Tier II: Focused practices: Tools Family Literacy Program

1. Tier II: Focused practices: ToolsFamily Literacy Program A family literacy program connecting school and home.(Morrow & Young 1997) Literacy programs are jointly implemented to actively engage parents and teachers in promoting children’s literacy Intent is to increase the effectiveness of the home-school link to improve literacy outcomes Program created to heighten the awareness of parents, children and teachers concerning the role they ALL play together in the literacy development of children.

2. Tier 2: Targeted Group Intervention-Family Literacy Program: • Evidence based intervention designed to: • Meet the needs of a TARGET GROUP • Shared Needs • Provides TOOLS to parents • This facilitates the “equality of the partnership” • Parents become skilled partners who have the tools needed to SHARE in the responsibility for student learning outcomes • Provides KNOWLEDGE and SKILLS to parents • Helps support parents as knowledgeable PARTNERS in the collaboration process • Provides for clear measurements of outcomes • Shared credit for goal attainment • Shared investment in student learning achievement See FLP Handout 1

3. Intervention Procedures:

4. RESULTS: Improved literacy skills • Children who received the home AND school intervention outscored the children who received the school intervention only on: Story retelling, Story rewriting, probed comprehension, CTBS reading and teacher ratings or reading and writing ability and interest.

5. Results: Increased Practice • Parents who implemented the home intervention reported reading and writing more often with their children and choosing to do more things with them in general. • ACTIVITIES CHOSEN TO DO AFTER SCHOOL:

6. Results: Attitude and Motivation • Parents who took part in the Family Literacy Program reported: • Feeling more comfortable coming to their child’s school • More self-confident about being able to help their child • They learned to be more patient with their child • Children reported: • When I need help someone is there to help me • Lots of people help: moms, dads, grandmas, brothers • Its fun to read

7. Findings/Implications: • Children report that they enjoy working with their parents. • Providing parents with the TOOLS to help effectively increased both motivation, and achievement. • Tools necessary include both materials AND instructions/modeling on how to use the materials. • Parents were enthusiastic about the program because the activities were fun, unlike typical homework. • Teachers reported they had not previously realized the importance or the effectiveness of parent involvement.

8. Problems/challenges: • Consistent parent attendance in the program was a challenge. This was particularly true for single parent families. • Taking on increased responsibility was difficult for many parents, even though they were interested.

9. Determinants of overall success: • Collaborative effort of parents, teachers ,and children working together with mutual respect for each other. • Activities for the home were FUN and educational. • Activities were SENSITIVE to INTERESTS of parents and DIVERSITY of their backgrounds. • Activities such as storytelling respected oral traditions. • The magazine Highlights for Children was non-threatening and non-school like. • Strong connections between the school and home.

10. Discussion Activity: • See FLP Handout 1: Research Summary Family Literacy • Discussion Activity: • Form groups of 4-6 • Review the research Summary • Discuss the key features of this research and identify the following: • Which features of this evidence based practice could be applied in your school, given the resources you have now? • What are the challenges or barriers you would have to overcome to implement a similar program in your school?

11. References: Morrow L. M., & Young J. (1997) A family literacy program connecting school and home: effects on attitude, motivation, and literacy achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 736-742