The role of family literacy classes in demystifying school literacies and developing closer parent–school relations

Abstract

This paper is based on a large study of family literacy provision in England, which was carried out between July 2013 and May 2015. It explored the impact of classes on parents’ relations with the school and their children, and their ability to support their children’s literacy development. The study involved 27 school-based programmes for pupils aged between five and seven, and their parents. It used mixed methods, which involved surveys of 118 parents and 20 family literacy tutors, telephone interviews with a sub-sample of 28 parents, analysis of teaching plans and observations of classes. Findings showed that parents wanted to learn the ways the school was teaching their child to read and write, and by demystifying school literacy pedagogies and processes the programmes developed greater connectivity between home and the school, and parents felt more able to support their children’s literacy development at home.

Keywords:

• Family literacy
• parents
• motivations
• pedagogy
• home–school relations

Notes

1. The term ‘parent(s)’ is used throughout the paper to refer to mothers, fathers and carers.

2. In the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), Level 1 corresponds to a level expected of a ‘poor’ GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education), Grades D–G, which is a qualification generally taken by 16-year-olds in England, while Level 2 is a ‘good’ pass, Grades A–C. Level 3 is equivalent to A-Level (or the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level), which is a school-leaving qualification generally taken by 18-year-olds.

3. A PGCE course is usually one year in length, full time, and a CertEd is usually two to three years of full-time study.

4. KS1(Key Stage 1) is the term used for the two years of schooling in maintained schools in England, normally known as Year 1 and Year 2, when pupils are aged between five and seven.

5. SATs are Standard Assessment Tests in maths and English taken by children in KS1 at the age of seven.

6. Big books are books that are printed in large type face so that they can be used with a group of learners.

7. A story box is a joint activity between parent and child where they make up, and often present, a story using props such as puppets. The activity encourages characterisation and improvisation.

8. Although this list of characteristics is primarily the work of the authors, some of these features have similarities to those identified by the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) in Ireland (National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA), 2010).

9. A digraph is two letters that together make one sound (as in the word ‘chat’). When a digraph is split by a consonant it becomes a split digraph. For example’: in the word ‘wrote’ – the ‘oe’ here make one sound.

10. All the names of the participants in this paper have been changed.