Family Literacy: Strengthening the Home School Connection

1. Family Literacy: Strengthening the Home School Connection GED 6250 Kelly Pylkas-Bock Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

2. Friday, April 18 Detailed Course Schedule • 5:00-5:30 Your Journey/My Journey • 5:30-5:45 Our Journey • 5:45-6:15 Common Language • 6:15-6:30 Draw Your House - Where does reading/literacy happen in your house? • 6:30-7:30 Working Dinner - Read Chapter 1,2,3? - burning questions (new vocabulary) and comments  • 7:30-9:00 Energizer, Burning Questions and Comments, Return to your house, Return to our RE-definitions • HOMEWORK - Pile of Ephemera      Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

3. Detailed Schedule Saturday, April 19 • 9:00-9:15 Energizer • 9:15-9:45 What is your lens discussion?  • 9:45-10:45 Read Chapter 4, Ahas!  Think About: Burning Questions, Implications for our teaching lens   • 10:45-11:30 Share Ahas, Burning Questions, Implications • 11:30-12:30 Working Lunch, Read Chapter 5, Brainstorm/Consider ideas for assessment and instructional plan • 12:30- 12:45 Energizer • 12:45-1:45 Technology as a tool for bridging school to home/world (Warlick Article, Resource Sharing) • 1:45-2:30 Family Literacy Events • 2:30-5:00 Assessment/Instructional Plan Drafting and Sharing/Unanswered Questions Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

4. Speaking a Common Language reading, writing, text, literacy, family, family literacy... reading-decoding, communicating, comprehending, getting information from something written, interacts with a reader's thoughts through connections, listening, attending, recognizing print, meaning making, story telling writing - putting our thoughts on paper, communicating ideas, drawing symbols that represent letters or words or ideas, pretend writing, pictures, having a purpose for writing, speech written down, a way to get our feelings out, a way to share generational information Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

5. Speaking a Common Language reading, writing, text, literacy, family, family literacy... text - words in a book, a hard book (example: textbook), requires thinking, material with print, written material, inf0rmation, words, text messaging, shortened ways of writing (example BFF), pictures, wordless picture books, music, movies, oral stories literacy - speaking, knowledge of writing genres, phonemic awareness, understanding, processing written or spoken information, fluency, the understanding that words are written or spoken for a purpose, reading for a specific purpose (i.e. filling out a job application, reading directions to put something together, reading advertising), stroy telling Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

6. Speaking a Common Language reading, writing, text, literacy, family, family literacy... family - a group of people who l0ve and support each other, people you are with when you are not at school or at your job, those people you are with when you are at your job or at school, pets, the people you aren't with (example - grandparents living far away), people you share rites and practices with, caregivers, intergenerational learning family literacy - communication, at home support, a group of people enjoying reading together, interaction, more than one generation, books, real-life literacy (examples: reading a cookbook, non-school reading), tacit things we do that cast an impression of what it means to be a reader or a writer, modeling Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

7. Speaking a Common Language semiotics - process of assigning meaning to a symbol this is shaped by the context from which you come (example bus: children who live in suburbs may associate this image with a school bus; children who grow up in an urban setting may have a city bus as a background experience; McDonalds - if you have grown up eating here it may mean "yummy" however, if you are Hindu it could symbolize a taboo food)  This reminds us not to stereo type or assume information about the families we serve.  Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

8. What is our lens?  How did we learn to read?  What were some critical events in our reading/literacy lives?   Who were critical people who influenced our reading lives?   What are the implications of our lenses for our students? "To appreciate that the cultures, interests, beliefs, and values students carry with them inform their reading and writing, we need to turn the telescope onto ourselves as teacers." (Rowsell, 2006) Time and time again, studies of literacy teachers indicate that our own formative literacy experiences indelibly mark our literacy teaching. (Rowsel, 2006) Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

9. The assumption that as a classroom teacher, I know more about a child than his family holds a particularly negative impact for the children I serve with culturally or linguistically different backgrounds from my own. While the assumptions I make about white, middle class children are arrogant, mostly off base and sometimes right on, I could never pretend to know the experiences of my Hmong or Hispanic students. In fact, teachers often assume that children from non-white cultures come to school with a deficit of experiences. I agree with Sonia Nieto (1999) when she describes the danger in this assumption. Exposing children to books at an early age, reading to them at bedtime, and having a print-rich environment could benefit all children. And while it is important to make all parents aware of the tremendous advantages their children might enjoy if they were to participate in experiences such as these, the truth is that not all children will have the benefit of early literacy activities. This is no reason to give up on their potential, however, as if the first five years of their lives were devoid of any experiences that might benefit their learning. This means that teachers need to build on what the children do have rather than lament about what they do not have. (p. 7) Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

10. Piles of Ephemera To discover how children learn outside of school, we need to observe with an open mind. The "stuff" - objects, booksm artifacts, and mess - all represent prime meaning-making materials.  Children can use almost anything to make meaning.  We refer to these sorts of texts as "piles of ephemera" (Pahl, 2002). Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

11. Technology Resources http://www.edtechconnection.net/ged-8503-edd-presentation/ NICHD Publications Podcasts for Kids Radio Willow Web Telling the New Story - Kathy Cassidy (a technological immigrant) tells the story of how technology is transforming her first grade classroom. When I Become a Teacher Movie Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

12. Shift Happens! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

13. Family/World Literacy Instructional Plan and Assessment Sharing Jill – 2nd Grade Each week highlight a different room in the house.  Ask students to bring in a different item from that room in a brown bag.  Write three clues on the bag.  Students will get to guess the item in each other’s bags.  Students will also take pictures of rooms in their home to create a class book, “Why We Read.”  Finally send home disposable cameras to “catch” family members in literacy activities.  Family members will also try to catch their children in literacy activities.  Create a digital video or book to be posted on the school web site.  Sharon – ECFE Sp. Ed. Consulting Develop a survey to give to community teachers to help them self-reflect on how they connect with their families.  The survey will springboard discussions for the following meetings. (i.e. burning questions) Audrey – Pre-school aged Take digital pictures of art projects and write her story as she dictates or “ghost-writes” it.  Communicate that she is a writer.  Make a book or scrapbook of her art and stories.  It will bridge her known, art, to her unknown, reading or writing.   Try snapfish.com, shutterfly.com or mypublisher.com Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

14. Family/World Literacy Instructional Plan and Assessment Sharing Heather – Preschool aged daughter Create a book with pictures of people and objects around home that are familiar and have meaning (ephemera).  The process of taking pictures would illicit intergenterational discussion.  Mount the photos on a page and have a grown-up write or type the words.  This project is aimed at changing her perception of herself from non-reader/writer to reader/writer.  Consider extending the project to include environmental print (i.e. McDonalds sign).  Arhondhus – ECFE Family Literacy Families facilitate circle time by thinking of a formal or non-formal literacy topic.  Some examples include cultural literacy, singing, dancing, show and tell circle time.  Do something that will show that literacy comes in all forms in everyday life. Helping parents understand that even if you do not speak English you can read a book, even if it is simply reading the pictures.  Use situated practice techniques with parents to help parents talk about home activities to demonstrate that literacy activities are occurring in many non-traditional ways.  To begin the activities consider sharing something from your own home.  Angie – Kindergarten Students are asked to gather information and share about one holiday their family celebrates through interviews, artifacts, hand-me-downs, pictures, recipes.  Collect items and make a class book after sharing.  Families could do some extra research to find out about the broader history of the holiday. Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

15. Family/World Literacy Instructional Plan and Assessment Sharing Diane – ELL First Grader Tap into first grader’s interest in flags.  Make a book of flags.  Find maps to label.  Write about flags he is most interested in.  Help him feel more comfortable speaking aloud.  Consider having him write about things the flag “has” to encourage informational writing. Vicki – 1st graders with developmental delays or ELL Focus on one letter per day.  Children will experience a lesson around a letter sound.  Students will bring an item from home the following day that signifies the letter “A.”  The teacher will introduce the letters and sounds for the next day by sharing something from her home that also demonstrated multi-literacies.  Consider putting all the “A” items on the floor and taking a picture to make an I-Spy book that could be sent home.  Incorporate writing about the items.  Take a picture of students forming the letter with their bodies.  Communicate the letters that students will be focusing on in a peek of the week. Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University

16. Family/World Literacy Instructional Plan and Assessment Sharing Suzanne – 2nd grade Start the year with a letter to families to ask that one adult come into the classroom and speak about her or his vocation.  Ask her or him to bring in a few literacy artifacts from the workplace - perhaps one per week.  Students would learn about many different vocations and make a book with each page reflecting a different vocation a grown up has spoken about.  Students could illustrate on the computer and a class book would be compiled that could be distributed to families after it is completed. Cathy – Hmong Students Draw a Pa ‘n’ dau illustrating cultural aspects of students’ home lives.  Focus on how students tell their story.  Students coul d recall or bring in a Pa ‘n’ dau from home.  Use a read aloud like Dia’s Story Cloth by Dia Cha.  Have a family member bring in a Pa ‘n’ dau to share and explain in class.  Display the  student-made Pa ‘n’ dau online.  Bring in other cultural artifacts that are similar in purpose to Pa ‘n’ dau to share. Kelly Pylkas-Bock LANG 6250 Hamline University