Family Literacy Project

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe a family literacy project involving a partnership of school‐aged children and their families with in‐service and pre‐service teachers enrolled in a university course on literacy instruction for English language learners. This project consists of family members sharing their stories with their children to be later transformed into bilingual picture books. This project engaged teachers, families, EL learners, and community members to become partners in students’ literacy development. Teachers engaged students from culturally‐ and linguistically‐diverse backgrounds and their families to produce student‐authored and self‐illustrated bilingual picture books in the classroom setting. In this article, we present the instructional process for teachers who are interested in partnering with families to create bilingual books.

Say It in Your Language: Supporting Translanguaging in Multilingual Classes

“…A bilingual or multilingual audience should be present for students to share their work (Cummins, 2011;Durán, 2016;Louie & Davis-Welton, 2016;Rowe & Miller, 2016). In addition to the students present in the classroom, teachers can incorporate family and community members, students and teachers from other classrooms, and administration to create this audience.…”

The Roles of Parents in Community Korean–English Bilingual Family Literacy

“…Despite its importance, the chances for bilingual parents to participate in children's English-dominant literacy programs at school may be less. If that is the case, bilingual family literacy can be a place where bilingual parents are invited to participate and support children in sustaining their heritage culture and language (Dávila, Nouguerón, & Vasquez-Dominguez, 2017;Louie & Davis-Welton, 2016). Paris (2012) proposed the term culturally sustaining pedagogy and emphasized supporting "young people in sustaining the cultural and linguistic competence of their communities" (p. 95) as part of children's schooling.…”

“…Bilingual family literacy can be meaningful for parents in different ways. Parents are supported to help children maintain their heritage language (Wessels, 2014), parents' funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) are welcomed and valued (Louie & Davis-Welton, 2016), families' heritage culture and traditions are celebrated with other families in a public space, and their sense of belonging to the new community is developed (Dávila et al, 2017). Bilingual family literacy becomes a program for bilingual parents to network with other parents (Truesdell & del Prado Hill, 2015).…”

„Allt sem ég þrái“: Menntun og skólaganga barna sem leita alþjóðlegrar verndar á Íslandi

“…Þátttaka foreldra í menntun barnanna og tengsl þeirra við menntastofnanir eru mismunandi eftir löndum og getur hin nýja skólamenning og hlutverk foreldranna í skólastarfinu verið þeim framandi (Block, Cross, Riggs og Gibbs, 2014;Lewig o.fl., 2009;Rah, Choi og Nguyén, 2009). Virk þátttaka foreldra getur þó skipt sköpum fyrir vellíðan barnsins og námsframmistöðu þess (Louie og Davis-Welton, 2016;Martin, Horgan, O'Riordan og Christie, 2016;Mennta-og menningamálaráðuneyti, 2013;Wilder, 2014). Samkvaemt eigindlegri rannsókn Martins og samstarfsfólks (2016) frá Írlandi eru foreldrar sem saekja um alþjóðlega vernd útsettir fyrir félags-og efnahagslegri útskúfun, til daemis vegna tungumálaörðugleika og hindrana gegn virkri þátttöku í foreldrafélögum, samtímis því að þeir eiga að aðlagast nýju samfélagi og tileinka sér ríkjandi hegðun og viðmið.…”

“…Það getur verið krefjandi verkefni að skapa tengsl milli skóla og heimilis fjölskyldna sem hafa sótt um alþjóðlega vernd, til daemis vegna tungumálaörðugleika og menningarmunar, en það er mikilvaegt fyrir barnið, foreldrana og skólakerfið að vel takist til (Block o.fl., 2014;Graham, Minhas og Paxton, 2016;Lewig o.fl., 2009;Louie og Davis-Welton, 2016;Whitmarsh, 2011). Í rannsókn Grahams og samstarfsfólks (2016) eru teknar saman niðurstöður 34 rannsókna á námi og námsárangri barna með flóttabakgrunn.…”