Self-Study and Family Literacy:  Examining Preconceived Notions about Urban Families and Schools

Introduction

              Parents are children’s first reading teachers and as such, face a challenging task during their early years of language and reading development.  In recent years, the field of family literacy has begun to closely examine the role of parents in children’s reading growth, particularly looking at the connections between instruction at home and at school.  Family literacy programs, as these programs are called, are based on the view that families have systems of using literacy in their homes and communities, and that understanding these systems can help educators best work with parents to enhance their children’s learning (Crawford & Coe, 2006). Many of these family literacy programs are intergenerational in nature, meaning they involve family members of varying ages and may also expand the adult participants to include grandparents, aunts, uncles, or even involved adults from the community (Nurss, 2000).

As a doctoral student in the literacy program at George Mason University, I am interested in focusing my studies on using intergenerational family literacy programs to both enhance the reading skills of preschool and elementary students and also to help school staff members learn to use family literacy programs to build communication skills between parents and schools.  I am particularly interested in the ways that urban families and schools use stories and picture books to address community and cultural issues.  In order to learn more about using intergenerational family literacy programs with diverse families living in urban settings, I completed a 100-hour internship with the Roving Readers program of Teaching for Change in Washington, D.C.  During this internship I engaged in self-study research to examine my thoughts about working with diverse urban families and to look at what the internship has provided in terms of my practice as a school psychologist and literacy educator.  This paper will present a brief discussion of intergenerational family literacy programs and the Roving Readers program, as well as a discussion of how the self-study method relates to this internship.  The self-study methods used will be described along with a discussion of information gathered from data collection.  The paper will conclude by highlighting the relevance of these findings to the writer’s practice and to other researchers interesting in working in this area of literacy study. 

Intergenerational Family Literacy

Background Information

Intergenerational family literacy and family literacy are terms that are often used interchangeably.  Intergenerational family literacy refers to programs that involve participants across age groups, for example, parents and children.  These programs examine a variety of facets of literacy education, including parental engagement in literacy activities with their children, the impact of participation in intergenerational experiences on literacy skill building of adults, the relationship of literacy to community history and values, supporting parenting skills, and addressing the needs of English language learners and their families (Gadsen, 2000).  Weinstein (1998) describes one of the goals of intergenerational family literacy programs as increasing school involvement for parents.  This can be done in a number of ways such as using school-based programs designed to help parents learn about catering the home environment to foster literacy skills, by training parents to volunteer in classroom, or by assisting parents with learning to communicate with school staff to advocate for their children’s educational success.  Intergenerational programs have expanded to include not only parents, but grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and involved adults from the community and provide an opportunity for oral and written language traditions as well as cultural and family experiences to be handed down to new generations (Nurss, 2000).  In the urban community, intergenerational family literacy programs can work to raise educational expectations for children while providing an avenue for parents and teachers to open lines of communication (Handel, 1999). 

Home and School Connections

How do teachers and parents work together to create successful family literacy programs in urban areas?  A number of researchers working with intergenerational family literacy programs have written about factors they felt were required in order for a program to be successful.  The first factor described by researchers is the importance of having open lines of communication between families, schools, and communities (Auerbach, 1997; Nistler & Maiers, 1999; Armstutz, 2000).  This begins with both parents and teachers examining their preconceived theories about their involvement with literacy instruction, for instance, teachers assuming that urban parents are not interested in their children’s education and parents believing that they are not welcome in the school setting (Foote & Linder, 2000; Edwards, McMillon, Turner, & Laier, 2001).  Family literacy programs give parents and educators a chance to move away from more traditional parent roles in the classroom such as chaperoning field trips, and into more of a partnership to promote children’s learning.  Opening lines of communication also involves conducting a needs assessment for family literacy programs, goal setting, and evaluation.  In order for a program to be successful, the parents and teachers participating must be involved in planning and development.  Meeting with parents and community leaders about the needs of the family literacy program helps educators to understand the social and cultural contexts involved in literacy learning and allows them the possibility to partnering with existing programs, community agencies, or social networks (Newman, Caperelli, & Kee, 1998; Amstutz, 2000; Garcia & Hassin, 2004). Organizers of family literacy programs should engage in on-going assessment of the program and must be willing to adjust as new needs arise.  Interviews, observations, and surveys are all effective means for gathering this information (Elish-Piper, 2000; Garcia & Hassin, 2004).  Effective intergenerational family literacy programs use a variety of materials and activities to meet the needs of their population.  In each case, participants should be involved in the planning and development of the activities and programs (Neuman, Caperelli, & Kee, 1998; Nistler & Maier, 1999).  Some examples of materials and activities that can be effective in the urban setting are home visits, newsletters, parent-teacher meetings, take home book programs, literacy learning kits, journaling, and involving parents as classroom tutors (Edwards, 2004; Crawford & Zygouris-Coe, 2006).  Even with parent and educator involvement in the development of a family literacy program, participants may continue to be hesitant about changing their home or classroom activities.  Programs may also experience difficulties with retention of participants.  These challenges should not be viewed as set backs to the success of an urban family literacy program, and instead should be used as the starting point for additional conversation about how to help the program better meet the needs of parents and educators. 

The Roving Readers Program

The Roving Readers project began in 2003 as a collaboration between members of the Adelaide Davis Elementary School Parent Center and Tellin’ Stories, a parent empowerment project of Teaching for Change.  Parents at Davis Elementary were concerned with what they believed to be low expectations for their children’s education, particularly in the area of literacy.  They worked with the Tellin’ Stories staff to organize a group of volunteers to go into their neighborhood schools and serve as parent readers and storytellers in classrooms.  The program has since branched out to other schools in the District and by 2007, the Roving Readers had visited 32 classrooms in 7 schools, reaching nearly 3,000 students.  Roving Readers has made a positive impact on the relationship between parents and teachers, has increased parent literacy skills, and has helped raise standardized test scores and morale in the buildings visited by the readers.

Self-Study and Family Literacy

        As I started to design my internship in family literacy, I began to think about how my experience with Roving Readers

might impact my practice as both a school psychologist and as a literacy student.  I had learned in a previous course on

self-study research that it focuses “on improvement on both personal and professional levels” (Samaras & Freese, 2006),

while highlighting how the study impacts the field in a way that can be useful to other practitioners.  Based on the goals I

had chosen for my internship (to become more aware of my own biases when working with diverse families, to become

more familiar with culturally-sensitive children’s literature and ways to incorporate it into the classroom setting, learn more

about how to begin and maintain a family literacy program in the elementary setting, and to become familiar with the

non-profit sector and grant writing), self-study seemed to be an appropriate qualitative research method to employ to

make sense of my learning objectives.  I designed a preliminary study to look at my internship work, beginning with

developing a pre-concept map that brainstormed ideas about my initial thoughts or perceptions about each goal.  In

addition, I decided to keep journal entries regarding each day of my internship that would be analyzed after its completion

for themes.  These themes would then be compared to my pre-concept notes.  Written products completed as part of the

internship would also be examined.  Since professionals besides classroom teachers have not used the method of self-study

widely, I hoped that the information I received from my work would positively impact the field of self-study as well as

improve my understanding of the field of family literacy.

Method

      In order to examine my goals relating to working with family literacy programs with diverse populations and working 

with non-profit organizations, a preliminary self-study was developed.  A literature review was completed on the role of

family literacy, intergenerational literacy programs, and parent-school-community relationships in urban settings. Journals

were kept for 5 weeks during the internship with Roving Readers.  These entries were later read and coded for reoccurring

themes.  It should be noted that at this time, entries and themes have not yet been presented to another self-study

researcher to check for reliability.  This will be completed before the study is submitted to any research publication. 

Setting

    Teaching for Change is a small non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C.  The office staff is comprised of

approximately 9 full and part-time employees, 1 male and 8 female.  The staff has a mixture of cultural backgrounds,

including Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic, and has worked with the organization anywhere between 6 months

and the creation of the program.  One parent coordinator is a former teacher, and all staff members have either attended or

have children who attended or currently attend D.C. public schools.  All staff members are residents of Washington, D.C. 

Teaching for Change accepts interns from local universities and from the Truman Scholar program.  The office is located in

the historic Shaw neighborhood, close to Howard University.  Teaching for Change also operates a bookshop and café a

few blocks from the office on V Street that is a venue for local poets and authors. 

            Teaching for Change has two major funded projects:  the Early Childhood Imitative and Tellin’ Stories.  Tellin’

Stories is a parent empowerment program that works to foster partnerships between urban schools and parents.   It uses

storytelling and quilting for community building and provides a number of workshops related to educational topics.  The

Roving Readers program falls under the Tellin’ Stories umbrella.  As described in the introduction, it allows parents to build

their own reading and communication skills while they serve as volunteer readers and literacy role models for children in the

public school system.  Roving Readers serves schools at the present time in NW, NE, and SE sections of the District. 

Most of the parents and students in the schools served come from African-American or Salvadorian descent.  There are a

number of parents and students who are learning English as a Second Language. 

Data Analysis and Discussion

            In order to interpret the information received from the journal entries, each piece was read individually and coded

based upon the themes that were dominant.   It should be noted that inter-rater reliability was not established, and

therefore themes discussed might be affected by the views of the researcher.  Themes that emerged in the 14 journal

entries were positive perceptions, negative perceptions, evoking change, and revelations about non-profit sector work. 

From positive perceptions, I realized the following ideas:  that I enjoy working with individuals looking with similar

mindsets, books can make a powerful impact on the life of a child, impacting the life of one child is a gift, that I thrive in

hands-on situations with parents and children, and that there is much information to be found from other teachers and from

resources like the internet.  Negative perceptions I had written about seemed to center around the topics of acceptance

and stereotypes.  In the entries there was a reoccurring theme that I was concerned about being accepted by the staff at

Teaching for Change and by the parents in the schools working with Roving Readers.  Most of my concern stemmed from

issues of race, specifically would I be accepted as a white woman?  I also noted in my writing some discomfort at times

with the thought or action of going into neighborhoods where I would be a minority person.  I noted a few occasions were

I referred to an area of the district as “sketchy” even though I hadn’t even been there before.  The final negative aspect

reported in my journals was feelings of discomfort and anger when having someone question my ability to choose

children’s books that are culturally sensitive.  Although other professionals may have valid suggestions, I initially responded

on the defensive when someone questioned books I had picked to share with students about not being the most

appropriate to represent a cultural group. 

    Under the theme of evoking change, I learned from my writing that I enjoy working and conversing with individuals who

have similar ideas to mine about change in regards to culturally minded practice.  I noted that change is usually started by

working with a small group of individuals, and therefore the practice of addressing even one student or parent in a positive

manner is a large step toward fostering change in attitudes in a school building.  It was evident from writings about my

observations and discussions with D.C. school teachers that urban environments and suburban environments have many of

the same concerns.  Parents in urban environments seem to also have similar worries about their children’s education as

parents not in an urban setting.  This is in contrast to what we often hear portrayed in the media, and it was a welcome

change for me to meet several fathers who are the primary family member involved in their child’s schooling. 

    Finally, notes from my journals showed that the non-profit educator sector is not exactly as I expected it to be.  I was

surprised at the varied backgrounds of individuals working in the different literacy-based organizations in D.C. and was

shocked to learn that I am overqualified educationally for many of the positions I was interested in someday holding.  Most

individuals in the hands-on positions with parents and students had only a bachelor’s degree or even just job experience

working with families.  My education level seems to be more suited for director positions.  Also, I was surprised to find

that many of the individuals working at Teaching for Change and other organizations were not as involved in current

research as I had imagined.  I assumed that grant writing required them to use statistically data from research, however

even in the non-profit sector this does not yet seem to be the case.  “Research-based” still appears to be a buzzword when

used in reference to support for funding educational programs.  All of this information helped me to look at the possibility

of working in the non-profit realm in a more realistic manner than I had gleaned from just reading webpages and job

descriptions. 

Conclusions

    This self-study has given me the opportunity to closely examine both my participation in my internship activities and my

own preconceptions about working with families from diverse backgrounds.  From inspecting my journal entries, I found

that I had stereotyped notions about the involvement of urban parents in their children’s education and about working with

different ethnic groups as a Caucasian woman.  I also discovered that I have a engaged in a number of positive experiences

with diverse parents, including working with parents during my internship, that keep me motivated to continue working in

the area of family literacy.  I was given the opportunity to hear how literature and storytelling has positively impacted the

lives of many families in the Washington D.C. community and how education was the key to many families helping their

children to break out of negative lifestyle choices that were common in their neighborhoods. 

    In addition to understanding more about working with parents, I have learned a great deal about selecting culturally

sensitive literature for children and how to incorporate it into the classroom.  It was empowering to write curriculum for

parents to use in the classroom setting with students during the Roving Readers visits, knowing that may inspire a child in

some small way to find the joy in reading.  I also discovered I have much to still learn about what is considered

culturally-responsive, particularly to different groups and organizations serving different purposes.  This self-study has been

beneficial in exposing some of my own biases and triggers that I need to be aware of when working with children from

diverse backgrounds. 

    I believe this research impacts the larger field of self-study in several ways.  First, it provides an example of the

importance of understanding our “lenses” when working with children and parents.  Until we are able to admit and discuss

our ownbiases, we are not able to be fully open to working with others in a non-judgmental way.  Knowing our own

perceptionsmakes us aware of how they are impacting our interactions with others and helps us to improve our practice. 

This self-study also underlines the importance of taking small steps in working toward change.  Working at Teaching for

Change has shown me that there are many ways to involve parents in the school community, however we must sometimes

step out of our comfort zone to invite them to be a part of the group.  This may even mean allowing parents the chance to

work with students during school hours as volunteers.  I have also learned that in order to relate to parents, it is important

to be genuine and use good listening skills so that people feel they are being heard.  School psychologists, teachers, and

literature professors alike can always benefit from a reminder to listen closely to their students as individuals and not as a

member of a stereotypical group.  Hopefully from engaging in both the internship with Roving Readers and with the

self-study project, I have gained skills that will help me to practice effective rapport building between parents, teachers,

and schools and also skills that will allow me to use children’s literature as a bridge between these groups. 

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