The Family Literacy Project at the Dr. Charles E. Gavin School in Chicago Heights, Illinois, brings together a community college adult education program, an early childhood program, and a local school district. This report of the Prairie State College Family Literacy Project assesses the needs for family literacy among the families in the Gavin…

This annual report reviews challenges and benefits of family literacy programs and presents a summary of outcomes for 2004-2005. Family literacy comprises four components that build on each other to improve parents' and children's achievements: (1) Adult education, including adult basic and secondary education and ELL; (2) Parent education; (3)…

This paper addresses classroom teachers' influence on children's literary learning in families. The challenge of working with families has sometimes been ignored in the past, leading in effect to parental exclusion. An alternative approach can be based on some key ideas. A broad concept of family literacy and an expanded concept of literacy…

These four newsletter issues provide information on family literacy and literacy education programs. Each 16-page issue includes several feature articles; descriptions of literacy conferences and seminars; updates on the National Family Literacy Project; descriptions of successful family literacy programs; coming events; a list of National Center…

Recognizing that a quality preschool program is key to children's high achievement, this videotape presents a U.S. Department of Education teleconference on creating high quality preschool programs and federal funding available for such programs. Panelists from the Department include the director of the Early Childhood Institute in the Office of…

In an effort to provide a sound basis for educational accountability for preschool programs, the Arizona Early Childhood Education (ECE) Standards were developed as a framework for literacy-based programs for 3- and 4-year-olds and to provide parents with a basic understanding of indicators of early learning. These standards, to be adopted by…

This book shares the author's discoveries in a first-grade classroom about Family Message Journals--notebooks in which children write a message to their families each day about something they did, learned, or thought about in school, and then a family member writes a message in reply. The book is intended to spur other teachers to reflect on how…

Identifies and analyzes Korean parents' involvement in early oral language development as a major factor contributing to Korean children's early literacy development. Claims that Korean culture and parents' view support the emergent literacy theory advanced by Marie Clay and also contribute to children's reading and language abilities. Asserts…

Reviews literature on family influence on children's acquisition of literacy. Discusses the ambivalence regarding family literacy theories and the lack of family literacy theoretical frameworks. Identifies types of family involvement and effective literacy strategies for families. Finds that most studies suggest that family literacy contributes to…

Describes Focus on Teenage Parents, a project with an integrated approach that incorporates material on child development, personal identity, and parenting issues to immerse high school students, many of them parents, in children's literature and process writing. (SR)

Describes a school-based family-literacy program initiated by a first-grade teacher in an inner-city school. Describes how joint parent/child classroom activities and parent/teacher discussion sessions (1) provided opportunities for parents to explore their own and their children's uses of literacy; (2) increased their knowledge of literacy…

Examines reasons behind very low attendance of fathers at primary level family literacy events in Great Britain. Discusses rapid social and demographic changes, the sex- segregated power structure in education, the gendered nature of parental involvement in education, and the nature of family literacy events. Concludes that the environment of…

Describes a teacher education program at the New College of California as an example of efforts to empower new teachers to meet the challenges of educating diverse students. Discusses the candidate intake process, the preprogram reading effort, community building, instructional strategies, and the family literacy program, which is integral to…

Twenty urban Canadian community health and social workers received six hours of training in family-literacy development-strategies As a result, participants demonstrated a shift in attitudes about literacy, from skills-achievement to sociocultural perspectives on literacy-achievement, and included literacy events more frequently in their own…

Describes the Support at Home for Early Language and Literacies (SHELLS) project, an early literacy intervention for families of children between birth and age 3 in rural Australia. Findings from monitoring suggest that this collaborative, flexible model has the potential to assist families from a range of social, cultural, economic, and…