Thesis on family literacy with LEP adults and reflective journal keeping

With such diverging ideas and perspectives in family literacy, where should practitioners begin developing curriculum when trying to fulfill the needs of potential family literacy students around them? Truly, the best point of departure for anyone interested in developing a family literacy program is taking time to reflect on his or her own attitudes and opinions regarding family literacy (Auerbach, 1990). Programs will always reflect the beliefs of those who developed them. Hence, what they value is what they most need to incorporate. Indeed, one size does not, and should not fit all. Realistically, when developing a program, most likely it will

…fall somewhere along a continuum between a prescriptive, interventionist model and a participatory, empowering one. As educators, we need to reflect on where our own practice puts us on this continuum and how the family literacy movement can become a vehicle for promoting change, rather than a bandwagon that impedes it. (Auerbach, 1995b, p. 26)

One major premise on which to effectively build program curricula is the idea that parents and adults that will be participating know, to a large extent, what it is they want to be learning. Their ideas combined with those of trained professionals can be excellent material for more individualized family literacy programs. Four ideas that Auerbach (1990) suggests that need to be part of this process are, first, having a clear rationale for the particular approach chosen, second, creating an outline of the development process, third, possessing “a set of tools and procedures for finding and developing student themes into literacy work”, and fourth, having “a set of resources to draw on in implementing the approach, including materials and co-workers to talk about the process as it develops” (p. 42). Using these guidelines, developers can then use participants’ issues of importance to shape program curriculum.

By allowing what goes on in the homes and communities of families to have the greater influence on program development, instead of what goes on in the schools, teachers and coordinators are insuring greater success and utility of their programs. It may still be the case that parents want what schools would typically teach in a more generic, prescriptive family literacy program, but greater valuing of the program and curriculum is attained when the participants themselves generate and request these ideas as part of the curriculum (Auerbach, 1995b). My aim in completing this project is, in part, to assist teachers and developers in this reflective process.

In actuality, family literacy programs today range from small, locally supported trial projects, to large, federally funded programs. Some programs may have adults and children working and learning side by side, others may have the children in separate classrooms, learning apart from their parents/caregivers (Gadsen, 1994). Whatever the scenario, however, each program is developed with specific guidelines and objectives in mind. Those objectives should guide decisions concerning program location, participants, and content. Shanahan et al. (1995), in their insightful article sharing lessons learned from Project FLAME (Family Literacy: Aprendiendo, Mejorando, Educando), provide excellent questions to ask during program development:

How is family defined by the community? Will parents feel safe and comfortable attending classes? Are babysitters needed? How will absences (including extended visits to home countries) be addressed? Is the program flexible to change as the participants change? Can teachers be younger than the students? (p. 592)

By acknowledging the idea that each of these questions brings a unique response that varies from group to group, those interested in developing or revising their own family literacy program are well on their way to a successful and tailored curriculum.

Currently, many programs exist whose curriculum is predetermined and predefined. Some of these programs were mentioned previously. Two goals of this project, however, are (1) to inform the audience about what other options exist when considering family literacy programs, and (2) to ease the burden of those starting programs with minimal background work completed. Auerbach’s 1989 and revised 1990 version of the book Making Meaning, Making Change is an excellent source for interested parties to refer to during development and implementation phases of family literacy curriculum. In her bold nature, the beginning of the book contains the claim that after studying many family literacy programs, she found “that existing programs are often not informed by research findings: the evidence about literacy acquisition and implications for practice pointed in one direction while the predominant approach to program design pointed in another” (1990, p. 13). The essence of this statement again points to the two differing perspectives on family literacy.

According to anti-deficit program supporters, this gap between research findings and practice results from the belief on which many prepackaged curricula are based that illiteracy as a disease of sorts that can be treated and cured with something somewhat medicinal. Yet, this is not the only interpretation available. Auerbach and others believe that “illiteracy is the consequence of poverty rather than the cause of it… The solution…lies not in trying to reform or remold parents, but in changing the conditions of their lives which get in the way of literacy development” (1990, p. 15). Taylor reinforces those ideas by affirming, “illiteracy does not ‘breed’ illiteracy, and a ‘dose’ of some prepackaged family literacy program will not ‘cure’ those who are poor” (1997, p. 1). Interpretations such as these imply that different approaches to program and curriculum design are necessary.

It is attempting the impossible to develop effective curriculum before even coming in contact with the class. Instead, curriculum “has to be built on particular conditions, concerns and contributions of specific groups of participants at a particular point in time” (Auerbach, 1990, p. 42). This implies an investment of time, energy, and creativity on behalf of curriculum developers; some people are more willing and/or able to put forth these efforts for development and implementation of family literacy programs. There are also others, however, who have the desire to implement these types of programs, yet are restricted by funding sources as to how and what they can implement in their family literacy programs. In one particular case of a school working with a new source of funding, Baker, a family literacy worker in Colorado, stated,

The afternoon segment of the full-day program wasn’t working, but there was little room for flexibility. The full day was a keystone of the NCFL design. Where the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy initiative had allowed local programs to design their own curriculum as defined through grant objectives, there was no such flexibility in the NCFL model. What remained was a committed staff, beleaguered with paperwork, left to figure out how to juggle their understanding of program effectiveness with the demands of the new orthodoxy. (1997, p. 86)

Fandell, an Even Start teacher, expressed similar troubles after feeling controlled by federal funds their Massachusetts site received. “Programs wanting to do critical education need to find their own funding so that they will be free to operate as they want” (1997, p. 153). The issue of funding constraints is not easy to overcome, yet, the combined efforts of curriculum developers and program participants can act exponentially to help assure that relative, interesting, and enticing curriculum is created and implemented in family literacy programs.

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