Thesis on family literacy with LEP adults and reflective journal keeping

Although not as much is written on family literacy within the ESL field compared to other aspects of the ESL field, the wide variety within this genre can be overwhelming. Gadsen (1994) describes it this way. “Family literacy currently exists as an amalgamation of models and approaches with varying levels of empirical evidence to support claims of success or failure and with few theoretical frameworks” (p. 2). This claim surely makes sense after reviewing this vast body of literature. Thankfully, the field is narrowed slightly when one looks at programs geared toward immigrants and refugees. Although complex, it can safely be argued that there are two principle perspectives that exist within the literature, guiding how each program is developed and implemented. These two perspectives must be understood in order to wade through the complexity of the family literacy field.

The first, perhaps more common approach, focuses on how to implement family literacy with immigrant and refugee parents, based almost entirely on what schools and teachers deem necessary for these adults. Critics of this approach call it a deficit approach to family literacy. These programs tend to be primarily based on pre-packaged curriculum models, supported by money from large corporations, and adopted by many because of their NCFL endorsement. This is the approach to family literacy programs taken by the NCFL, the Kenan Model, Even Start programs (although Even Start is known for being more flexible in actual practice than other programs), and many others. The NCFL states that they work “to ensure that all families at the lowest ends of the literacy and economic continuum will have opportunities to expand their education and improve their economic and social well-being through quality family literacy programs” (As cited on http://www.famlit.org/media/preleases.html). Their mission statement includes the following goals:

Provide leadership for family literacy development nationwide; promote policies at the national and state level to support family literacy; design, develop and demonstrate new family literacy practices that address the needs of families in a changing social, economic and political landscape; deliver high quality, dynamic, research-based training, staff development and technical assistance; conduct research to expand the knowledge base of family literacy; and create and support systems which will help sustain family literacy programs. (As cited on http://www.famlit.org/aboutncfl/mission.html)

The NCFL has created alliances with funding sources such as the Toyota Motor Corporation and the United Parcel System (UPS). According to information posted on their website, these alliances have made it possible for NCFL to reach populations in many areas, from inner city Los Angeles, to Rochester, New York, to Tucson, Arizona. The impetus behind the NCFL and its programs exists because of their ability to reach many people at one time. The organization claims that through funding from UPS, for example, “nine program sites in Atlanta, Louisville, and rural…Kentucky, have helped prove family literacy's versatility in a number of diverse settings—from preschool centers, to schools designed with special needs in mind; from a large metropolitan area, to an isolated…area” (As cited on www.famlit.org/aboutncfl/projects.html#TFFL).

Funding from the Toyota Motor Corporation has made it possible to promote the idea of parents working more closely with local schools. Taking advantage of “parent involvement commitments between schools and parents, Toyota Families in Schools challenges educators and administrators to view parents in a different light. It also challenges parents to learn ways to support their children's education by improving their own education” (As cited on www.famlit.org/aboutncfl/projects.html#TFFL). Many respect these and other nationally supported programs when it comes to family literacy concerns, placing confidence in the all-encompassing nature of a four-component model (a family literacy model which contains adult education/parent literacy training, parenting support/education, early childhood education, and interactive parent-child activities). Even within an article reviewing what the most effective family literacy programs have in common, Somerfield (1995), on behalf of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, claimed that the four-component programs are most effective, at least when funding distribution is being considered.

In the Foundation’s experience, family reading programs that seek to instill a love of reading, improve the quality and frequency of shared reading activity, and create a print-rich environment do not require these four components to be effective. We do, however, make a distinction, for the purposes of determining strategy and setting funding priorities, between these family reading programs and the more intensive instructional family literacy programs. (pp. 193–194; italics added)

Upon studying this literature and information alone, one would have little reason to believe in any literacy efforts other than the ones being promoted and supported by these large groups.

Another well-known family literacy effort that falls under this approach is the Kenan Trust Family Literacy Project, later known simply as the Kenan Model. This model is also based on a four-component family literacy program. These components include: adult education/parent literacy training, parenting support/education, early childhood education, and interactive parent-child activities (DeBruin-Pareki et al. 1997; Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, 1989). The Kenan Model began as a program in 1988, in two Kentucky schools, and has grown to become the family literacy model across the nation; Kenan Trust funds in fact began the NCFL in 1989. Four-component-model programs, based on this core model, share the perspective that every family that falls below a certain socioeconomic status or lives in an area with greater crime, etc. struggles to teach literacy in the home. They believe that every child deserves the right to become literate and learn literacy in the home, as well as in school. However, they acknowledge that there are “homes that do not encourage…children’s literacy development… [These children] may grow up in environments where writing and reading are peripheral…activities. [They] miss the thousands of hours of storybook reading experienced by more fortunate children before they enter school” (Nickse, 1990, p. 21). The four-component model includes concentrated involvement on part of children and their parents and therefore is highly appealing to many family literacy supporters.

Therefore, this first approach to family literacy has an “expert” or “official” feel to it. National organizations and movements, mainly the NCFL, serve as guides and models for those interested in bringing family literacy programs to their areas. These larger, grant-offering, sometimes corporate-sponsored programs have worthy goals and, according to their evaluations, much success. Most of these programs contain the four key components previously mentioned. Due to their size and ability to branch out, those supporting these more stabilized, rigid programs are able to reach many people, invite them to participate, and retain them in their programs.

The second approach, supported by many who are looking to “change” the field of family literacy, is more of a participatory one. Those on this side of the fence seek to create programs that fit the specific needs of parents and caregivers, even if that means creating programs locally on a case-by-case level. They support programs based on input from the participants themselves and do not believe that the “one-size-fits-all” curriculum applies effectively in every circumstance. Conversely, their methodology is participant-based, student-driven, and anti-deficit in perspective. Supporters of this approach do not approve of the NCFL’s self-proclamation that they are the leader in the family literacy movement. Expert adherents of this ideology include Elsa Auerbach, Denny Taylor, and Gail Weinstein-Shr, among many others. Criticisms of a deficit-driven family literacy model, one that creates programs centered around what the low income students typically lack compared to acceptable middle class standards, stem from program developers and teachers not giving immigrant families due credit for the many ways in which they do use literacy in their lives. Morrow (1995b) states:

We must learn about the literacy that occurs in homes of families from diverse cultural backgrounds and how these parents or other caregivers and children share literacy on a daily basis. We need to explore how such events can serve school learning. Rather than approaching parents who speak languages other than English …from a deficit point of view, we need to identify and build first on the strengths they possess from their cultural backgrounds. (p. 73)

These experts look first towards the parents, as potential program participants, to dictate what the family literacy program curriculum will include.

Other criticism from the anti-deficit supporters includes the false perception on behalf of four-component-model supporters that there is no other way to support family literacy. Auerbach argues it this way.

The problem is rather that it [the NCFL model] is framed as the single best model that all others should strive to emulate. One of the points on which most family literacy researchers agree is that program structures should be context-specific and responsive to the populations they serve and that no single model fits all situations… Clearly, there is no consensus in the field that center-based, four-component models involving both parents and children are superior. (1997, p. 78)

Handel (1999) explains further that the four-component programs are based on false assumptions.

[They assume] a deficit on the part of low-literate families who did not conform to middle-class or school-like standards of literacy behavior; [there is disregard for] the literacy activities that did go on in such families and the parents; [and parents’] goals and aspirations for their children tended at first to be overlooked in the thrust for literacy improvement. (p. 12)

Auerbach repeats over and over in her writings that too often the direction in family literacy programs goes from the schools—to the parents—to the children. With this system, teachers developing programs begin their work with specific needs in mind, yet they are the needs of the people according to the “experts.”

These “experts” often expect parents to conform to pre-decided-upon behaviors and practices, typically, the commonly accepted middle class standards for how literacy should be supported in the home. In the end, “the culture of the school and the established ways of schooling remain intact, unchallenged; it is the parents who must adjust to the schools rather than the schools accommodating the cultural diversity of the students” (Auerbach, 1995a, p. 64). There is danger in these practices because they perpetuate the assumption that there are severe inadequacies in immigrant and refugee homes. As a result of this assumption, Auerbach argues that these programs “ultimately may drive away the very people [they are] designed to help, because [they focus] on their inadequacies and [prescribe] solutions for them” (p. 65). Taylor (1983) also addresses this issue, adding that to avoid this focus it is sometimes better to not greatly alter home practices between parents and children. These efforts can sometimes be disruptive to a family’s balance and do more harm than good.

Supporters of more individualized family literacy programs, united in their disdain for mass, cookie-cutter curricula, repeatedly come out in defense of the parents. Taylor points out that every day negative messages about immigrant and refugee families/parents are transmitted to community members across the nation. Yet, she echoes hundreds of voices when she declares, “When a private organization [such as NCFL] develops ‘national’ standards for family literacy programs, that include ‘well-designed induction activities and friendly intake procedures’ it’s time to act” (Taylor, 1997, p. xvi). According to anti-deficit-approach supporters, too many judgments are made about socioeconomic status and achieved levels of education that in turn govern family literacy programs—down to their locations, content, and participant requirements. Auerbach points out that it has been this way since the term family literacy was coined.

In the years shortly after the 1983 publication of Denny Taylor’s book Family Literacy, when the term first gained currency, most programs and studies assumed that children with literacy problems came from homes with deficient or inadequate literacy practices and that therefore parents needed to be taught to value and support their children’s literacy development; most of these ‘first generation’ family literacy programs focused on transmitting mainstream school literacy practices into the home (teaching parents to read to their children, help them with homework, etc.). (1997, p. 71)

In his 1999 article reviewing family literacy education, Hendrix shares this conviction. He reminds readers that when programs are based on the compensatory, four-component model, they are developed on the premise that they will help compensate for a lack of ability of the parents to be children’s first teachers.

Alternatives to this type of program—programs that tack on specific, restrictive eligibility requirements associated with income, work-status, or living conditions—must exist to more fully meet the needs of parents and their varying situations. Not surprisingly, these alternatives are supported primarily by experts such as Auerbach, Taylor, Hendrix, Weinstein-Shr and Quintero.

This second, anti-deficit approach to family literacy programs is slowly gaining significant momentum and recognition. Its supporters emphasize smaller-scale programs developed in the very communities in which they will be implemented. They view literacy as an aspect of families that must be respected as diverse, yet intertwined with the communities and environments in which the families live. These programs give great attention to the participants themselves, molding the curriculum after their respective ideas and individual concerns. These practitioners are not necessarily against the efforts of larger parties, such as the NCFL, they simply declare that there is more than one valid way to approach family literacy education.

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