Family literacy
Encyclopedia
Family literacy is a method of education
. Relatively new, family literacy is currently being put into practice in the United States
and in South Africa
.
services provide a holistic
, fully integrated, family-focused approach, providing parents and children most in need of improving their literacy skills with intensive, frequent and long-term educational and non-educational services. Family literacy services make sustainable changes in a family by integrating all of the following activities:
and economic capacity in society, but their children are more likely to be successful in school. A literate family tends to be stronger family, more likely to remain a wholesome unit.
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
. Relatively new, family literacy is currently being put into practice in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
Overview
Comprehensive family literacyLiteracy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
services provide a holistic
Holism
Holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone...
, fully integrated, family-focused approach, providing parents and children most in need of improving their literacy skills with intensive, frequent and long-term educational and non-educational services. Family literacy services make sustainable changes in a family by integrating all of the following activities:
- Adult EducationAdult educationAdult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
: designed to extend basic academic level, think critically and creatively, solve problems, set and achieve goals, and acquire successful workplace and interpersonal skills.
- Childhood Education: designed to promote the growth and development of young children and to engage parents in their child’s educational program in order to foster meaningful involvement that will be maintained throughout the child’s educational career.
- Parent Education: provides instruction on how children grow, develop, and learn. It addresses issues critical to family well-being, connects parents with community resources, and provides opportunities for parents to network and develop mutual support systems.
- Interactive Parent/Child Activities: provides parents and children the opportunity to share their newly developed literacy experiences. Parents and children interact together, enriching their relationship through reciprocal learning that takes place, enabling them to become true partners in education.
Examples
- Adult Education: The goal of educating parents is to empower and provide resources to parents who are a child's first teacher. Adult Education helps to rebuild relationships between parents and the school's faculty and staff. Some classes and activities provided for parents at the Prairie State College Family Literacy Project are English as Second Language classes, Adult Basic Education classes, General Education Development certifications, and vocational training.
- Childhood Education: Helping to involve parents can be done in a child's learning through play groups, sharing stories and books together, and child-directed play time that all help the child to bond with their parents.
- Parent Education: The family literacy program developed in IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
at the Prairie State Family Literacy Program provides parental support about health issues, good nutrition, discipline, and takes parents and children on field trips to purchase books for children to read at home.
- Interactive Parent/Child Activities: The Prairie State Family Literacy Program has developed a special time for interactive activities that they call "P.A.C.T." time. During this P.A.C.T. time there are play groups that involve both parents and their children working together. They are separated by age groups to help guide the interaction and activities.
Philosophy
The roots of family literacy as an educational method come from the belief that “the parent is the child’s first teacher”. Statistics have demonstrated that adults who have a higher level of education tend to not only become productive citizens with enhanced socialSocial
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
and economic capacity in society, but their children are more likely to be successful in school. A literate family tends to be stronger family, more likely to remain a wholesome unit.