involvement more broadly include parents' socio-economic status (Baker, Arnold, & Meagher, 2011), their education level and perception of their child's behaviour in the training target area (Haggerty et al, 2002), and their perceived parental self-efficacy (Giallo, Treyvaud, Cooklin, & Wade, 2013).…”

“…In addition, children's teachers and education assistants were provided with teacher relief to allow them to attend and support parents in their learning; group sizes were kept small; and sessions were built around enjoyable activities alternating with discussion at regular intervals. It was hoped that all these measures would address the issues identified by Jay and Rohl (2005) as likely to promote parent attendance. However, in spite of this very significant effort by the project team to address possible barriers to workshop attendance, only approximately two thirds of parents attended; and because of this the PasP team followed up parents with post training questionnaires to seek insights into parents' own perceptions of their reasons for having followed through to attendance or not.…”

Evaluation of Family Literacy Programs: A Case Study of Better Beginnings, a Library-Initiated Family Literacy Bookgifting Program in Western Australia

“…The Pilot Study In 2004 the Better Beginnings pilot was set up as an intervention program in six very diverse communities in Western Australia. Evaluation was built into this exploratory program from the start through the use of a formative experimental design that allows for the investigation of factors that contribute to or detract from the effectiveness of an intervention (Jay & Rohl, 2005;Reinking & Watkins, 2000). The evaluation took place in two of the six communities: a mining town with a significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, 600 kilometers distant from the nearest major city, and an outer metropolitan suburb containing a range of residential settings and a small Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population.…”

Stimuler l’éveil à la lecture et à l’écriture des enfants d’âge préscolaire : rôle des bibliothèques publiques dans les communautés défavorisées

“…Les pratiques d'ÉLÉ doivent se construire de concert avec les parents, la communauté et les enseignants (Jay et Rohl, 2005). C'est donc bien avant l'entrée à la maternelle que les parents doivent être sensibilisés à l'importance de l'ÉLÉ, l'alphabétisation familiale facilitant l'entrée des enfants dans le monde formel de l'éducation (Lahire, 1995).…”