Excerpts from Reflective Journals | Excerpts from Literature | References

Often family literacy programs and classes have activities and classes for participants' children built-in to the curriculum. If that is not the case, considerations still need to be made for the children of participating parents. If there is not easy, free access to childcare during your classes, some students will choose not to participate because they do not have anyone to care for their children while they go to class. Consider this issue heavily before embarking on a program that claims to be serving families, yet does not meet the needs of parent participants.

Excerpts from Reflective Journals

• March 7th, 2002 (Wave I) – “Another tough thing about tonight was that Victoria’s 11-month-old baby wouldn’t stay in the nursery (provided for free) and she was with us the entire time.”
• March 12th, 2002 (Wave I) – “Next, I explained (and by this time the crying 11-month old was brought to us…less effective) that I wanted each student to practice reading the book…”
• March 21st, 2002 (Wave I) – “Victoria was there (have I mentioned that the 11-month old is now there permanently with us because she doesn’t like staying in the nursery provided?)…”
• March 26th, 2002 (Wave I) – “Marisol came (a bit late) and brought her 5-year old with her. He didn’t want to stay in the daycare place because apparently there were no other children there tonight. I think the other night classes had all been cancelled and so he didn’t want to stay alone… I was actually excited to have her son there with us, but he was not very cooperative—he kept complaining that he wanted to play with the kids, and he wouldn’t even draw much, or look at all the other great books I had brought. (This made things extra difficult, but I admire Marisol for her great determination to keep learning. One time when he was complaining to her she even told him that she wasn’t going to miss out on her chance to learn tonight—I loved it!). ”

Excerpts from Literature

• Somerfield, 1995, “Critical factors in retention centered around overcoming the many barriers to attendance. Programs that did best in this area…provided round-trip transportation, on-site meals, quality childcare, and counseling and home visits by teachers and social workers” (p. 192).
• Neuman, Caperelli, and Kee, 1998, “Programs that provided for integrated support services from other agencies enabled families to participate more fully in family literacy activities. Addressing families’ needs was complex, often requiring programs to seek support from other groups that could provide transportation, child care, and meals on various occasions” (p. 249).
• Thomas and Skage, 1998, “Adult retention rates have been reported to be significantly higher in programs which offer childcare and parent support, compared to regular ABE classes” (p. 14).
• Paratore, 2001, “We reject the widely held assumption that adults are intimidated by public school settings and that, consequently, programs that focus on adult learning are more appropriately held in community settings. Instead, we have found public school settings to be effective contexts for adult literacy classes. Location in these settings has allowed [for] several special projects” (p. 33).

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