Literacy: Literacy Partnerships Home & School (Article Summary)

These are some article summaries from my 2nd year Studies. It should be longer (although course requirements state a short summary is only required) but normally if the student wants to score higher, lecturers would prefer a longer summary. At least that is what my lecturers at university did.

Article:
Morrow, L (1997) “Family Literacy Partnerships home and school working together”, Literacy development in the early years, Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA, pp.52-85

Summary:
The article first describes a grandmother demonstrating and taking advantage of the print in the grandchildren’s life that is familiar and extending and using it as a pleasurable experience to enrich the grand children’s literacy knowledge.

* Family literacy encompasses all members of the family, as well as extended family members to make use of the different literacy activities that could be the outcome of spontaneous activities, parent or child initiated, out or routines, using drawings or writings to communicate ideas.

* It is important because:

1) Findings reveal home practices that play a major role to literacy success in school settings and the crucial role a family plays in the development of children’s literacy & on how they as members of the family can help.

2) Leichter (1984) states that families influence literacy development in 3 ways: interpersonal interaction, physical environments, emotional and motivational climate.

* It is important that parents provide a lot of materials for writing in the home as the author believes that learning to read is enhanced by concurrent experiences with writing is facilitated by experiences with reading.
* I agree with the author as I believe literacy should also be a family affair and not just left to the school. When family members engage in a family literacy process, it creates a win-win situation, whereby parents learn more about their children and develop a closer relationship as a result. I believe that the author’s perspective is in line with the current practice in education trends, where educators are advocating for families to once again learn to take responsibility and share for their children’s success in developing literacy skills.