Approaches to Family Literacy: Exploring the Possibilities

Abstract

Family literacy has been defined in many ways. To some, family literacy is an explanatory concept—a way to describe how parents and children read and write together and alone during everyday activities. To others, family literacy is a program or a curriculum—a construct for teaching parents how to prepare their children for success in school. In the context of most preschool and elementary school settings, both of these meanings are important. In this column, the author introduces the Intergenerational Literacy Project (ILP), a program in the northeastern United States that is dedicated to accomplishing family literacy in both senses of the term. Parents involved in the program attend classes to develop and extend their own English literacy and to support their children's literacy. Findings from the ILP have demonstrated rates of attendance and retention that exceed those of traditional adult basic education, an increase in the parents' use of reading and writing outside of class to achieve personal goals, and an increase in the frequency with which the parents engage their children in the types of literacy events that have been found to prepare children for success in early reading.