Abstract:

In recent years there has been increasing attention to the field of family literacy. A number of qualitative and ethnographic studies (Taylor, 1982:Taylor & Dorsey Gainres, 1988; Paratore, 1999, 2001, Auerbach, E.R, 1989, 2002 Rogers, 2002, Antonucci, 2005) have documented the importance of the family in the acquisition of literacy within the context of the home. There is agreement within family literacy research that parents need opportunities to improve their literacy and in so doing reduce some of the barriers to learning that exist in their lives.

The two case studies of Denise and Shrieffe address the question of whether and how parents who are introduced to reading strategies in a family literacy program use these strategies in their own home when they read with their children. The use of a qualitative paradigm (Teale, 1986) enabled me, as a family literacy teacher-researcher, to document the home teaching by these two parents and to generate broad questions that would help describe these reading interactions.

This study suggests several conclusions. First, a reading intervention designed by a family literacy teacher-researcher for parents who are enrolled in a family literacy program needs to take into consideration a parent’s personal literacy needs as well as any fabricated literacy support strategies that a parent displays when interacting with his /her children while reading . Second, parents not only adopted the literacy strategies to use as they read with their children at home, but also adapted the strategies, changing them to better meet their own child/s literacy needs and stage of literacy development, Third, parents transformed themselves from silent observers of their children’s literacy learning to active participants in it, reading with their children and offering them literacy support. Fourth, school-based literacy instruction transferred from school to the homes of the families by the family literacy teacher-researcher, added new understandings to the home literacy environments of both families. Lastly the taking on of the role of teacher-researcher required researcher to attempt to understand complex questions about the intersections of literacy and families’ lives by using rich qualitative methods of analysis.

This study contributes to a further understanding of family literacy and literacy as a way to help shape parent/child’s literacy learning and ultimately break through some of the barriers that have prevented these parents from understanding and participating in school based literacy.