Description: Literacy is directly related to school success. Supporting family literacy in the early years directly impacts a child’s school readiness and later school success. Therefore, family literacy plays a critical role in quality programming.
Directions: Design and implement a literacy activity that supports the diversity of families, children, and staff in your school, incorporating reading, writing, speaking, and listening. You can involve all age groups: infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children who are in your center or choose one classroom. Document the process, results, and creations in a way that can be displayed prominently in your school.
Write up specific details of the activity:
- What is the element of this project that supports diversity in your school? (S2a) (S1b)
- What is the activity?
- What steps were taken to begin the project? (S4c)
- What happened as families and staff got involved? (S2c) (S4a)
- What were the creations that emerged from the project? (S4b) (S5c)
- What were the benefits of this project for you, families, and children? (S2b) (S4d)
Include documentation of specific language and literacy skills supported by the activity. Use the most common languages spoken by families in the school program. When thinking of ideas for the project, think of authentic, respectful activities that reflect the diversity of the families that you serve. (S1b) (S4c)
Ideas for this project could include (but not limited to):
- Family story books
- Family oral storytelling
- Family cooking projects
- Family songs/rhymes/finger plays
- Instructions on how to do something specific, e.g. How to be a good parent…How do families show love….how do you eat your meals… how do you celebrate special days…. how do you play certain games, etc.
Ideas for how this project might be implemented include (but are not limited to):
- Family literacy event – designed for a specific day, with advertising, multiple activities that support literacy, etc.
- Working with families one-to-one over the semester
- Creating specific days for families to interact with children in classroom.
- Having families create things at home and bring to school for display and discussion
- Having the school create things for children to take home for families to use and report back in some visual way.
