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Emergent literacy: A sense of becoming and being literate in Latino families

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Emergent literacy: A sense of becoming and being literate in Latino families

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Content EMERGENT LITERACY: A SENSE OF BECOMING
AND BEING LITERATE IN LATINO FAMILIES
by
Martha Alvarez-Martini
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(EDUCATION)
December 2002
Copyright 2002 Martha Alvarez-Martini
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UMI Number: 3093729
UMI
UMI Microform 3093729
Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
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UNIVERSITY O F SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
The Graduate School
University Park'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 900894695
This dissertation, w ritten b y
A /y^re'c ~ r~j~m /
Under th e direction o f A..er. D issertation
C om m ittee, an d approved b y a ll its m em bers,
has been p resen ted to and accepted b y The
Graduate School, in p a rtia l, fulfillm ent o f
requirem ents fo r th e degree o f
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
D ate December 18, 2002
DISSERTATIONr COM M H LEE
Chairperson
....
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DEDICATION
To Beatrice Wirth, Helge Martini, and Frank Martini, who are loving parents
and who have guided their children through their literacy development
at home and have opened the doors to pleasure reading.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the members of my committee, David Yaden, Robert Rueda, and
Franklin Manis, for their guidance, support, and valuable feedback. I am particu
larly grateful to David Yaden, who guided this project as committee chair.
With special gratitude, I thank my friend, Sheila Cassidy, who gave me
moral support and encouraged me to continue. Without her I would not have com
pleted the study. I am very grateful to the teachers, parents, and students who par
ticipated in this study.
Finally, I thank my sons, Alexander and David, for their understanding,
support, and encouragement while I was going through difficult times.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DEDICATION ............................. ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................. iii
LIST OF TABLES ........................ vii
LIST OF FIGURES ...... viii
ABSTRACT ............ ix
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION..................... 1
Being Literate ............... 1
Becoming Literate ............... 1
The Importance of Emergent Literacy ....... 2
The Problem ............. 4
The Purpose and Questions ...................... 5
Significance of the Study...................... 6
2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE....................... 8
The Sociocultural Approach to Literacy .................... 8
Studies of Emergent Literacy in the Home .............. 9
Literacy Experiences in Latino Homes ................ 13
Summary.................. 19
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................... 22
Overview of the Methodology............................... 22
The Researcher ................. 24
Types of Data ............. 24
Research Design .............. 25
Case Study Fam ilies ............................. 26
Focus Group ............... 27
Classroom .................... 27
Holistic Approach.......................................... 27
Research Sites ..................... 28
Household: Families ...... 28
Selection of Case Study Families ...... 28
Selection of the Focus Group .............. 29
The Preschool ......... 29
The Schedule ................. 31
Instrumentation and Data Collection Procedures .................... 33
Observations.................... 33
Observational Field N otes................. 35
Interviews .............. 35
iv
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Chapter Page
Parent Inventory and Survey ..... 36
Teacher Self-Reporting Survey (Part 1) and Student
Assessment (Part 2 ) ....... 37
Data Analysis........................... 38
4. FINDINGS OF THE STUDY ........ 40
Four Case Studies ......... 40
The Ramirez Family ..................... 42
Parents’ Background Information ..................... 42
Parents’ Education and Goals for the Child .................. 42
The Physical Environment ...... 44
The Social Literacy Environment ......... 45
The Social Domains of Activity Mediated by
Literacy .............. 45
The Gonzalez Family ........................................................ 51
Parent’s Background Information................................... 51
Parent’s Educational Experience and Goals for
the Child................ 51
The Physical Literacy Environment......................... 52
The Social Literacy Environment ................ 52
The Franco Family .................... 58
Parents’ Background Information................ 58
Parents’ Educational Experience and Goals for
Their C hild................. 59
The Physical Literacy Environment................ 61
The Social Literacy Environment .................................... 62
The Alva Family........................... 67
Parent’s Background Information .......................... 67
Parent’s Educational Experience and Goals for
the Child........................................... 67
The Physical Literacy Environment ..... 68
The Social Literacy Environment .................................... 69
Cross-Case Analysis .................... 73
Summary ............. 78
Focus Group .................. 79
Case Study Families and Focus Group: A Cross-Analysis ......... 82
Summary ......................................... 82
Views on Literacy ............... 82
Parents’ Role ....................................................... 84
What Are Your Children Able to Do? ................. 85
Sampling of Parents’ Analysis ..... 86
Quantitative Data ......... 86
Parent Inventory .................. 86
Parent Survey ................ 88
Parent Inventory Summary ........................ 91
Parent Survey Summary .................. 92
Home-School Relationships ...... 93
The Preschool Physical Literacy Environment .................. 93
v
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Chapter Page
Classrooms and Playground ........................... 94
Staff ....... 94
Curriculum ....... 95
The Preschool Social Literacy Environment ...... 95
Literacy-Based Activities ......... 95
Teacher Self-Report ..... 97
Teacher Early Reading and Writing Student Survey ..... 101
Summary ....................... 103
5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .......... 104
Summary of Findings in Relation to Current Research
and Significance ..... 104
Overall Findings .................... . 104
Findings Related to Research Question 1: Utilization
and Interpretation of Aspects of Literacy.................... 105
Home Factors Associated With Conventional
Reading ....... 105
Family’s Ecocultural N iche ..................... 108
Routines ........... 109
Variations in Motives, Goals, and Conditions
Within Families.............. ............ .......... .................... 110
Findings Related to Research Question 2: Reciprocal
Relationships Between Home and School ............... I l l
Congruence of Family Goals With the School’s
Educational Goals ...................................................... 112
Mediating Roles of Literacy ................... 113
Contextual Literacy Skills to Decontextual Lan
guage U s e ..................................................... 115
Theoretical Framework ......................................................... 116
Pedagogical Implications ....... 118
Implications for Teachers ........................................... 122
Implications for Parents................... 122
Policy Implications ........ 123
Recommendations for Future Research .......... 124
REFERENCES............... 126
APPENDIX..................... 133
vi
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LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Teale ’ s Domains of Activity Mediated by Literacy ................ 7
2. Demographics of the Immigrant Parents in the Case Study Families ........ 30
3. Classes at the Los Angeles Preschool .................... 31
4. Overview of Research Activities by the Researcher......... ...... 32
5. Types of Data Collected.................... 33
6. Overview of Data Source and Instruments ..... 38
7. Description of Teale’s Domains of Activity ...... 41
8. Overview o f Domains and Literacy Events: Ramirez Fam ily ......... 45
9. Overview o f Domains and Literacy Events: Gonzalez Family .................. 53
10. Overview of Domains and Literacy Events: Franco Family .................... 62
11. Overview o f Domains and Literacy Events: Alva Fam ily........................ 70
12. A Comparison Among the Four Case Fam ilies................................. 75
13. Characteristics of the Focus Group................. 80
14. Presence of Literary Products in the Homes of the Case Families ........ 87
15. Frequency of Family Members Helping the Child .................. 89
16. Frequency of Reading Events ...... 90
17. Description of Research Activities During the Three Phases 96
18. Frequency of Literary Activities in the School .......................... 98
19. Literacy Events That the Children in the Case Study Families
Could Do .................... 101
v ii
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. A continuum of emic and etic date sources ............. 25
2. Qualitative embedded design o f the stu d y ..... 26
3. Summary o f areas that impact literacy development................... 83
4. Conceptual model of home/school literacy responsibility .................... 117
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ABSTRACT
Research on literacy learning in schools and in homes has been explored
extensively by various disciplines using various epistemologica! perspectives; this
research has positively impacted the view on how children develop literacy. The
intent of this study was to expand on previous studies. The goals addressed in the
study were (a) to examine how families utilize and interpret various aspects of lit
eracy into their own cultural system and (b) to investigate the reciprocal relation
ships that may exist between the social sharing knowledge that occurs within
children’s network of family/community and literacy practices in classroom in
struction
The study was a qualitative descriptive study within an ethnographic ap
proach to investigate a Latino family literacy learning in a sociocultural context.
The study took the form of qualitative embedded design involving four family case
studies, a focus group with eight families, and three classrooms. Over 6 months,
data (field notes, interviews, and transcripted audiotapes of focus groups) were
gathered in two contexts: the four homes and the school.
Overall, the findings of the study indicate that the home plays a key role in
emergent literacy. The emphasis on what parents do with their children that pro
motes literacy development was critical. Confirming other studies, the Latino chil
dren in this study had experiences with written language before formal schooling.
A conceptual model of home/school literacy reciprocity was developed. This
model can assist in exploring the main dimensions in each context (home and
school) and the presumed relationship between them.
ix
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Being Literate
Historically speaking, being literate has been of great importance in West
ern society. In contemporary Western society, being literate is viewed as an
essential aspect of life. But what does “being literate” mean? Heath (1991)
addressed the notion of what having a sense of being literate means historically
and cross-culturally. Her extensive work with nonmainstream cultures within the
United States has led to understanding that methods of learning literacy, as well
as their consequences, vary considerably across societies. Such work as Heath’s
identifies the socialization behaviors of various groups whose approaches to learn
ing and displaying knowledge differ from those of mainstream institutions, such as
the school.
Heath emphatically stated that being literate goes beyond having literacy
skills. That is, understanding of discrete elements of language such as graphemes,
phonemes, letters, and words is not enough. In today’s society, being literate
means being able to think, argue, interpret create, and make decisions. It consists
of mastering a complex set of attitudes, expectations, feelings, behaviors, and skills
related to written language. Therefore, the sense of being literate derives from the
ability to exhibit these literate behaviors.
Becoming Literate
Becoming literate means evolving into being literate. The terms becoming
and being connote a continuous action in the present; it is happening progressively
1
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and manifests itself as a dynamic progression. That is, becoming and being literate
are in a constant motion of evolving into a more complex system.
It has been argued that becoming and being literate are processes that can
vary across individuals and groups and that are shaped and given meaning by soci
ety (Gee, 1990; Heath, 1983; Street, 1984). Fredman (1998) stated that “cultural
identity both derives from and modulates the symbolic and practical significance of
literacy for individuals as well as groups” (p. 348). In other words, literacy is de
fined by culture, and cultural identity mediates the process o f becoming literate as
well as the types of literacy behaviors in which an individual or a group engage.
It is important to explore the ways in which an educational setting such as a
school develops literate behaviors. But it is equally or more important to study
how families and community approach literacy learning and how they display these
literate behaviors. One way of understanding these processes o f literacy develop
ment is to look at emergent literacy that begins at home. It is this notion of becom
ing and being literate specifically in the Latino community on which this study
focuses.
The Importance o f Emergent Literacy
For approximately 50 years, until the 1970s, educators understood reading
from a reading readiness paradigm (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). Reading readiness was
seen as step prior to teaching reading. It implied that children needed to master
reading subskills such as directionality and fine and gross motor skills so that they
would be ready to be taught how to read and write in a school setting.
It was not until 20 years ago that new ways of conceptualizing literacy, in
particular with very young children, emerged. In Marie Clay’s 1966 doctoral
2
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dissertation research the notion of emergent literacy was developed (as cited in
Teale & Sulzby, 1986). By the 1980s, the concept of emergent literacy had
evolved. The research community and practitioners have adopted the term and
have defined the concept (Yaden, Rowe, & MacGillivray, 2000). Teale and
Sulzby identified five major characteristics of young children as literacy learners:
1. Learning to read and write begins very early in life for almost all chil
dren in a literate society;
2. The functions of literacy are an integral part of the learning process that
is taking place;
3. Reading and writing develop concurrently and interrelatedly;
4. Children learn through active engagement, and (e)
5. Through interaction with parents around print, children learn while en
gaged in meaningful activities.
If these characteristics can be found in young children and literacy emerges
at a young age in an informal setting, then literacy development is a profoundly
social process, particularly in children’s relationships with parents, siblings, grand
parents, friends, caretakers, and other members of the community (McLane &
McNamee, 1990; Street, 1999). The essence of this concept is that young children
do not come to school as blank slates.
Nevertheless, there is a view held among educators that some children, es
pecially children of color and low socioeconomic (SES) status, do not demonstrate
literate behaviors (Auerbach, 1991). This issue is the problem of this research.
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The Problem
The recent focus on family literacy that is seemingly designed to bring more
literacy to parents and children has been viewed as holding the key to eventual aca
demic success of children who are identified as at risk for failure in U.S. schools
(Sticht, 1992). This thrust to bring literacy to families implies that families are
literacy impoverished and that families are to be blamed for placing their children
at risk. Several perspectives serve to explain why these children are impoverished.
There are two perspectives that have influenced the schooling of children o f color.
One is the genetic inferior perspective (Sue & Padilla, 1986) that views intellectual
deficiency as inherent in a group’s culture or race. Dunn (1987) argued that lower
scores in individual tests of intelligence for Latinos than for Anglos and Asians
were due to genetic intellectual make-up. In this perspective, children of color are
viewed as lacking the competence necessary for dealing with academics, which, in
turn, permits the school to place blame on certain cultures and not have positive
expectations for these children. The second explanation for children’s language
and literacy deficits is the cultural deficit perspective (Flores, Cousin, & Diaz,
1991). Again, the problem is found within homes of these children, whose culture
is “different” from the dominant culture. The perspective suggests that the lan
guage of these children is inadequate for dealing with the complex uses o f language
required in the context of the school. The expectation would be that, unless chil
dren assimilate to the dominant culture, they will continue to be at-risk students
Literacy researchers (Diaz, Moll, & Mehan, 1986; Goldenberg, 1987;
Heath, 1983; Taylor, 1983) who have vehemently opposed the view that families
are literacy impoverished have demonstrated through their research a contrary
view. As a result of early work with family literacy projects, Taylor (1993,1997)
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argued that educators who are looking for the explanation for school failure in the
homes are looking in the wrong place. She found that, in spite of living below the
poverty level, many families included literacy as an integral part of daily life.
Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines’s (1988) research examined alternative perspectives to
the deficit explanation. Their work with parents and children of low income and
little schooling sought to understand the nature of the context in which the children
were learning. They looked at when and where these literate events occurred and
what the relationships were between these events and the acts of knowing. Their
findings documented that these families, where daily survival was a struggle, had
many ways of incorporating literacy into family life. Auerbach’s (1991) and Para-
tore’s (1994) work with Latino families have provided additional findings that dis
miss deficit models. Studies of two Latino communities (Delgado-Gaitan, 1990;
Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991) not only illuminated families’ literacy experi
ences but also showed that parents were supportive of their children’s schooling by
involving themselves in a process of community empowerment.
What emerges from these and other investigations is a view of a model of
“differences” but not of deficit. It is imperative to continue to study these differ
ences of knowing and how they can be valued and incorporated to mainstream edu
cation.
The Purpose and Questions
The purpose of this study was to investigate family literacy learning within
a sociocultural context. This context was the Latino community. There were two
major goals of this research. The first goal was to examine how the families utilize
and interpret various aspects of literacy into their own cultural system. The second
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goal was to investigate the reciprocal relations between the family literacy practices
and the literacy development in formal instruction at the preschool level.
The research questions were as follows:
1. How do families utilize and interpret various aspects of literacy into their
own cultural system?
2. What “reciprocal relations” exist between the social sharing o f knowl
edge that occurs within children’s network of family/community literacy practices
and classroom instruction?
Significance o f the Study
Research on literacy learning in schools and in homes has been explored
extensively by various disciplines using various epistemological perspectives
(Purcell-Gates, 2000; Yaden & Paratore, in press; Yaden et al., 2000). One import
ant aspect that needs more attention is the possible compatibility or the reciprocal
nature of home literacy and school literacy practices. Purcell-Gates (2000) brought
this issue to the attention of researchers.
Several researchers (Heath, 1983; Purcell-Gates, 1996; Purcell-Gates,
L’Allier, & Smith, 1995; Sulzby, 1985; Teale & Sulzby, 1986) who have studied
family literacy practice have suggested that further studies are needed to investigate
the social roots of literacy in more depth.
Of importance to the present study is Teale’s research (1986) that addresses
the relationships between home literacy background and preschool children’s liter
acy development. A significant finding in his study was that literacy functioned
primarily to mediate domains of human activity. Table 1 shows Teale’s nine do
mains of activity mediated by literacy and examples of literacy events.
6
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Table 1
Teale’ s Domains o f Activity Mediated by Literacy
Activity Examples of literacy events
Daily living routines Writing shopping list, reading recipe
Entertainment Reading the TV guide
School-related activity Reading child’s school papers
Work Reading information on benefits
Religion Reading religious books
Interpersonal communication Reading/writing personal letters,
cards, messages
Participating in information networks Reading sport scores
Storybook time
Reading stories, alphabet books
Literacy for the sake of
teaching/learning literacy Letter formation, word recognition
Note. From “Positive Environments for Learning to Read: What Studies of Early
Readers Tell Us,” by W. H. Teale, 1978, Language Arts, 55, pp. 922-932.
The present study expands on Teale’s work on the activity domains found
in homes by examining the uses and the ranges of the literacy activities found in the
participants’ homes in the context of their culture practice. This study is important
because it probes family literacy practices in context to their everyday activities. It
also looks into the school literacy practices and it takes into account the children’s
literacy development that may be occurring outside of formal schooling.
7
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CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter reviews empirical research and the findings relevant to the
present study. The chapter is divided into four sections, beginning from a broad
view and continuing to specifically focused discussion of research pertinent to the
study. The sections are (a) sociocultural approach, (b) overview of emergent liter
acy, (c) Latino home practices, and (d) summary and research niche of the present
study.
The Sociocultural Approach to Literacy
In attempting to describe literacy practices that occur in a home setting, it is
necessary to frame the study in a socioeconomic, cultural, and historical context.
Therefore, the sociocultural approach lends itself as a framework for this study.
To study psychological characteristics within this frame
work is to study the kinds of social activities that the indivi
dual can and does engage in and to study the psychological
characteristics that emerge in the individual when he or she
is engaged in those actions. (Minick, as cited in Moll,
1990, p. 9)
This school o f psychology has been highly instrumental in giving importance to the
social and cultural dimensions of cognitive development (Scribner & Cole, 1981,
1991; Wertsch, 2000). It is concerned with how the surrounding social and cultural
forces affect children’s cognitive development.
The work of Vygotsky (1978) has had the greatest influence on the discus
sion of literacy development, particularly in the United States if not as well in other
countries. He argued that learning is basically a social process that takes place
through the interactions between children and others in their immediate
8
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environment. Language, spoken and written, in social settings is the foundation of
cognitive development and growth; therefore, it is the main tool enabling human
beings to develop higher cognitive (Vygotsky). Literacy development is a socio
cultural construct the development of which is highly related to people, their
patterns of communication, and their use of the written script to mediate activities.
Vygotsky questioned the scientific psychology of his time and found it necessary to
go beyond the behaviorists’ reductionism (Moll, 1990). He proposed that human
learning be studied from a holistic sociocultural approach; it must be seen in its
total complexity and not in isolation. The following three general themes run
through his writings (Wertsch, 1991; Wells, 2000): (a) learning must be under
stood as it is situated in a broader social, historical, and evolutionary context;
(b) learning is facilitated through mediation (social interaction such as parent and
child); and (c) human action is mediated by signs and tools (i.e., language).
In sum, the task o f Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach to mind was “to
specify how human mental functioning reflects and constitutes its historical, institu
tional, and cultural setting” (Wertsch, 1991, p. 115). This study considers these
themes; thus, the process of learning was observed in the families’ sociocultural
context. The interaction that occurs within family members and how they mediate
this interaction is critical in understanding the learning process.
Studies o f Emergent Literacy in the Home
The literature on preschool children learning to read and write has dramatic
ally increased over the past 3 decades. Prior to this, the educational field func
tioned from a reading readiness paradigm, which held that learning was controlled
by maturation. The curriculum and instruction for young children reflected this
9
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paradigm. Texts emphasized the subskills, mainly gross and motor skills, that were
to be developed before teaching children to read. Beginning in early the 1960s,
early reader studies such as Durkin’s (1966) indicated that the reading readiness
paradigm might be theoretically inappropriate, since many children entering kinder
garten already knew how to read. The notion of “emergent literacy,” a term coined
by Clay in her 1966 doctoral dissertation (cited in Braunger & Lewis, 1998), fur
ther turned attention from the concept of readiness to examining young children’s
reading and writing in light of language acquisition research. In her research, the
main goal was to provide better descriptions of the early reading and writing be
haviors of very young children. Her study showed that young children could en
gage in reading behaviors at preschool age, long before formal schooling.
By the 1980s numerous studies were showing that, before children enter
formal schooling, they are ready to move into more complex literacy activities.
This wave of new research provided insight into how young children use the same
type of learning strategies seen in oral language to begin to make sense of the print
that they found in their context (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982; Heath, 1983; Sulzby,
1985; Taylor, 1983; Teale, 1986; Wells, 1986). Because these studies focused on
home and community settings, researchers began to understand the importance of
informal literacy in the home. Heath’s (1983) seminal in-depth longitudinal study
looked at the nature of literacy in two working class communities and one main
stream community. In the Appalachian area of North Carolina, children in the pre
dominantly African American community in “Traekton” learned by listening and
telling stories. Following oral tradition, these children’s linguistic code, meanings,
and approach to the reading process were not viewed as aligned to mainstream
learning. On the other hand, while the White working class of Roadville
10
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community approximated the cognitive and linguistic patterns that were needed to
prepare them for school, they did not reach the level required to sustain academic
success.
Heath’s research showed how these two working communities very much
wanted their children to succeed in school. However, different beliefs about liter
acy and different uses for literacy as well as their uses of language prepared them in
different ways from what lay ahead for them in the mainstream community who ran
the school system. These different ways of knowing brought about discontinuities
between the home and the school and subsequently resulted in much lower aca
demic achievement.
In Teale’s (1986) study of low-income families, he addressed the relation
ships between home background and preschool children’s literacy development.
One critical feature in his observations was that reading or writing functioned not
as isolated events but as part of the social activities of the family members. Chil
dren were engaged in social activities for reasons other than learning the skills of
reading and writing. In order to do his analysis, he developed a scheme for de
scribing the types of activities that were mediated by literacy in the homes of the
participants. He identified nine domains of activity occurring in the homes. His
domain analysis contributed in terms of the factors that affect the home literacy
experience. Like Heath, he concluded that the social and cultural structural factors
affect children’s literacy development
Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines’s (1988) study of six inner-city families contin
ued to support Heath’s findings and guide other researchers in the understanding of
how families display, within their everyday lives, a variety of early literacy experi
ences. In these homes, they found many reading and writing experiences available
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to the children. As in Heath’s work, they found a mismatch between the home and
the school in the uses of literacy. The study refuted the notion that poor, minority,
and immigrant families do not value or support literacy development, nor are they
literacy impoverished. The researchers stated that educators were looking for an
explanation for school failure in the wrong place.
On a similar topic that extended Teale’s findings and other researchers’
findings are the studies (Purcell-Gates, 1996; Purcell-Gates et al., 1995) that ex
plored the relationship between the uses/functions of print and the emergent liter
acy knowledge held by the young children and their families. Their findings
indicated that families used print for various purposes as they went about their daily
activities, and they confirmed previous accounts of literacy practice in low-SES
homes.
All of these studies suggest that families are engaged in language and liter
acy practices that are relevant and meaningful to their realities. These literacy
practices can vary based on different family social and cultural experiences and
needs. Researchers have also identified a range of uses of literacy and the various
functions of print found in the homes. Overall, literacy was seen a continuous
ever-changing process that ultimately is shaped and defined by the cultural attitudes
and beliefs. What was of great importance in their findings was that, in spite of
economic hardships and lack of understanding of the school culture, parents lived
with hope and motivation that their children would have a better opportunity in
their schooling than they had experienced. These parents were willing and capable
to support and make sacrifices to ensure the education of their children. It can be
concluded from these studies that home literacy practices, with all of their differ
ences in ways of knowing, contribute to literacy learning.
12
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Literacy Experiences in Latino Homes
It is of importance to acknowledge the research that has informed about
how many children learn to read and write. It has helped to form another picture of
literacy through the lens of the family. These studies are snapshots taken at speci
fic times and places, focusing closely on a few families in order to view more spe
cific details. As a whole, these snapshots have provided additional insights and
have contributed to the knowledge base about emergent literacy. As a result, re
searchers can frame new questions for further study in understanding the process of
literacy development.
As recently as 2000, major reviews of family literacy research (Gadsen,
2000; Purcell-Gates, 2000) have provided researchers a summary of this research.
Other reports, articles, and publications (Auerbach, 1995a; McGee & Purcell-
Gates, 1997; Yaden & Paratore, in press; Yaden et al., 2000) have described, re
viewed and critiqued literacy research. These reviews have pointed out the areas
that have not been addressed in research and that are critical in order to have a more
complete picture.
Auerbach (1995b), in her review of family literacy programs, described
them and classified them into several perspectives. These perspectives range from
intervention/prevention to action for social change. That is, some programs focus
on seeking to change families so that they may assimilate into the existing system.
Other programs focus on informing the school system of the parents’ beliefs and
practices so that they can incorporate culturally familiar and relevant content into
their literacy program. Still other programs seek to empower families to change
those aspects of the social order that exclude them. Auerbach’s intent in her analy
sis was to maintain the discussion about what family literacy can and cannot do and
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to suggest that researchers should “problematize solutions” rather than prescribe
them (p. 658).
Researchers would agree that much has been learned about emergent liter
acy process. However, as Purcell-Gates (as cited in McGee & Purcell-Gates, 1997,
p. 315) stated, “We clearly don’t know enough to ensure that all children will learn
to read and write successfully.” To make sure that all children have the opportunity
to read and write successfully, investigation must continue into literate traditions,
values, and practices of nonmainstream homes. One unexplored area that Purcell-
Gates (2000) identified is the issue of “compatibility among the cultures of schools,
homes and family literacy programs” (p. 866). Although she does not elaborate on
this issue, it is one that other researchers have mentioned but have not specifically
addressed.
A systematic effort to explore the Latino experience and Latino literacy
practices has gained momentum within the past 20 years. Some of these studies
focus on immigrants who are integrating into the host country. Immigrants are
those who have moved from the country of origin to a host society for economic,
social, or political reasons. Immigrants bring with them a set of beliefs, knowl
edge, and skills that are likely to change with contact with a new culture. Many
experiences that they have encountered have been of being socially, economically,
and politically disenfranchised in society. These immigrant families are continu
ally reconstructing their lives through coping and adapting mechanisms in order to
participate as members of a stable community. Because such realities exist, one
can form some assumptions to direct the research.
1. Families are not in a static, unchanging geographical locations. The lo
cale of each family depends on the family’s circumstances.
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2. There is no set of family structures that is common to all; structures vary
based on the past and contemporary experiences of the family.
3. The family’s contributions in terms of knowledge and skills are dy
namic; they change according to changes in the family’s realities.
4. Literacy can be seen as a continuously changing activity that is modified
as a result of critical events.
A number of studies have examined the literacy practices within the context
of Latino communities, focusing on the entire family (Quintero & Huerta-Macias,
1990; Quintero & Velarde, 1990). An intergenerational literacy project’s (Project
FIEL) main purpose was to model to parents literacy strategies that they could
use at home. Parents and grade K-l children were engaged in learning strategies:
(a) initial inquiry and responses, (b) active learning activity, (c) language experi
ence by writing and reading, (d) storybook reading, and (e) home activity. Parents
and children were mutually engaged in learning from each other. Children learned
to dictate and parents learned to write the dictation. Parents read while children
questioned. They could communicate in Spanish or English, but most of them
opted to code switch, which meant that they were comfortable with both languages.
The studies on households and what they inform about families’ fund of
knowledge and how it can contribute to formal teaching in the classroom are well
documented (Moll & Gonzalez, 1994; Moll & Greenberg, 1990; Velez-Ibanez &
Greenberg, 1992). Moll and colleagues defined funds of knowledge as those “his
torically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills es
sential for household or individual functioning and well-being” (Moll & Gonzalez,
p. 443). Throughout their case studies, they identified the funds that were part of
families’ daily lives. These were useful/functional skills that families needed to
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create, repair, build, and design. These funds of knowledge changed according to
their needs and present reality. They were shared and learned within the families
and community. Families established social networks and supported each other
mutually. While children were learning, the parents provided a zone of comfort in
which the children were allowed to experiment and to correct their own errors
without negative “put-down.” These experiences built children’s perseverance,
creativity, intellectual capabilities, and self-esteem. The researchers’ findings indi
cated that learning within the household and community was in contrast to the tra
ditional classroom experience. While much of learning in school is done in
isolation, households work together through social networks. While schools func
tion from a behaviorist model of learning and discipline (negative/positive conse
quences), households work from cooperation and encouragement. Moll argued that
documenting the activities that occur at home to affirm the intellectual capabilities
should be acknowledged and valued and that schools should capitalize fully on the
many strengths that children bring into normal instructional settings.
Goldenberg’s (1987) and Goldenberg and Gallimore’s (1991) ongoing work
with Latino students, mainly from southern California, focused on literacy devel
opment in children’s Spanish language and parent involvement. While their case
study was mainly in the school setting, inquiry on the home and school connection
was important to their study. The researchers documented a school that gradually
moved from a reading readiness paradigm to an early literacy development. The
mind set of teachers was that children were not ready to learn to read and write nor
that they had support at home. The teachers had very low expectations of students’
academic performance. Contrary to the school beliefs, parents were motivated and
valued educational attainment. Although many of the parents had little formal
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schooling, they felt competent in helping their children. As the paradigm shifted,
so did the need to involve parents. Despite the fact that the researchers found home
and school discontinuities, their findings suggested important areas of compatibility
with homes on which teachers could build. While the school made an effort to in
volve the parents more, the focus was mainly on how parents could do school liter
acy activities in a deliberate systematic way in their homes, rather than learning
from the parents what they knew about reading and writing. Goldenberg made
general suggestions as to what the families could do to help the schools in devel
oping their children’s literacy.
Trueba and Delgado-Gaitan (1988), in collaborative effort, have added
notably to studies on the nature of Latino family interactions involving literacy and
to explore family-school relationships.
In the Portillo 3-year study, Delgado-Gaitan (1990) posed the research
question about how parents assisted their children in the education process, and
how parents socialized each other to maximize their potential in dealing with the
school. Her study was in context of the school and home. First, she examined the
literacy activities in the classroom and then she focused on the home literacy-
related activities. Time was given to both home and school environments to ex
plore any meaningful connections between these two settings. Finally, Delgado-
Gaitan documented the process that parents used to organize themselves to learn
more about the schools and how to work with their children. Her findings regard
ing classroom literacy instruction were mainly from a traditional approach. That is,
students were grouped by ability and the curriculum was more challenging for the
advanced group and more prescriptive for the novice group. Differentiation of in
struction between these two groups was evident. In reading, the learning process of
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deriving meaning came from the text in the literacy activity, whereas in the home
setting, literacy activities ranged from emotional support to storybook reading.
During their daily interactions, parent and children jointly created meaning. Par
ents who had learned through their school involvement that reading to the children
was important were reading to them more than were other families. Parents com
municated more in Spanish, but their children helped by translating. It was of no
surprise to find that parents valued education and cared about their children’s
schooling. The parents’ desire learn about schooling for their children was impor
tant, but the main obstacle was understanding the school culture. In this study, the
issue of discontinuities between school and home prevailed, especially in the area
of teaching and learning.
In the Secoya study (Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991), one of the main les
sons learned was that “children’s interactions in their home, community and class
room enhances their ability to learn within the respective conditions in those
respective settings” (p. 142). The question asked by the researchers related to the
role of culture in determining patterns of learning within the home and the school.
In the area of language and literacy, the researchers found that children had more
and richer experiences in language development at home than in the classroom. As
children negotiated meaning through language with siblings and friends in various
situations, they developed higher cognitive skills. Yet in the classroom, they had
less time and opportunity to use language for functional purposes. In the area of
literacy, families used and worked with different types of written text even more
than the academic materials brought from school by the children. Even though
parents spent less time in reading activities, what was common for these families
was the reading of family letters and school information bulletins and other texts
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that were needed in their immediate reality. Significant in this study was the docu
mentation o f the children’s cultural transition from the home learning environment
to that of school. For many children, the experience was one of alienation or isola
tion. Having documented such experiences, Delgado-Gaitan and Trueba explored
the concept of empowerment. They looked into the “nature of power and the
process of empowerment as a perspective and way of explaining cultural change in
the Secoya community and broader surroundings”(p. 15).
These studies lead Delgado-Gaitan and Trueba to develop a framework
called the Ethnography of Empowerment (Delgado-Gaitan, 1993). Through this
framework, an understanding of the concepts and the processes of disempowerment
and empowerment were discussed in terms of disenfranchised communities. Sec
ond, through empowerment, communities developed awareness of their social,
economic, and political conditions that could lead them to act on their own behalf.
Third, this framework allowed for the interaction between researcher and partici
pant and construct knowledge that ultimately brought about improvement of the
educational and socioeconomic conditions of the communities.
Summary
These studies have provided a description of Latino communities who have
been involved in literacy development of their children in ways that are meaningful
to them.
Goldenberg (1987) refuted the notion o f a deficit model for family literacy.
He argued that children and their families possess strengths and can help the school
by supporting their children’s literacy development. He also found that there might
be some compatibility between the school and the home. However, his suggestions
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leaned more toward the school telling the parents what to do rather than looking at
compatibility as a reciprocal relation. Auerbach (1995b), in a review of research,
concluded:
Studies suggest that the extent to which parents use literacy
in socially significant ways as an integral part of family life
rather than the extent to which they do intentional, add-on
literacy tasks with children is key in shaping children’s lit
eracy acquisition, (p. 19)
The intervention perspective suggested by Goldenberg (literacy intervention with
school-like activities) should be reconsidered with great caution.
The studies conducted by Quintero and Velarde (1990) and Moll and Gon
zalez (1994) emphasized the multiple literacies and resources found in homes and
communities. They suggest that these literacies and resources be acknowledged,
valued, and incorporated by the educational system. Moll and colleagues devel
oped a framework in which the school system (in this case, the teachers) research
the students’ households to find the funds of knowledge that can be incorporated
into the curriculum and instruction.
Delgado-Gaitan and Trueba’s detailed descriptive case studies focus on
the assumption that families are not culturally deprived but that they have been
marginalized by political, economic, and social factors in the dominant culture.
Through their investigations as researchers, they have brought parents to the
awareness level o f their role in the education of their children. Consequently, par
ents have taken action in the form of inquiry to understand the educational system
and the impact that it has on children’s learning.
This type o f inquiry, with action as an outcome, is what Auerbach would
call a social change perspective (Auerbach, 1995a). The intent is to empower
families to change those aspects of the system that excludes them. This perspective
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is a very powerful one. However, when teachers also develop awareness and un
derstanding of the families’ literacy experiences, teachers can be empowered. This
is what a reciprocal relationship can be. Compatibility between families and
schools (teachers) can develop.
This review has focused on issues of literacy by looking at emergent liter
acy, family literacy, and Latino experiences with literacy. In reviewing the relevant
literature, it was shown that family realities are dynamic and their understanding of
literacy is based on those realities. These changes that occur within families create
new situations and conditions to be examined. Therefore, there is a need to con
tinue to study those experiences that may lead to a deeper understanding. Also, the
aspect of “reciprocal relations” has not been explained in detail. It is critical to
examine whether there is a relationship between the home and the school in literacy
practices and whether this relationship leads to continuity o f literacy development.
Therefore, the present study examines the areas mentioned above to address the
following issues: (a) to examine how families utilize and interpret various aspects
of literacy in their own cultural system and (b) to investigate the reciprocal rela
tions that may exist between the social sharing knowledge that occurs with chil
dren’s network of family/community and literacy practices in classroom
instruction.
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CHAPTERS
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Overview o f the Methodology
This chapter is organized in three sections. First, an overview of the meth
odology of the study is presented. Second, the research design and the procedures
followed in the study are described. Third, the issue of triangulation is addressed.
A qualitative, descriptive study within an ethnographic approach to investi
gate a Latino family literacy learning in a sociocultural context was utilized. Ac
cording to Yates (1987), “Ethnography is the study o f the world o f a people”
(p. 62). It is based on the belief that each culture has its unique worldview and
ways of assigning meaning to human behavior. The task was to capture as clearly
as possible a picture of that worldview and sociocultural knowledge within the
sample studied. However, the intent was not to only describe a series of events and
behaviors but also to render a theory of cultural behavior (Wolcott, 1987). The
ethnographer takes the “inferred” from the words and behaviors of members of the
group being studied and attempts to make explicit what members of the group
know only implicitly.
The second focus of the investigation is the aspect of “reciprocal relations,”
that is, to investigate the relationships between home literacy background and pre
school children’s literacy development in school.
An important concept that is critical in the study of culture is context. In
order to study children and their family members, the researcher needed to situate
them in a specific place and time. Graue and Walsh (1995) defined context as “a
culturally and historically situated place and time, a specific here and now”
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(p. 141). According to Graue and Walsh, there are two contexts that are relevant
to a study. One context is the local context where the research takes place: the
home. The second context is the one in which the local context is embedded; in
this case, it is the school. There is a definite relationship between these two con
texts. While main observations and data construction are in the local context, a
through understanding and interpretation is meaningful when both contexts are
considered. As Trueba and Delgado-Gaitan (1988) would argue, an ethnographic
study moves in a complete cycle, from the home to the school and again to the
home.
Contexts are social (McDermott & Roth, 1979, as cited in Graue & Walsh,
1995). “Contexts are constituted by what people are doing, as well as when and
where they are doing it” (p. 143). The researcher must observe not only observe
the physical setting but, more important, the social interaction of the participants.
In short, to understand the development of literacy, the researcher must
study the environments in which young children develop and the ways in which
these contexts provide opportunities for literacy involvement. The environment
includes not only physical surroundings but also human relationships, which de
termine when, how often, and in what situations children are introduced to the
tools, materials, uses, and meanings of literacy. Given this setting and the research
questions of this study requiring a focused and detailed examination of home liter
acy experiences, a qualitative, descriptive study was used to investigate the family
literacy learning within a sociocultural context.
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The Researcher
The researcher’s ethnic and cultural background, which is similar to that of
the families in the study, was an important factor in establishing a relationship with
the families. Her parents immigrated to the United States when she was about 8
years old. They worked many hours in jobs that would make ends meet and they
tried to help their children, who were attending a school system different from that
of their native country.
Although this researcher could identify with the community, she has her
own perspective and biases and needed to be opened to listening and understanding
other perspectives. It was a mutual learning process for the researcher as well as
the researched. Good interpretive research addresses the gaps between the re
searcher’s perspective and those of a study’s participants and should be reflective
of the history of the researcher’s viewpoint. Qualitative researchers use several
techniques to check on and enhance a study’s validity. The researcher used, in
combination, some of the following techniques that reduced researcher bias:
(a) recognize one’s own biases and preferences and be honest with oneself in seek
ing them out; (b) make a concerted effort to obtain participants’ trust, which will
provide more detailed, accurate information from participants; (c) use verbatim
accounts of observations or interviews by collecting and recording data with tape
recordings or detailed field notes; and (d) triangulate by using different data sources
to confirm one another.
Types o f Data
According to Krippendorf (as cited in Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990),
there are two types of data: emic and etic. Emic data are minimally imposed by
the researcher. That is, data emerge naturally from observations in a natural
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setting. Etic data are imposed by the researcher. Both types of data can be used
as complementary to compensate for their limitations. Generally speaking, if the
different data methods were to be placed in an emic and etic continuum, observa
tions, focus groups, and unstructured interviews would be closer to the emic side.
However, surveys and inventories would be closer to the etic side, as illustrated in
Figure 1.
Emic_______________________________________________________ Etic
observations - unstructured interviews - surveys - inventories
Figure 1. A continuum of emic and etic date sources.
Based on the research, questions were selected to elicit both types of data;
instead of viewing the process in a linear way, the process was seen in a cyclical
manner. That is, it was initiated with observations and moved to surveys/inven
tories and back to observations. This process allowed for a better understanding
of the issues being studied.
Research Design
Since the aim was to describe systematically the nature of the literacy prac
tices in Latino families and to explore the reciprocal relations between the home
and the school, the study took the form of qualitative embedded design.
This design involved four family case studies, a focus group with eight families,
and three classrooms. Figure 2 presents the qualitative embedded design of the
study.
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Focus Group Classrooms
Figure 2 . Qualitative embedded design of the study.
Case Study Families
The case study involved four families whose children participated in
a preschool. They were observed in depth with respect to their beliefs and inter
pretations of what constitutes literacy. The aim was to increase generalizability.
“By comparing sites or cases, one can establish the range o f generality of a finding
or explanation, and, at the same time, pin down the conditions under which that
finding will occur” (Miles & Huberman, 1984, p. 151). However, Yin (1989)
stated that a common practice is to generalize from one case to another, which in
turn becomes a trap for the researcher. Instead, a researcher should generalize
findings to “theory” (p. 44). Finally, Yin noted that the evidence from multiple
cases has been considered more compelling and the study is thought to be more
robust.
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Focus Group
Another aspect of the research design was the inclusion of a focus group.
An assumption related to the use of a focus group is that attitudes and perceptions
are not developed in isolation but through interaction with other people. The focus
group also serves as a confirmatory tool (Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990). Therefore,
a group of parents was invited to participate. During a parent meeting at the pre
school, the purpose of the study was presented and the role of the focus group was
described. Eight parents chose to participate; none was a case study participant.
The meetings with the focus group did not occur until a month after home observa
tions had been initiated. Any issues arising from observation of the case families
were taken to the focus group for clarification, verification, or confirmation.
Classroom
The third aspect of the design was the inclusion of the preschool context:
specifically, the classrooms of the children in the case study families. The children
were observed within the context of teacher-child and child-teacher interactions in
language and literacy development.
H olistic Approach
In order to understand and recognize the diverse ways in which families use
and learn from literacy in their lives, a holistic approach to research was imple
mented. Cummins (2000) posed a “research-theory-policy” approach as an alterna
tive to the reductionist approach. Basically, he stated that knowledge is generated
by (a) observing phenomena, (b) forming hypotheses to account for the observed
phenomena, (c) testing these hypotheses against additional data, and (d) refining
the hypotheses into more comprehensive theories. The process followed in the
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present study was consistent with Cummins’s alternative approach: (a) Phase 1—
observed, collected data, and conducted semistructured interviews within 5 months;
(b) Phase 2— identified patterns in the literacy learning of children in the social
interactions in which this learning was embedded (from November until March in
four homes and in three classrooms); (c) Phase 3— used theoretical sampling to
further develop and refine the hypotheses generated, and through data analysis,
confirm or disconfirm the hypotheses; and (d)—Phase 4: collected data that sup
ported, extended, or challenged the patterns pursued in data analysis.
Research Sites
Household: Fam ilies
The main unit of study was the child in the context of his environment.
Wertsch (1979) stated that a unit of analysis “includes both the individual and
his/her culturally defined environment” (p. viii). These families were located east
of downtown Los Angeles. Many of the parents worked in the garment and whole
sale district. The working and living environments were in a high concentration of
gang activity. According to agency figures, over 60% of the families served in this
area are single mothers with 2 to 3 children, with monthly incomes ranging from
$584 5o $1,050. Over 98.7% of families have incomes below U.S. federal poverty
guidelines, with 35% of the children prenatally exposed to drugs or alcohol. Also,
a high number are considered to be at risk for abuse or neglect.
Selection o f Case Study Families
The families that were invited to participate in the project were Latinos who
spoke Spanish. Many were recent immigrants from Central America and Mexico.
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A flier was sent to the homes of approximately 70 families, inviting them to attend
a meeting to inform them of the project. About 15 parents attended the meeting.
The researcher presented the focus and purpose of the study, and invited the parents
to participate in the case study. Four families volunteered to be part of the study.
Several other families wanted to participate but were not able to do so because they
were living in a multiple family home or were temporarily staying in a mission
room until they could afford a place of their own.
Selection o f the Focus Group
On the second month during the monthly parent meeting, which 30 parents
attended, the researcher invited parents to participate in a focus group; eight fami
lies accepted. Some of these parents who accepted were those who were not able to
participate in the case study. Table 2 presents the demographics of the participating
parents. The average level of education of the focus group participants was 7th
grade; they were, on average, 25 years old; they had been in the United States for
an average o f 8 years; there were, on average, four persons in each household.
The Preschool
The second context in the study was the school. To study the relationship
between these contexts, one needed to also explore the physical and social environ
ment of the school.
The preschool selected for the study was one o f several preschool centers
owned by a parent agency located in downtown Los Angeles. The preschool was
in its 2nd year of providing services to the community. The preschool centers had
been established to provide childcare to low-income families working in the gar
ment and wholesale district. The wholesale district area is divided into three zones:
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north, central, and south sides of the city. The main wholesale trade is in clothing,
jewelry, fabrics and accessories, toys, and food. There is a wide range o f jobs,
from working in the warehouses to selling the products. The working community
has been organizing themselves to make the area a safer place to be and have pub
lished a monthly community newspaper distributed in the three zones: the Los An
geles Garment and Citizen.
Table 2
Demographics o f the Immigrant Parents in the Case Study Families
Family Level of education
Years in the
United States Age
Number in
household
Ramirez Father 6th grade 8 32 3
Mother 6th grade 6 38
Gonzalez Mother 12th grade 18 23 2
Franco Father 6th grade 6 40 7
Mother 6th grade 10 26
Alva Mother 12th grade 14 22 2
Parents who are considered with low-income salaries and work in the whole
sale district are eligible to apply at any of the preschools in the area. There were
approximately 70 families, mainly Latinos, whose children were participating in
the preschool. Table 3 shows the composition of the classes.
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Table 3
Classes at the Los Angeles Preschool
Number of
students Age (years) Staff
25 3 Bilingual Latino teacher, bilingual instructional aide
25 4 Bilingual Latino teacher, bilingual instructional aide
25 5 Bilingual Latino teacher, bilingual instructional aide
The Schedule
Researchers in ethnographic studies cannot study a social world without
being part of what is examined (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994). As a participant,
the investigator attempts to immerse herself or himself in the activities of the peo
ple being studied (Spradley, 1980). The role of the present researcher was an active
one. In a participant-observation continuum, one moves from a passive participant
to an active participant. The researcher went through three major phases.
The first phase was one of getting acquainted. In November the researcher
met with the preschool supervisor to introduce herself and to gain an overview of
the preschool. The supervisor suggested that the researcher spend time in the pre
school so that children, school staff, and parents would become familiar and com
fortable with her before data collection started. The researcher attended a parent
advisory council meeting and a staff meeting, and visited three classrooms. This
phase continued until December. During this month, the researcher attended a
book sale, visited classrooms, attended the Parent Advisory Council, and was in
vited to the Christmas program.
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The second phase included speaking to various stakeholders regarding the
study, selection of case study participants, and initial family observations. The
third phase focused on observations and data collection, including two sessions of
the focus group. Table 4 presents a summary overview of the activities conducted
between November 2001 and March 2002.
Table 4
Overview o f Research Activities
Phase Month Activity Hours
1 November Met with supervisor 1.5
Visited classrooms (p.m.) 2.0
Attended staff meeting, presented study 1.0
1 December Attended a book sale at school 2.0
Visited classrooms (p.m.) 2.0
Attended Parent Advisory Council 2.0
Attended Christmas program in each
classroom (a.m.) 2.0
2 January Attended parent meeting, presented study 2.0
Attended Parent Advisory Council,
presented study 2.0
Observed three classrooms (p.m.) 4.0
Initiated observations of four case study
families 24.0
3 February Interviewed teachers 1.0
Informally interviewed four families 6.0
Observed four case study families 34.0
Held first focus group meeting 2.0
3 March Attended parent meeting, collected surveys 1.0
Attended teacher meeting, collected surveys 1.0
Held second focus group meeting 2.0
Observed three classrooms (a.m.) 4.0
Observed four case study families 19.0
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Instrumentation and Data Collection Procedures
Qualitative research requires simultaneous data collection and analysis (Gay
& Airasian, 2000). While in the process of observing, writing, and reflecting on
field notes, the researcher was engaged in a process of evolving data analysis. The
research study included three data collection procedures. Each procedure evolved
around the case study families, the focus group, three teachers, and parents who
attended monthly meetings and participated in parent surveys. Table 5 shows the
types of data collected from each of the participants.
Table 5
Types o f Data Collected
Instrument Home
Focus
group
Classroom
(child)
Classroom
(teacher)
Parents who
attended
meetings
Observations
(field notes) X X X
Interview X X X
Surveys X X X X
Inventories X X X
Observations
The purpose of participant observation is to observe the activities of people,
including the physical characteristics of the social situation in a specific time.
There are three types of observations (Spradley, 1980): descriptive, focused and
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selective. As part of the process, this research progressed through these types of
observations.
Descriptive observations were (a) the physical literacy environment at
homes and the classrooms and (b) the social interaction of literacy practices at
homes and the classrooms. Focused observations focused on (a) literacy events
that were embedded in Teale’s social domains (see appendix); and (b) the partici
pant structure, that is, the “solitary” and interactive behaviors. Selective observa
tions consisted of more specific notations to confirm, support, extend, or question.
For example, when the researcher did not immediately see the literacy products that
the parents said they used at home, she asked the parents to get them and show
them to her. Some parents explained that the materials had been put away to keep
them from being damaged by younger children.
The observations took place over a period of 5 months. There was an aver
age of 20 hours of observation for each family. Most of the observations occurred
during the weekends due to the parents’ requests. Parents felt that, by the time they
picked up their children from the preschool between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. and
took a bus or two to go home, they would arrive late. Since the study occurred in
the winter, night fell shortly after their arrival at home, and the parents were not
willing to be observed late. The observations took place mainly in the homes and
in the community in which the families interacted. Only one parent requested not
to be observed in her home. She preferred to wait outside o f a family member’s
house and then go to places where she had scheduled to go with her child. The
researcher accompanied them to various places throughout the observation period.
In addition to observing in the homes, I accompanied families to the laun
dromat, grocery store, martial arts school, park, public library, county museum,
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Aquarium o f the Pacific, several fast foods restaurants, and two birthday parties.
These various settings of observation gave a broader picture of parents’ and child
ren’s interactions with the community.
Observational F ield Notes
Field note taking is essential because it serves as a bridge between observa
tion and analysis. Field notes were taken mainly during the time of the social ac
tivities o f the families at home and community. Notes were also taken at the time
that family members were interacting with their child. There were a few instances
in which the child was observing family members engaged in a literacy activity.
Field notes were taken while observing the three classrooms in the pre
school. It was necessary to develop a checklist o f classroom observation of the
literacy events that were occurring throughout the day. It helped to stay focused
and to manage the data being collected.
Handwritten notes were kept in a series o f spiral-bound notebooks. Later,
these notes were separated and placed in a file created for each family participant.
Classroom notes and checklists were also filed under each teacher participant.
Interviews
The purpose of interviewing in qualitative research is to find out how par
ticipants are experiencing, feeling, or thinking about the topic being studied. A re
searcher can never know directly what children or parents are experiencing,
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feeling, or thinking without interviewing them or listening to verbal interactions as
a participant observer.
Semistructured interviews were conducted with four families, eight family
focus group members (see appendix), and three classroom teachers. In two of the
families, the husband and wife chose to be interviewed. The other two families
were single-parent mothers. There were times that informal interviews occurred
when a parent initiated a discussion and it seemed timely to probe further. On ini
tial analysis of data, the researcher found it necessary to develop other questions
that could be addressed by parents and/or teachers that would clarify the informa
tion collected. Sometimes, the same question was asked differently in order to en
sure accurate information.
The interviews with the focus group took a slightly different route. After
observing case study families, the researcher followed up with a set a questions that
would help to verify, clarify, confirm, or negate information (see appendix). Since
parents knew each other, the interview sessions were informal, and the participants
felt comfortable with the researcher. This comfort level led parents to share their
feelings and thoughts about reading and writing and education in general.
An audio tape was used to record and capture the interactions and inter
views. The recordings were transcribed. Since most of the interviews were in
Spanish, it was necessary to translate some of the interviews from Spanish to Eng
lish.
Parent Inventory and Survey
An inventory was given to 36 parents who attended a parent meeting.
The inventory, Lista de materiales de lectura y escritura en el hogar (see
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appendix), was developed and used by Claude Goldenberg (Goldenberg & Galli-
more, 1991). This inventory has been utilized as a measure of identifying literacy
products at home. Although the inventory had other categories, it reflected Teale’s
domains, which is the reason that it was chosen. Of the 36 parents, 27 completed
the inventory and returned it after the meeting. Of those that were incomplete, it
was interesting to note that parents filled out only the portion that pertained to the
child and chose not to respond to the other categories.
A survey entitled Cuestionario Familiar (see appendix), developed by
Claude Goldenberg (Goldenberg & Gallimore, 1991), addressed questions pertain
ing to family background information and included literacy questions. It was modi
fied by the researcher to limit it to key questions on literacy events and the
frequency that these events occur within the families (see appendix).
The purpose of the survey and the inventory was to collect data from par
ents who were not part of the focus group or the case study families and who could
offer another sampling of data. These data were collected by early March.
Teacher Self-Reporting Survey (Part 1) and Student
Assessment (Part 2)
To address part of the research question on what reciprocal relations exist
between the school and home, the study used, as a guideline, the joint position
paper of the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Association
for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) that provides guidance to teachers
of young children in schools and early childhood programs (IRA and NAEYC,
1998). Based upon research regarding young children’s literacy development, the
two organizations provided the basis for the position statement about what consti
tutes developmentally appropriate practice in early literacy over the period of birth
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through age 8 years. Focusing on the developmentally appropriate practices for
preschoolers (see appendix) and the possibilities of finding compatibility between
the homes and the school, short surveys were developed (see appendix) with the
intent to (a) capture teachers’ self-reporting on their teaching practices (Part 1) and
(b) have teachers assess what their case study students are able to do (Part 2).
These data were compared with the parents’ data to find relationships between the
home and the school. Table 6 gives an overview of the data source and instruments
used in the study.
Table 6
Overview o f Data Source and Instruments
Data source Data collection instrument
4 case study families ■ Observations
Interviews
Field notes
8 focus group families Audiotapes
Interviews
3 teachers Teacher self-report
Teacher assessment of case
Study student
Interview
27 families Parent inventory
Parent survey
Data Analysis
Data analysis was conducted as an activity simultaneously with data collec
tion and data interpretation. Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines (1988) stated that data
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analysis began with the first piece of data collected. The volume of the data ana
lyzed was in the form of field notes, interview transcripts, and surveys.
The analytical process entailed collecting data in multiple ways, sorting the
information into categories, and interpreting the data based on various strategies
used to look at data. Although the process seemed to be linear and simple to fol
low, in reality it was nonlinear because the more the researcher internalized and
reflected on the data, the more the initial sequence lost its structure and became less
predictable.
A large chart was developed for each case study to organize the information
based on major categories: social domains and literacy events. Each case study
was addressed independently. Literacy events identified in the data collected were
plotted using adhesive notes, placing them next to the domains in which the events
were embedded. Clusters formed on certain domains more than on others of those
recurring events, and patterns emerged.
Clusters were subcategorized into solitary and interactive behaviors. This
task was more difficult because there were overlapping occurrences that were diffi
cult to separate. For example, the child would be playing with a toy alone next to
the father and watching the father read the newspaper and suddenly would jump
into his lap and “read” along with the father. To resolve this overlapping, both oc
currences were documented: as a solitary behavior and as an interactive behavior.
Each case was documented and described, and an analysis was conducted.
As the final step, a cross-analysis of the four cases was conducted.
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CHAPTER 4
FINDINGS OF THE STUDY
This chapter presents an analysis of the construction of family literacies
practices and reading and writing instruction in the classroom. The data generated
provide (a) an insight into the interpretation and utilization o f literacy by parents
and its relationship to their lives and (b) an understanding of the reciprocal relation
ship that exist between the home and the school.
The first section looks at the four family case studies. This section is by
far the most extensive one, since it addresses the main issue: literacy interactions
in Latino families. The second section addresses the second research question,
regarding reciprocal relationships, and focuses on the preschool context and how it
relates to the families.
Four Case Studies
The case studies are organized in the following manner: (a) parents’ back
ground information, (b) parents’ education and goals for their child, (c) general
description of the physical literacy environment, and (d) a discussion of the social
literacy environment. The names of the children, parents, and teachers have been
changed to pseudonyms to protect their privacy.
Prior to looking at each of the case studies, a short description of Teale’s
(1986) domains of activity is addressed in Table 7.
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Table 7
Description ofTeale’ s Domains o f Activity
Domain Description
Entertainment Literacy is found in activities such as pleasure reading or
reading the newspaper section of the calendar to find out
what movies are being shown at the movie theaters.
School-related Activities at home that are linked to school activities, such as
doing homework or “playing school”
Daily living routines Literacy is found in ongoing practices of everyday life such
as grocery shopping and reading the labels of the products.
Interpersonal Literacy is used to communicate with others, such as reading
communication a note and writing a response to the note.
Religion Religious activities at home that are linked to a religious
institution, such as reading a religious book or writing a les
son for Sunday school
Literacy for the This activity is more of helping how to learn to read and/or
sake of teaching/
learning literacy
write.
Work Literacy activities that are related to the job, such as reading
the directions and looking at a map to find the building to
deliver merchandise
Storybook time An activity dedicated to reading to a child such as picture
books.
Participating in An activity in which an adult reads to gain information that
information serves to network with friends, such as the outcome of the
networks soccer game to be discussed later with soccer fans.
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The Ramirez Family
The background information and personal experiences are reported as re
sponses to the semistructured interview questions (appendix).
Parents ’ Background Informa
tion
Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez came approximately 10 years ago from Mexico as
single young people to work and in search of a better quality of life. They met and
married in the United States. Flor, their daughter, became 3 this year; while both
parents worked in the garment district, Flor attended the preschool.
Parents ’ Education and Goals
fo r the Child
Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez completed their elementary (lst-6th grade) education
in Mexico. His schooling was interrupted every time his parents moved to find
work.
Estaba aprendiendo y luego nos cambiabamos y volvia a
comenzar el aho. Termine la primaria a los 15 ahosy
como eramos pobres, tuve que salirme para ayudar a mi
papa a trabajar. [I was learning and then we moved and I
would start again the year. I was 15 when I finished ele
mentary school and, since we were poor, I had to stop go
ing to school to help my father by working.]
Mr. Ramirez remembered that it was difficult to learn because of the many inter
ruptions. He actually did not remember how he finally was able to read and write,
only that he was reading by the time that he left school.
Mrs. Ramirez went to a rural school that was approximately 20 miles from
her house; she had to walk to and from the school. Sometimes, she would stay at
the teacher’s house so that she did not have to travel so far. Traveling such a dis
tance was the main reason for not continuing her education. Regarding her reading
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and writing experience, Mrs. Ramirez remembered having an accident at the age of
4. She fell from a high place, and she was not able to speak or move for months.
She attributed her difficulty in learning to the accident. Her mother would spank
her because she would forget things very easily. She only remembered that she had
to learn the vowels and syllables and, by the following day, she had forgotten them.
She finished 6th grade at the age of 14.
While sharing their experiences and reasons for coming to the United
States, Mr. Ramirez expressed their desires and wishes for Flor.
Yo no tuve tiempo para estudiar porque tenia que trabajar
y ayudarle a mi papa. Ahora aqui tengo mas tiempo para
dedicarlo a mi hija. Quiero que se supere porque tiene la
facilidad de estudiar en este pais y se le facilita mas.
Nosotros queremos que aprenda en dos idiomas porque a
ella se le facilita mas el espanol. Aqui hay muchos que no
quieren hablar en espanol y cuando ven que es importante,
ya es muy tarde porque ya no pueden aprenderlo tanfacil-
mente. [I did not have time to study because I had to work
and help my father. Now here, I have more time to dedi
cate it to my daughter. I want her to excel because she has
access to studying in this country and it is easier for her.
We want her to learn in two languages because, for her,
Spanish is easier. Here, there are many who do not want to
speak in Spanish, and when they find it is important, it is
too late because they cannot learn it with ease.]
Because Mrs. Ramirez had a negative experience in learning, she expressed
her need to support her daughter by teaching her at an early age the alphabet and
the numbers.
Yo me pongo a escribirle las letras del abecedario para
que ella se las aprenda. Tambien le enseho a contar los
numeros del uno al diez. [I write the letters o f the alphabet
so that she can learn them. Also I teach her to count from
1 to 10.]
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The Physical Environment
The Ramirez family lived in South Gate, approximately 15 miles from the
preschool. The house where they lived was in a Latino neighborhood in a middle-
class area o f the city. They rented a bedroom and had all of their personal belong
ings in that room: beds, dresser, table, and a television set. Very little print was
found in the room, except a Bible and a study guide. There was a medium-size box
with Flor’s toys, which included drawing books, crayons, pencils, and a few chil
dren’s books. On top of the dresser was a large tag board portfolio with Flor’s pre
school work. The Ramirez parents interacted to a minimal degree with the family
from whom they rented the bedroom. The couple had three children ranging from
2 to 10 years of age, and Flor liked to play with the toddler and, at times, joined the
older brothers at the kitchen table while they were doing their homework. But Mrs.
Ramirez felt that Flor was a bother to them and would take her to the bedroom.
There was a weekly routine for the family. Monday through Friday was
mainly going to work and school. During the evenings, they watched Spanish-lan-
guage television programs. One evening was spent in a Bible study group.
On Saturdays mornings, they took their clothes to a nearby laundromat. In the
afternoons, they did other errands that they were not able to do during the week.
On Sunday midmomings, they went grocery shopping. The remainder o f the day
was spent eating at a restaurant, going to the park, or visiting friends.
Their means of transportation was a car that was driven either by Mr. or
Mrs. Ramirez. During the week Mrs. Ramirez drove it to take her husband to work
and Flor to school, and then she went to her job. The parents worked in different
warehouses in the garment district.
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The Social Literacy Environ
ment
The following data were collected via three informal interviews and four
weekend observations of approximately 18 hours (see Table 8).
Table 8
Overview o f Domains and Literacy Events: Ramirez Family
Domain/activity Frequency Literacy event
Daily living routines:
Washing clothes
Grocery shopping
Weekly Count the quarters
Identify words on labels
Label/name objects
Recognize print on objects/places
Visits:
Insurance office
Doctor
At time
of need
Pretend to write accident report
Pretend to read directions for
taking medicine
School-related:
Color dot-to-dot picture
Talk about school drawings
Play school
Daily
Identify the numbers
Identify her name
Pretend to read
Religion:
Pretend to read Bible
Weekly Pretend to read
Recite a portion of a verse
Entertainment:
Read the sports page
Play video game
Watch TV-Bookworm
Weekly Pretend to read newspaper
Identify print
Recognize alphabet letters
The Social Domains o f A ctivity
M ediated by Literacy
Flor was the center of the family’s daily life. Her mother explained that
Flor was involved in all activities.
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La nina va con nosotros a donde quiera que vamos y nos
ayuda en todo lo que tiene que ver con los quehaceres de la
casa. [The child goes with us every where and helps us
with household chores.]
As mentioned earlier their weekly schedule was structured in a very consistent
manner. It was during the weekends that Flor participated more with daily living
routines.
Laundromat. On a Saturday morning I went to their home to join them
while they washed their clothes at a nearby laundry mat. While the father unloaded
the baskets with clothes, Flor opened four washing machine doors and counted
each time she opened one. Then she went with her mother to get change from the
person in charge. Flor helped count eight quarters. After helping to separate the
clothes by color (light to dark), Flor started watching a television show called
Bookworm (an instructional program). Flor spent about 15 minutes watching car
toon characters engaged in playing with alphabet letters. Then she joined her father
to buy bagels with ham and eggs, coffee and juice for breakfast. Again, she
watched a money transaction take place. After breakfast, she joined her father and
watched him play several video games. One of the games was called Tekken, a
martial arts video. Two other games were about car racing. In all three, there was
print on the screen. For example, each video had the title and maker of the game at
the beginning. In the racing games, it flashed 1st lap, 2nd lap, and so on.
Grocery store. On a Sunday, I went with the family to a South Gate gro
cery store. Again, this was a routinized activity. They started shopping at the en
trance to the store. Flor immediately took a tray and pincers and selected the
Mexican sweet bread and placed it on the tray (mother held the tray while Flor
grasped the bread). Then, Flor noticed a display of birthday cakes and named the
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Disney characters. At the fruit and vegetable section Flor asked her mother, “ ique
es esto?” and “ pa que sirve ” [what is this? and what is it for?]. These questions
were repeated every time she encountered something that was unfamiliar to her.
Even though the mother was busy selecting items, she responded with the intent to
answer Flor’s questions and not as teaching her anything.
After a while, Flor decided to give me a grand tour. Inside the grocery store
was an eating section where food was being cooked on the spot, including com
tortillas. Flor explained how the machines made the com tortillas.
Alii se pone eso y luego sale acay se calienta... el sehor
pone las tortillas en la bolsa. Mira todas las bolsas. ..
dice tortillas. [There you put that (pointed to the maiz) and
then it comes out here and it is heated . . . the man puts the
tortillas in a bag. Look all the bags . . . it says tortillas.
(touched a package of tortillas that were stacked)].
Then she took me to the aisle where snacks were found. She looked at them and
said, “ Mira, esto sale en la television ” [Look, this (pointing to the label) comes out
on television.] She selected her favorite snacks and took them to the shopping
carts.
During the visits at home, I observed Flor coloring a dot-to-dot coloring
book. She colored a couple of pages and gave the book to her mother to see. She
left the living room for about 10 minutes, and Mr. Ramirez took the opportunity to
explain why Flor had many coloring books. Whenever she had crayons, she would
color the walls in the living room and in the bedroom, and the father had to repaint
the wall sections on which she had scribbled. When Flor returned, she brought out
a plastic container with small plastic jewelry items and hair accessories. She
played with the toys by herself.
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It was at this time that I conducted an informal interview with the parents. I
wanted to know what other types of literacy products other than coloring books
were found at home and how they were used. The mother explained that they had
pencils and paper and she used them to write the letters of the alphabet and helped
Flor to recognize and say the letters. Flor uses the paper to draw. The only time
that the parents assisted her in writing was when they asked her to practice writing
her name. They participated in this type of activity about one to two times a week
They have about five story books in Spanish, but they do not frequently read sto
ries. They sit and read a book two or three times a month. The parents had a Bible
and a notebook that they used for a group bible study. They meet once a week at
various homes to study the Bible. Flor spends most of her time playing with other
children in another room. However, when the parents are studying prior to the
meeting, Flor participates in the activity of studying the Bible. While the parents
were looking for Bible verses, Flor also wanted to find them. They helped her for a
while, until she lost interest in the activity. Then she went back to watching her
parents write Bible citations in the notebook. Her time engaged in this activity was
about 10 minutes. Then she went to her bed to sleep.
At another home observation, Flor was playing with the 2-year-old child
and was showing him how to dance to the tune of a Mexican song. Her mother was
mopping the living room floor and keeping an eye on both children. Then Flor
came to greet me and asked her mother to show me her school things that were in
her portfolio. Her mother said that it would be best to show them at another time.
She started to cry, and her father came out of the bedroom and asked what was
happening. After Mrs. Ramirez explained the situation, without saying a word, he
went to the bedroom and brought the portfolio and gave it to his wife. It took a few
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minutes before Flor regained her composure. Then she took out all o f her samples
of schoolwork to share with me. Most of her samples were drawings, arts and
crafts, but each of them had her name, mainly written by the teacher. There were a
few samples of a writing activity done on construction paper. The teacher had
printed Flor’s name and had drawn two dotted lines so that Flor could practice
writing her name. The writing of the first letter of her name approximated the let
ter “f”; the other letters were scribbles. Flor talked about her work and at times
said, “ Aqui dice mi nombre ” [Here it says my name] as she pointed to first letter of
her name. Her mother shared that, when Flor sees the letter “o” she says “aqui
dice Ofelia ” [here it says Ofelia (her mother’s name)]. Also, when she saw the
letter “m” she said “aqui dice Marco ” [here it says Marco (her father’s name)].
When she was done looking at and sharing her work, her mother helped her to put
everything back into the folder.
During the informal interview, I asked both parents to share reading and
writing experiences in which Flor was engaged, other than what I was observing.
Mrs. Ramirez shared that, when Flor saw an object that had print, she pretended
reading by making up a story.
Aveces toma una hoja de papel escrita y dice, “voy a ver
que voy a comer ” y luego ordena la comida. .. pero ella
habla solita. [She at times will take a printed sheet of
paper and say, “I am going to see what I am going to eat”
and then she orders food . . . but she talks by herself.]
She attributed this activity to the times that they have eaten at restaurants and they
used a menu to order food.
Mrs. Ramirez had recently developed awareness of how Flor liked to act out
a scene of an event experienced by her. For example, she said that, 3 weeks prior
to the interview, she had been involved in a minor car accident and had gone to the
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insurance office to describe the accident to the investigator. Flor had gone with her
to the office and had sat all the time listening to the investigator asking her mother
questions about the car accident. Three weeks later, Flor acted out the scene that
she had observed at the insurance office:
Me hizo las preguntas exactamenta como me las hizo la
sehora en la oficina... me dijo, “digame, icomo fue el ac
cident e? ^cudntos venian con usted? ivenian ninos con
usted? idonde se pego? y muchas mas ” . . . y todo este rato
estaba con las piernas cruzadas y escribiendo en las pier-
nas con su dedito y anotando mis respuestas. No puedo
creer que se pueda recordar la platica despues de tres
semanas. [She asked me the same questions the lady in the
office had asked.. “Tell me, how did the accident happen?
How many were with you? Were there children with you?
Where did you hit yourself?” and many more .. .and all
this time she was sitting with her legs crossed and writing
on her lap with her little finger and “taking notes” on my
responses.]
Mi esposoyyo hemos visto como la niha aprende tanto y
tan rapido. jNos deja con los ojos cuadrados! [My hus
band and I have seen how she learns so much and so fast.
She leaves us perplexed!]
Mr. Ramirez shared that he is accustomed to reading the community Span
ish newspaper, especially the sport page and the ads section, at least once a week.
He said that there are times when Flor is sitting next to him playing and then leaves
her toys and jumps on his lap and starts to make up a story and tell it as if she were
reading.
Ella estd en la edad que hace muchas preguntas. Viene y
me hace preguntas de esto y de aquello. Una vez le compre
un libro del mundo de los animalesy luego me hizo un
pregunta y busque la respuesta en el libro y empiece a leer
parte del libro y finalmente termine leyendo todo el libro.
[She is at an age of asking many questions. She comes to
me and asks me this and that. One time, I bought her a
book about animals and their world and then she asked me
a question and I looked for it in the book and started read
ing it, and I finally wound up reading the entire book.]
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Both parents were astonished to see her enjoy learning. Mrs. Ramirez
shared that, when she picked Flor up at school, Flor cried. She was proud to say
that Flor can count in English and in Spanish from 1 to 5; she can recognize five of
the alphabet letters in Spanish and is learning them in English.
The Gonzalez Family
P aren t’ s Background Informa
tion
Ms. Gonzalez has been in the United States since she was 5 years old. Her
parents came from Mexico and settled in the Los Angeles area and sent their
daughter to public schools. Ms. Gonzalez became pregnant when she was in high
school. Due to complications during her pregnancy, she had her baby 2 months
before he was scheduled. As a single mother, she supports her child by working in
an office in the garment district, doing clerical work
P aren t’ s Educational Experi
ence and Goals fo r the Child
Ms. Gonzalez started school in kindergarten, speaking her native language,
Spanish. She remembered having difficulty in learning to read and write in Eng
lish. Her parents could not help her because they did not speak English. It was not
util second grade that she remembered being able to read from a book. What she
did remember was that a high school teacher told her to read books because she
would learn more about the world. At the time of her son’s birth, she made up her
mind that she would help him to learn to read and write in English so that he would
not go through what she had experienced. But she also was going to concentrate in
teaching him to read in order to learn more about life. Her main goal is to help her
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son succeed in school. She felt that, if she could motivate him at an early age to
want to know, he would then continue to leam and stay interested in going to
school. She hoped to be able to send him to a school that will continue to make
learning exciting.
The Physical Literacy Environ
ment
I was not able to do home observations with this family. However, I met
her and Art, her son, outside of a family member’s house. The house was in south
central Los Angeles, about 6 miles from the preschool. The neighborhood was a
low-income housing area surrounded by factories. However, not very far from the
neighborhood are several museums, the IMAX theater, two public libraries, Expo
sition Park, and the University of Southern California. Ms.Gonzalez reported that
she frequently took her son to these places.
The Social Literacy Environ
ment
The following data were collected through three informal interviews and
approximately 25 hours of observation. Table 9 is an overview of the family ac
tivities that were mediated by literacy.
From the first day that I met Ms. Gonzalez, she wanted to talk about her
son. She initiated the conversation that led to an interview. She had consciously
decided to use literacy for the sake o f knowing. Although she was helping her son
to leam to read, her main intention was to motivate him to want to know. She
knew that learning to read would help Art to leam about things, but she also knew
that she could start motivating him to want to find out about things. She explained
how she got him interested in knowing about people and things. She actually
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Table 9
Overview o f Domains and Literacy Events: Gonzalez Family
Domain/activity Frequency Literacy event
Entertainment:
Visit to museum Monthly Identify print
Identify signs (exit, entrance)
Visit to aquarium Semiannual “Read” information about sea
animals
“Read” map to find exhibits
Lunch at fast food
restaurant
Saturdays “Read” menu on the wall
Recognize print on receipt
Visit to amusement park Annual Name/label objects and people
Computer games
in museum
Monthly Recognize printed instructions
Visit to book store Monthly “Read” books for information
School-related:
Visit to library Bi-weekly “Read” to leam about things
Recognize books by identifying
titles
Write name on paper
Recite nursery rhymes
Literacy for the sake
of learning:
Visit to library
Visit book store
Watch videos
Bi-weekly
Monthly
Weekends
“Read” books to find information
Count number of books read
Leam new words
Label objects, people, animals
Identify objects
Storybook Weekdays
and Sundays
“Read” for pleasure
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developed strategies that worked for her. When Art would ask her a question, she
would take it as a “teachable moment” and would talk about it. Then she would
find or buy books about the topic. She has found at a discount store some short-
length videos about animals, insects, and people. She also uses leading questions
such as “Did you know?” and “Do you want to know? Then she follows with
“Let’s find out more about it.” The following narration is an example of how it
works for her.
Visit to the library. One Saturday morning, I went to pick them up and Art
ran to me and said, “We are going to the library to leam about the human body!”
His mother explained that, the day before, Art had been eating so fast that she told
him to slow down; otherwise, his food would not digest well. He asked what that
meant. She tried to explain it by drawing a picture of the body and talking about it.
Then she said, “We need to go to the library to find out more about the human
body.”
When we arrived at the library, Art’s mother went to the Spanish-speaking
section and pulled out as many books about the human body as she could find. She
found a couple o f books that had colorful pictures of the digestive system. She
showed Art how the food moves through the system by pointing at the picture. Art
asked “what” and “why” questions such as “What is this” and “Why is this big?”
Although the books were in Spanish, the mother spoke in English. When Art asked
a question that she could not answer, she would say, “Let me read and find out.”
She read it to herself and then responded to his question. At times, she would say
that the book did not have the information. She then selected another book from
the stack. After spending about 30 minutes talking about the human body, Ms.
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Gonzalez brought some more nonfiction and fiction books. When she wanted to
read a storybook to him, Art grabbed it and placed it behind his back. Then he
asked his mother to keep on reading books (nonfiction books).
It was evident that Art had already developed a liking for nonfiction books
and that, through this type of books, he was exposed to content-area vocabulary
words and was beginning to use the words. Art’s mother became the facilitator of
vocabulary learning by asking questions, clarifying questions, answering Art’s
questions, and expanding the dialogue.
Visit to the Aquarium o f the Pacific. During the visit to the Aquarium of the
Pacific, Art went to his favorite places first: the jellyfish tank, the rays, and the tide
pool. His mother repeatedly asked him, “What is this? Remember this one? What
do you call this one?” He named the sea animals that he was watching. Somet
imes, his mother pulled out the brochure from her purse to read about the fish and
explained it to Art. For lunch we went to the Cafe Scuba. The individual tablemats
had a map of California with its Pacific Coast and depicted a number of sea animals
that lived on the coast. Ms. Gonzalez made it a game to have Art identify as many
sea animals as he could, and she joined in by calling out the names. In this activity,
the products that were used to mediate were the brochure and the tablemat. The
brochure was used to look for more information about the fish. The mat was used
to identify the name of the ocean and to identify the various sea animals found in
the Pacific Ocean.
Labeling and naming objects and events acted as precursors to an extended
dialogue. When Art bonded with words and these words made sense to him, he
expanded his dialogue, as I noticed on the following observation.
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County museum. At this observation period, we visited the children’s mu
seum. Art went to the room where he had been before. He went to the shelves
where there were about 15 plastic containers, each o f them with objects that de
picted different careers. Art selected the construction theme; in the container were
a hard hat, a book about construction, vehicles used in construction, and tools used
by contractors. He played with the vehicles and had his mother read the book
while he was playing. He had already learned the names and purposes of many of
these objects and was able to talk about them. He said, while looking at his mother,
“I drive the cement truck” and “Look mommy, the signs” (his mother had already
exposed him to a book on street signs). At this time his mother responded to his
comments: “Art, remember this sign? It means stop?” He then said, “Trucks stop
and go” (he placed the sign on the floor and moved the truck next to the sign and
then moved the truck forward).
Computer interaction room. The final stop was the computer interaction
room. His mother helped him to move the mouse and selected the topic that he
preferred to leam about. He chose to work on putting together the pieces of various
things such as airplane, house, tree. He started by matching the dinosaur pieces.
There were several pieces that would match and others that would not match.
These pieces came in various colors, but not necessarily for matching purposes.
Art dragged, using the mouse, the piece that he thought would fit on the incomplete
dinosaur body. If it was the correct matching piece, he was allowed by the program
to keep on playing. If it was not the right piece, the piece would not stay and a
computerized voice would say, “Try again.” Art was trying to match the pieces by
colors and not by the shape. He got angry and refused to accept the “Try again”
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recommendation. Needless to say, he left upset with that activity. On our way out,
we stopped at the store and went to the book section. Since books were expensive
to buy, Ms. Gonzales decided, at least, to have Art enjoy the books at the store. He
sat on the floor next to the books and had his mother read books that he selected.
In this case, he found books about underwater caves and scuba diving.
Freeways and streets. Each time we went to visit sites, while I was driving,
either Art or his mother would pay attention to the streets or buildings. For exam
ple, while driving on the 710 freeway, Art saw the Toys R Us® sign and called out
the name. A few minutes later, next to the freeway he saw a construction lot. He
called out the names o f some of the vehicles, such as the dump truck and the ce
ment truck. On another occasion, I was turning left with a green light but I slowed
down to make sure that it was safe to turn. Art kept saying “Go, go, go . . .
mommy green light.” His mother had to explain to him that I had to be careful,
even when the light was green. By looking at symbols found on signs, Art had
been developing contextualized literacy skills. For example, he saw the Toys R Us
sign and it gave him a contextual clue. Mason (cited in Snow, 1983) identified
contextualized print recognition as the first strand of prereading development.
The informal interviews occurred in fast food restaurants. Sometimes it
was difficult because the noise level was too high or Art was not comfortable sit
ting for a long period of time. Sometimes we went to the park and, while Art
played on the playground, I interviewed Ms. Gonzalez.
I asked her if she read for her own enjoyment or if she did any writing. She
said no. She did not have any adult books, magazines, or newspapers at home.
Any writing or reading that had to do with her job, she would do at work. I asked
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her if she thought Art was learning. She waited a while before answering, then
responded, “I hope so.” She said that, when Art goes to kindergarten, if he has
difficulty with reading and writing, she will be “there for him.” She expressed
concern about Art not showing any interest in writing. She had tried doing pencil-
and-paper activities, such as writing the first letter o f his name and asking him to
copy it, but he would refuse to do so. Instead, he would take the pencil and draw or
ask his mother to draw pictures. Ms. Gonzalez hoped that Art will want to write
before he goes to kindergarten.
The Franco Family
Parents ’ Background Informa
tion
Mr. Franco, a recent immigrant from Guatemala, came to California during
the civil war in his country. He met a young girl, whom he married. Mrs. Franco
had been in the United States approximately 10 years. She was bom in the state of
Oaxaca, Mexico, and is a Zapotec indian.
Their household included Mr. and Mrs. Franco and their son, David, and the
extended family, which included Mrs. Franco’s sister and her husband, and her two
brothers, who were 17 and 21 years old. They spoke three languages at home.
Mrs. Franco and her sister and brothers spoke Zapotec among each other, and
David understood but did not speak it. Mr. Franco and his brother-in-law spoke
Spanish. The two brothers spoke English, since both have had some schooling in
the United States. Their main means of communication was in Spanish.
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Parents ’ Educational Experi
ence and Goals fo r Their Child
Mr. Franco grew up in Guatemala City. He had been exposed to reading
and writing before he went to school. He and his younger brother watched Sesame
Street® {Plaza Sesamo). His father would sit with them to read and practice writing
letters. He remembered that his brother was reading before he entered kindergarten
and loved to read books and was always looking for books to read. On the other
hand, Mr. Franco did not like to read. When he entered first grade, he was not able
to read or write, and he failed to pass to second grade. His father got the school
book called a silabario and tried to teach Mr. Franco. But it did not work. His
father was always comparing him with his younger brother, who was already read
ing. Finally, in the 3rd grade, a teacher was able to get him to write and read. He
only remembers the teacher making him read the newspaper every day and then
write about what he had read.
As for Mrs. Franco, she grew up in a small village near the mountain
ranges. At home, they spoke Zapotec, and when she went to school, she had to
leam Spanish.
Fui a la escuela a los seis ahos y ahi aprendi en primero de
primaria a leer. Aprendi el abcedario y las sllabas y luego
me pasaron y asi cuando iba en tercero de primaria ya
sabia las tablasy cada noche aprendla una de las tablas
del 1 al 10. Termine la primaria nada mas, pero no se
hablar el espanol muy bien ni entiendo todo, no se como
explicarle. [I went to school at the age of 6 and learned to
read in first grade. I learned the alphabet and the syllables
and then I passed to another grade and then when I was in
3rd grade, I knew the times tables. Each night I would
leam one table from 1 to 10. I only completed elementary
school, but I do not speak or understand Spanish that well.
I don’t know how to explain it to you.]
Their aspirations for their son were expressed by the father on the first in
terview:
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Porque lo principal que queremos es que aprenda, porque
la vida para nosotros no sabiendo escribir ni leer en ingles
es muy dificil...porque es dura la vidayyo no quiero que el
tenga la misma vida que nosotros. Quiero que este mejor y
yo pienso que estudiando el pueda llegar a ser mejor y
vivir mejor que nosotros. For eso quiero que se eduque es
lo mejor que le puedo dar. Por eso quiero que empiece
desde pequeno para que vaya acostumbrandose a que tiene
que estudiar siempre y tratar de aprender. [The main thing
we want is for him to leam because life for us without
knowing how to write and read in English is very difficult
. . . because life is hard and I don’t want him to have the
same kind of life as us. That is why I want him to get edu
cated; that is the best I can give him . . . that is why I want
him to start at a very young age so that he can get used to it
and has to study always and try to leam.]
The Physical Literacy Environ
ment
The Franco family lived approximately 10 miles from the preschool. The
neighborhood was mainly apartment units. The whole area seemed to be crowded,
with cars parked along the streets. The apartment had a small kitchen, living room,
bathroom, and two bedrooms. In the living room were a sofa bed, a twin-size bed,
a book shelf, a dresser, and a television set. The refrigerator was in the living
room. The walls in the living room were covered with drawings and paintings done
by Mrs. Franco’s brothers. On the book shelf they had an audio cassette player,
audio cassettes, reference books such Primer os Auxilios [First Aid], dictionary,
Gray’ s Anatomy, and an anthology of Spanish literature. The magazine that they
bought on a regular basis was Ser Padres [To Be Parents]. On the kitchen table
they had the community newspaper, El Oaxaqueho. They had two television
guides, Teleguia USA and El Aviso. Inside the book shelf were all of David’s be
longings. There were about 10 audio cassettes of children’s songs in English and in
Spanish. They had about 30 children’s books in both languages. David had Mi
Primera Biblia [My First Bible]. For didactic materials, they had a stack of
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wooden puzzles, Etch a Sketch® kit, an alphabet puzzle, a skeleton kit, a box of
Legos®, number flash cards, and alphabet flash cards. They had had more books
and magazines and comic books, but they did not have room for all, so they had
given them away.
In the young men’s bedroom, they had more of their drawings and painting
on the walls. The youngest brother had a music band, and in the room he had sev
eral musical instruments: two trombones, one flute, one piccolo, and one saxo
phone. On top of a small dresser they had sheet music, books with Spanish songs,
audiocassettes of classical and marching band music, and school textbooks. On a
wall they had drawn a music scale and written Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do.
The Social Literacy Environ
ment
The following data were collected through three informal interviews and
approximately 20 hours of observation. Table 10 is an overview of the family ac
tivities that were mediated by literacy.
Home. On the first home observation on a Sunday morning, Mr. and Mrs.
Franco and David were the only ones at home. Sunday mornings were spent to
gether, either at home or going to the park. Mr. Franco had two jobs and worked
every day. On Sunday, he left at 2:00 and returned at 8:00 in the evening. Mrs.
Franco was sitting on a couch showing David how to use the Etch a Sketch that
they had just bought for him. She drew a circle and then erased it. David then tried
to draw a circle and erase it. She continued drawing circles and sticks and erasing
them. David had fun, scribbling and seeing it disappear. That went on for about 5
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Table 10
Overview o f Domains and Literacy Events: Franco Family
Domain/activity Frequency Literacy event
Entertainment:
Visit museum Monthly Identify print
“Read” to find information
Martial arts school Weekly Count from 1 to 10
Memorize pledge of allegiance
Recognize name on award
Play musical instrument Weekly Recognize print in music scale
Lunch at fast food
restaurant
Weekly Recognize printn on wall menu
Pleasure reading Semi-weekly Being read to
Draw pictures Daily Draw, and write name
School-related: Daily
Write in notebook Write name (scribble)
Draw in notebook Write letters (scribble)
Expose to Spanish vowels Recognize letters
Expose to numbers 1-5 Recognize numbers
Play with puzzles Recognize patterns
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minutes, and then David wanted to play with his puzzles. He chose a train. There
were four wagons that had to be placed on the frame horizontally, based on their
shapes. David picked up the two wagons that were red and tried to place them next
to each other on the frame. His mother suggested taking another wagon instead.
He refused and tried to force them to stay in the frame. He gave up and took an
other puzzle, a clown. This time, he allowed his mother to help him. She de
scribed the clown’s costume and identified the colors, and he repeated the names of
the colors. Mr. Franco walked in from the bedroom and David was distracted. He
then took his toy cars from under the bed and started to play by himself. I decided
to interview Mr. and Mrs. Franco.
After they had shared their educational experiences, I asked them about the
types of materials that they had, related to reading and writing. I had observed
some in the living room, but then Mrs. Franco opened the small doors on the book
shelf and pointed to all of David’s belongings. She took me to her brothers’ bed
room and showed me their books and papers and all that pertained to music. I
asked them when they engaged in literacy activities with their child. I mentioned
the following: telling stories; looking at or reading books; helping him to recognize
letters or words; helping him to leam letters, words, or numbers; helping him to
leam to write. Mr. Franco said that all were done daily, except reading books.
They read to him once or twice a week. However, David read by himself on a daily
basis. He saw his uncles read every day, and he sat next to them in their room and
read. All family members were involved in the literacy events, which were done in
Spanish and English, since David’s uncles spoke English. The two married couples
read the newspaper every day and other magazines on a regular basis. For exam
ple, I had seen two television guides and I asked them why they had two. They
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responded that they do not use them to check the schedule of television programs,
they read articles that are of interest to them. The guides have information other
than the television schedule.
County museum. On the following Sunday the father and mother decided to
take David to the park and they invited me to accompany them. They decided to go
first to the children’s museum next to the park. The first center of activity was arts
and crafts. When the family approached the table, the teacher noticed that they
spoke Spanish. She traded with another teacher who spoke Spanish. The teacher
showed David how to make a spider, using a clothes pin and construction paper.
The purpose of the activity was to teach about insects. He was asked to count the
number of legs that the spider had. The teacher counted and David repeated. The
craft activity was followed by an exhibition of insects. The father pointed to the
insect and said, “Mira, es una cucaracha” [Look, it is a cockroach]. If he did not
know what kind of an insect it was, he said, “Haber si podemos leerlo” [Let see if
we can read it.] He would silently read the sign. Since he does not read in English,
he attempted to figure it out by finding one word that would give him a clue. For
example, at one time, while looking at a tarantula, he attempted to read it slowly
aloud. He read the word desert and figured it out to be desierto, the cognate for
desert. So he said that the tarantula lived in the desert. In the museum, there is a
McDonald’s® restaurant, and we went to eat lunch. David pointed at the menu on
the wall and asked his father to buy him an ice cream. After lunch, we had to re
turn to their house because Mr. Franco had to go to work. On the way to the park
ing lot, Mr. Franco carried David on his shoulders and both started to talk about the
insects.
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Home. Sunday afternoons, David’s uncles spend time with David doing
various types of activities. Since both are artists, they like to draw in their spare
time. They sat at the kitchen table and gave David a simple model to follow. For
example, they drew a balloon with a string hanging. David, on his own, attempted
to make a circle and a long line. They kept praising him for his drawing but told
him to try to do it better. Mrs. Franco remarked, “To solo veo que el nino hace
rayas” [I only see that the child makes scribbles]. It was interesting to note that,
for the uncles, David’s attempt in drawing were the beginnings; they acknowledged
his work but let him know that he had to do it better. On the other hand, Mrs.
Franco saw only scribbles.
Karate class. During the week, I took David and his mother to his karate
class. From the preschool, it took us about 45 minutes to get to the martial arts
school. It was an hour-long class and David, being the youngest (other children
ranged from 6 to 10 years old), was slower in his movements. They started by re
citing the pledge. Then they did basic kicks and counted each kick that they made.
Then they made arm movements and counted each move. When he received posi
tive feedback from the sensei, David turned around to see his mother as if to get her
approval, too. After 30 minutes of practicing, David sat on the mat and just
watched the others. At the end of the session, the sensei gave out certificates of
recognition, and David received one. He was very happy, showing it to his mother.
When I asked him if I could hold it, he said no. He pointed to his name on the cer
tificate and said, “Es mio” [It is mine].
During an informal interview, Mrs. Franco said that there was constant ac
tivity in the house, with family members engaged in school or work tasks, and that
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David was in the midst of all of this. At times, an uncle was doing his homework
and David would join him and ask for a pencil and paper to do homework, too. At
other times, his mother would sit with him and write the vowels on a piece of paper
and ask him to say them in Spanish. His mother reported that David had learned to
read some letters and words in English by watching educational program for chil
dren on television. Because the father worked in two jobs, it was difficult for him
to help his son with learning activities. He explained that, when they are in the
truck going places, he (the father) initiates conversations about school and the ac
tivities at school. The father said that he is not worried about not helping him in
English because his uncles can help him.
Home. On my last observation in the home, David was in his uncles’ bed
room. They were practicing playing the saxophone and the flute. David was being
taught how to blow into the saxophone. At one point, David was asked to read the
do, re, mi scale so that I could see that he was able to do it. David started and then
he smiled and sat on the couch with his other uncle. They told me that he had just
been practicing and now was not willing to do it in front of me. Much later, on his
own, David stood in front of the scale and read it. During the remainder of the af
ternoon, the three of them spent the time listening to classical music, reading, and
talking.
I joined Mrs. Franco in the living room and had the last informal interview.
I asked her about David’s progress in learning in school. She explained that, in the
week before my involvement in the preschool, David had been transferred from the
Toddler Childcare Center to the preschool and had immediately adjusted to his new
classroom and teacher. Her main emphasis was his overall growth as an individual.
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She was pleased to see him selecting his own clothes to wear and dressing up by
himself. She was pleased that he is learning English and Spanish in school and that
he will continue to hear and understand the Zapotec language. She said that her
husband was confident that David would learn to read and write because there were
various ways of approaching learning, as he had experienced in his childhood
years.
The Alva Family
P aren t’ s Background Informa
tion
Ms. Alva is a single parent who got married in her late teens. She had Ana,
her daughter, and separated from her husband soon afterward. Ms. Alva came from
Guatemala with her parents when she was 8 years old. She had been living on her
own for the past 4 years, since her parents had returned to Guatemala.
P aren t’ s Educational Experi
ence and Goals fo r the Child
Ms. Alva remembered how her father and mother would help her to learn.
Lo primero queyo me recuerdo que mi papa me ponia
hacer holitas y mi mama tambien me ayudaba hacer palitos
y circulos. Me enseno a escribir los numeros y las letras,
asi como mi nombre . . . todo eso mi papa me lo enseno y
me compro una guitarra chiquita para que jugaramos a
que el era el maestro y yo el estudiante. [The first thing I
remember was that my father made me draw little balls and
my mother also would help me draw little sticks and cir
cles. He taught me the numbers and the letters as well as
my name . . . all that my father taught me and he bought me
a small guitar so we could pretend that he was the teacher
and I was the student.]
By the time she went to 1st grade, she had learned to read and write. She
remembered her father reading many books
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La caperusita roja, cenicienta y lihros de cuentos de ninos.
Me recuerdo tambien que mi mama tenia una estacion de
radio en Guatemala que decian puros cuentos de ninos. . .
de la cenicienta de los lobos y me encantaba mucho sentar-
me y escucharlos. [Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and
books with children’s stories. I remember that my mother
had a radio station in Guatemala that told children’s stories
. . . Cinderella, wolves, and I liked very much to sit down
and hear them.]
In Guatemala, school was very strict and her parents were there to help her.
In the United States
Es muy diferente aca, por eso cuando yo vine aca no me
podian ayudar hacer la tarea... no sabian hablar en
ingles y entonces mis hdbitos de estudio cambiaron. [It is
very different here. That is why when I came here; they
could not help me do my homework. . . they did not speak
English, and then my study habits changed.]
Her goal was to move to a better and safer environment where her daughter
could grow without fear of gang-related activities. She wanted Ana to attend a
school such as an academy that offered quality education, including instruction in
the Spanish language. She believed that, speaking two languages, Ana would have
greater opportunities in life. In order to accomplish her goal, she enrolled in school
and is studying to be an accountant. She worked all day, then picked up Ana at the
preschool at 3:00 p.m., took her to the baby sitter while she attended classes and, by
8:00 p.m., she took Ana home.
The Physical Literacy Environ
ment
Ms. Alva lived approximately 6 miles from the preschool in south central
Los Angeles. Houses in that area have been converted into smaller units and rented
as apartments. She lived in one of those units on the upstairs level. It had a bed
room, a small living room, kitchenette, and a back porch. In the living room there
was a couch, an armchair, a computer, and a music/television unit. In the kitchen
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there was room for only a small table, refrigerator, sink, and stove. The porch was
Ana’s playing area. In one comer was a coffee table with about 10 storybooks in a
stack and about 10 coloring books. Under the table there were a stack of boxes of
instructional games such as Candy Land, Hungry Hippos, Sponge-a-Story, Stacka-
bets, Squibbly Worms, and flash cards. In the second comer was a child’s vanity,
with chair and child’s make-up items. In the third comer was a child’s kitchen
unit: sink, stove, and refrigerator. There were toy dishes and plastic foods. Next
to the unit there was a doll stroller and a crib full of stuffed animals. The upper
half of the walls was surrounded by a window covered with clear plastic. On the
windowsill there were stacks of blocks, piggy banks, and cups frill of crayons and
pencils. The entire area was full of children’s objects. The backyard was shared by
all renters in the building.
The Social Literacy Environ
ment
The following data were collected through a combination of one semi
structured interview, one informal interview, and four observations over approxi
mately 14 hours. Table 11 shows an overview of the family activities that were
mediated by literacy.
Because Ms. Alva was either working or going to school, the little time that
she had left was spent in helping Ana or providing materials that were school
related. While driving from preschool to the baby sitter, Ana shared her school-day
happenings. Every moment that they had together while driving to school, the
babysitter, or home Ms. Alva used as a teachable moment. Ms. Alva explained
what that teachable moment looked like.
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Table 11
Overview o f Domains and Literacy Events: Alva Family
Domain/activity Frequency Literacy event
School-related:
Sing alphabet song Weekly Recognize letters
Play computer games Weekly Identify letters
Play “school” Daily Pretend to read
Write name on paper
Write on activity books
Entertainment:
Read story book Weekly Pretend to read
Play with board games Weekly Recognize print
Watch children’s Daily
programs on television
Interpersonal communication: Special
occasions
Receive birthday cards Recognize names
Receive letters “Read” letters and cards
I will recite in English the days of the week and Ana will
repeat. Then I will explain to Ana what the activities are
from Monday through Friday . . . what the activities are on
Saturday, and finally I tell her that on Sunday there is no
school.
There were other times when Ana would talk about what she did in preschool. This
type of conversation between Ana and her mother is an example of “shared sto
ries,” that is, Ana sharing a series of events.
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On Sundays they spent more time doing school-related activities. On my
first observation, I arrived early, as agreed, and they had just awakened. Ms. Alva
started cleaning the living room. Ana was playing with her doll, which she carried
in the stroller. While Ms. Alva fixed breakfast, Ana joined her. On the refrigerator
door were magnetic letters. Ana started to sing the ABC song and moved her fin
ger from one letter to another while singing. Since the letters were spread out, Ana
touched them at random. She repeated the activity a second time, then went to the
porch and brought a bottle of multicolor glitter and paper to show me how she
made designs by spreading the glitter on the paper. She identified three colors and
asked what were the other colors. Her mother asked her to clean up the glitter that
she had spilled on the floor. While Ana ate, Ms. Alva said that it was a good timeto
talk about my visits to observe. We set up some dates and times and scheduled to
attend Ana’s birthday party the following Saturday and see her at her ballet class a
week later. After breakfast, Ana sat next to her mother to watch television, a musi
cal program in Spanish. It was at this time that we had the semistructured inter
view regarding her background experiences.
On the following Saturday, I attended Ana’s birthday party. Ana was 4 in
February, and Ms. Alva invited her family, neighbors, preschool teachers, friends,
and her mentor, Sister Grace. She decorated the background with a Disney theme.
For children, it was a time to play. For adults, it was a time to talk and eat. Ana
was eager to open her gifts, and she saw the birthday card envelopes with her name.
When she finally opened her presents, she was more interested in the toys than in
reading the cards. Her mother put away the gift cards. Her mother later told me
that it was not until the following day while they were by themselves that they
spent time in reading all of the birthday cards. Ana had also received cards in the
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mail from her grandparents in Guatemala and from an aunt who lived in Santa Bar
bara. Reading letters and cards not only maintained communication with other
family members, but it also served as another authentic literacy event.
During a home visit, Ms. Alva was busy with household chores while Ana
was playing in the back porch. She finally sat on the couch and Ana approached
her mother with a book entitled El ano de gato galano. She sat and began to pre
tend to read. She would read one page in English, followed by Spanish, and then
next page the same way until the end of the story (the book was in Spanish). Later,
while observing Ana’s classroom, I noticed that her teacher read big books in that
manner. Her mother heard the “invented story” but did not respond at all. Ana
returned to the porch and started to play school. She took out an activity book and
colored several pages. She was singing the “good morning song” that children sing
at school. When Ana wanted her mother’s attention, she would say, “Mommy, I
made something for you” or “ I brought you a surprise.” Then she would give her a
drawing that she had made at home or at school. That led to a conversation about
the drawing.
During an informal interview I asked Ms. Alva about her time spent reading
for enjoyment or for her schoolwork. She explained that she does not read at all
any more. Although she loved to read when she was a child, by the time she
graduated from high school, she had lost interest in reading. Because she does not
like to read, she has hesitated in reading to Ana. She provided the books but it was
Ana who initiated the reading. As for her schoolwork, she waited until Ana was
asleep to work on the computer or read the textbook. She needed to concentrate
and not be bothered by her. Recently, she bought a child’s laptop with school-
related software. When she has to work on the computer during the weekend, she
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has Ana working on her computer. One of the activities that Ana likes to do is
identifying letters.
On another occasion Ms. Alva invited me to her nephew’s birthday party. I
went, but I only observed children playing and family members listening to music,
talking, and eating. Ms. Alva and I sat for a while for an informal interview. When
I asked her whether Ana was learning, she said yes. Ana liked going to school and
playing school at home. She had already learned to say the alphabet while singing,
she had learned her colors, and she could write her name, even though she reversed
some letters. Ms. Alva reminded me that, a month before our conversation, Ana
had been moved to the classroom with the 4-year-olds who were being prepared for
kindergarten.
Our last observation time never materialized. Ms. Alva was dealing with
divorce issues and needed time without other interruptions in her life.
Cross-Case Analysis
All four family cases have been described and analyzed individually. The
purpose of looking at these data was to understand how families utilize and inter
pret various aspects of literacy into their own cultural system. Teale’s social do
mains of activity mediated by literacy were used as major categories and the
literacy events that occurred at home within these domains were documented. An
other category, participant structure (Teale, 1986), was divided into two subcate
gories: solitary and interactive structures. These subcategories basically addressed
the types of experiences that the child had at the time of a literacy event. The direct
experience would be one of interacting with others, whereas solitary experience
would be noninteractive or observing .
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The intent of this section is to cross-analyze the four families and compare
the literacy practices among them. To do this, a comparison chart facilitated a
graphic approach of looking at the data (see Table 12).
Table 12 summarizes the social domains of activity that mediate literacy
and the types of literacy events that occurred within these domains, as well as the
situation in which the child was engaged at the moment of the event. Reflecting
approximately 77 hours of observing and interviewing, the data reflected the fami
lies engaged mainly in seven of the nine social domains identified by Teale: daily
routines, school-related, entertainment, storybook, interpersonal communication,
religion, and literacy for the sake of teaching/learning literacy. Within these social
activities a variety of literacy events was captured. Literacy events are reading and
writing behaviors and language opportunities that, in this study, were identified as
mediating the domains of social activities. The last two columns in the table iden
tify the two types of participant structure at the moment of the literacy event. That
is, the participant was interacting with someone else during the event or was acting
alone as an observer to the event. Separating categories and subcategories for the
purpose of analyzing data made it difficult to show that, many times, social do
mains overlapped and that a child could be doing a literacy event and, within sec
onds, incorporate another event. It was also common to see a child in a solitary
situation and who then “turned around” and interacted with another child, a parent,
or a teacher.
In the case of the Ramirez family, from the 20 hours spent in observing and
interviewing, the data reflected that the family engaged mainly in three of the social
domains: daily routines, school-related, and religion. The Ramirez family enjoyed
doing the daily routines together, and Flor was included the activities. The second
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Table 12
A Comparison Among the Four Case Families
Participant
structure
Social literacy environment ____________
Time Inter- Soli-
Family (hrs) Domain Literacy events active tary
Ramirez 18
Gonzalez 25
Counting quarters, washing machine doors X X
Daily routines Sorting by color X X
TV-letters o f the alphabet X
School-related Video game X
Labeling objects X
Religion Sequencing by steps X
Recognizing print X
Questioning “what is?” X
Symbolic play— “writing” accident report X
Sequencing by numbers X
Identifying words in labels X
Pretending to read ads X
Symbolic play— reading menu X
Exposed to Bible verses X
Reading for information X
Literacy for the Re-reading to remember X
sake of learning Questioning X
Labeling, naming X X
Identifying new words X
Entertainment Building vocabulary X
Reading for following directions X
Reading for finding places X
Storybook Reciting nursery rhymes X X
Counting, building a wall X
Symbolic play— shark hiding X
Reading for pleasure X X
Rereading favorite story X
Reading for expression
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Table 12 (continued)
Participant
structure
Social literacy environment ___________
Time Inter- Soli-
Family (hrs) Domain Literacy events active tary
Alva 14 School-related Recite days of the week X
Sing ABC song X
Read storybook X X
Entertainment Computer—ABC’s X
Commercial games (e.g., Candy Land) X
Interpersonal Computer X
communication Reading letters and greeting cards X
Franco 20 Entertainment Reading music notes X
Writing name X
School-related Drawing objects X X
Counting 1-10 X X
Memorizing pledge o f allegiance X
Watching someone read X
Labeling X
Reading for information X
Differentiating drawing and writing X
Learning Spanish vowels X
Writing (scribbling) X X
Television—learning the alphabet X
domain, school-related, was also very important for Mrs. Ramirez. Since Flor’s
mother had had a negative experience in learning to read and write, she made sure
that she would help her daughter with school-related work. Based on her own ex
perience and understanding of literacy development, she helped Flor to identify
letters of the alphabet, counting numbers, and writing her name. She kept a port
folio with Flor’s preschool work. The artifacts used for school-related activities
were mainly pencils, crayons paper, activity books, and Flor’s work from school.
Mr. Ramirez gave her time after working hours to respond to her questions. Since
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the Ramirez family was involved with a Bible study group, they were actively en
gaged once a week in studying by reading the Bible and answering questions in the
study guide.
In contrast, Mrs. Gonzalez had made a conscious decision to expose Art to
the act of knowing through reading. That is, she wanted Art to learn about
“things,” to be knowledgeable of the world that surrounded him. One of her high
school teachers had influenced her by telling her that reading books was a way to
acquire knowledge. Mrs. Gonzalez was also concerned with making sure that Art
would be motivated to learn. She decided that she could help him. Literacy for the
sake of learning to read and write was a means to an end. She developed strategic
ways of scaffolding and making learning fun. Her weekends were spent in provid
ing opportunities to learn; on weekday evenings, she read storybooks to Art. To
her, scaffolding meant providing nonfiction books, storybooks, and videos, as well
as taking him to the museums, library, and bookstores. It meant having conversa
tions about the topic of interest and asking questions to raise curiosity. It meant
making him aware of his surroundings while traveling in the car or while walking.
It meant making a Humpty Dumpty out of a balloon and drawing the body and face
and then saying the nursery rhyme. It meant building his vocabulary by looking at
pictures and identifying the object by name.
Ms. Alva’s limited time, due to work and school, made her focus on school-
related activities. She provided resources and a special place for Ana to play with
her toys and school materials. Even while driving to and from the preschool or the
baby sitter, she spoke to her about past and future activities in which Ana was or
would be involved at school. Language development and negotiating meaning
through their conversations were part of the interactions between mother and child.
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On weekends, Ms. Alva helped Ana with counting the numbers from 1 to 10,
learning the alphabet, learning the days of the week, and learning how to write her
name. Very little did she read to her daughter, unless Ana initiated by reading a
book and asking her mother to read to her. Ana’s pastime was pretending to play
school. She made use of the school materials that she had to recreate her school
experiences.
Through the social domain of entertainment, David had experiences with
literacy. With six adults in his home and the attention on him, he had daily oppor
tunities to interact or observe. With his uncles, he would pretend to read his story
books while they were reading literature, learn how to draw and write his name on
his picture, learn how to play an instrument and ,recognize Do, Re, Mi written be
low the musical scale. With his father, David spent time on Sunday mornings
looking at pictures in his books, playing with his toys, and talking about them. His
mother was responsible to take David to karate once a week, where David had to
memorize the pledge that later will help him when he will need to read it. He had
opportunities to practice counting while practicing his kicking skills. These were
some of David’s entertainment activities. Mrs. Franco was the key person in help
ing/teaching David in school-related activities on a daily basis. She provided
David with a spiral notebook and pencil, which were used for recognizing letters
and numbers that she would write for him. Playing with his instructional games
was part of the learning activity.
Summary
The case study families had much in common. They had similar im m igrant,
experiences, spoke the Spanish language, and of were of low income. However,
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there were also differences. There were two single-parent homes. Ms. Alva was
working and going to school while her child was at the preschool or with a baby
sitter; Ms. Gonzalez was rearing her son mostly on her own and with no definite
place to live. The Ramirez family shared a house with another family but seldom
interacted with that family. The Franco’s were an extended family, and each mem
ber played an important role in David’s life.
Although there were differences in the four families, they all demonstrated a
range of social domains of activity that mediated literacy. For each of them, the
focus on certain domains was based on their immediate needs and the goals that
they had for their child. Within those domains, there was a wide range of literacy
behaviors demonstrated by each child. These literacy behaviors were demonstrated
through interactive and solitary opportunities. Those opportunities to interact or to
be alone were fairly equal.
Focus Group
Another aspect of the research design was the inclusion of a focus group.
The intent was to collect data from participants other than those in the case study
families in order to strengthen the analysis of the data. After the four case study
families were identified, the researcher attended a parent meeting, spoke about the
research project, and invited parents to participate in a focus group. Eight parents
chose to participate in the study in this way, and they met twice with the researcher
for approximately an hour and a half. Table 13 gives a brief description of the
eight parents who participated in the focus group.
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Table 13
Characteristics o f the Focus Group
Participant Years in the United States Number of children
Lidia 12 1
Selene 8 1
Esther 5 2
Sonia 2 1
Maria 3 1
Erida 10 1
Lupe 7 1
Elizabet 14 2
The researcher’s role during the sessions was that of a facilitator, using a set
of questions (appendix) to guide the discussions. In the first session, the discussion
revolved around their experiences in learning to read and write that led to their
views about reading and writing. In the second session, the discussion was about
their role as parents and that led to what their children were able to do.
During the discussion the eight parents shared some of their experiences as
students in their country. They believed that the way in which they learned to read
was the way in which their children would learn to read. The reading book that
they used in school had the alphabet, the vowels, and the consonants. “Temamos
un cuaderno para escribir las letras y despues las silabas” [We had a notebook to
write the letters and later the syllables]. They stated that what they thought was
important in order to learn to read and write was knowing the letters of the alpha
bet, learning to put letters together, writing letters and then writing syllables, and
counting the numbers from 1 to 10. They also thought that children had to learn to
practice handwriting (penmanship) so that they could form the letters correctly.
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Since they, as students, did handwriting exercises, they also liked to do handwriting
with their children. They usually bought a notebook specifically to practice hand
writing. “Primero empiezan haciendo bolitas o circulos en la hoja de papel y
luego hacen palitos y asi siguen practicando. ” [First, they start by doing little balls
or circles on the paper and then little sticks (they meant lines) and they continue
practicing.]
The second session dealt with the role of parents in their child’s schooling.
One mother stated, “El papel de padre es como el del maestro . . . es el de ensehar.
Con nosotros los ninos aprenden primero.” [The role of the parent is like the
teacher’s . . . to teach. Children first learn from us.] They learn to listen and to
speak. As they get older, parents help them learn to read in the same way that they
remembered being taught. More important, the parents felt that they helped their
children by supporting, encouraging, and taking care of them. One mother said,
“Nos interesa la education de nuestros hijos, por eso estamos aqui, para super-
arnos. ” [We are interested in our children’s education, that is why we are here.]
When they were asked them whether their children were learning, the par
ents responded in a very positive way. Sonia, one of the mothers, said:
Nosotros estamos recien llegados aqui, a este pais y pues el
nunca habia estado en la escuela y pues el como quiera
que sea, ya sabe los numeros en ingles y en espanol del 1 al
15. Elya sabe los colores en inglesy en espanol, no sabe
escribirlos, pero ya los conoce, pues cuando vamos en la
calle dice “amd, va un carro rojo, es un color red. ” O sea,
es mucho el avance que yo he visto en el. [We are recent
arrivals here to this country and he (son) had never been in
a school and he now knows the numbers in English and in
Spanish from 1 to 15. He already knows the colors in Eng
lish and in Spanish, does not know how to write them but
he knows them . . . when we are in the street, he says,
“Mom, there goes a red car, it is a red color.” That is, I
have seen him advance a lot.]
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Another mother, Esther, shared that her daughter “toma un libro y empieza
a hablar ella sola, ella hace como que lee y escribe y habla por telefono todo eso
hace ella” [takes a book and starts to speak by herself and she pretends to read and
write and she talks on the telephone . . . all that she does].
Overall, they were pleased to meet and have time to discuss topics that were
relevant to them. Their monthly parent meetings had been more informational
meetings that help, but these did not provide opportunities for dialogue.
Case Study Families and Focus Group:
A Cross-Analysis
The purpose of this section is to compare the case study families with the
focus group in three major areas that impact the child’s literacy development:
(a) parents’ views on literacy, (b) parents’ role in the schooling o f their children,
and (c) what are their children able to do in reading and writing. Figure 3 is a
summary of parents’ comments identified in categories (underlined).
Summary
Views on Literacy
It was evident that the parents viewed learning to read and write in very
much the way that they had experienced it in their own country. Other studies have
indicated similar findings (Reese, Goldenberg, Loucky, & Gillmore, 1995; Serpell,
1997). However, the focus group expressed that, if there were other ways of
learning to read and write, they would want to know. They believed that parent
meetings should include training on how to prepare for kindergarten. From the
case study parents, Ms. Gonzalez viewed reading as means to an end. She said
that, by learning to read, the child would acquire knowledge. Mr. Franco, who
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Partici
pants Views on Literacy Parents’ Role What Are Children Able to Do?
Case
Study
Families
and
Focus
Group
The four case study families
and the eight parents of the
focus group believed that, to
learn to read and write, the
child needs to:
• know the alphabet
• know the numbers (1-10)
• learn to join vowels to the
consonants
• write the letters of the
alphabet
The four case study families and the
eight parents of the focus group
believed that they were the children’s
first teachers in the following areas:
Language
• They hear us speak
• They speak the first words that
they hear us say, such as “mama,
papa”
• They start using more vocabulary
Reading
• We teach them vowels, numbers
• We help them learn her/his name
• We teach them the alphabet
Writing
• We help them write their names
• We teach them to write numbers
(1-10)
Learning
• We interest them in learning
• We provide what is needed
to learn
• We listen and help them
• We encourage them and tell
them that they can do it
• We answer their questions
• We sit with them and practice
The four case study families and the
eight parents o f the focus group
agreed that their children were able to
do the following:
Motivation
• They show interest in learning
things
• They like to go to school
• They are curious
• They are always asking questions
• They like to stay busy with games,
games, toys, and books
Reading and Writing
• Learn about six letters in the
alphabet in English
• Can say the numbers from 1 to 5
in Spanish and in English
•' Learn the colors in Spanish and
in English
• Like to color
• Can take a book and pretend to
read it
• Can identify her/his name
Figure 3. Summary of areas that impact literacy development.
O©
U J
grew up having difficulty in learning to read, expressed that there were many dif
ferent ways that would help children learn to read and write. Overall, both the fo
cus group and the case study parents wanted their children to do better in school, as
compared to their own experiences. Doing “better” translated to having opportuni
ties to learn.
Parents ’ Role
Parents took their role very serious. Both groups indicated that they were
the first teachers, because their children learned to speak by hearing adults talk,
and that teaching them how to say words led to more learning. The focus group
thought that language was very important because children needed to learn to ex
press themselves. Ms. Gonzalez thought that the more words children learned, the
more it would help them in reading. The focus group expressed more the impor
tance of supporting their children in all that ultimately will contribute to success in
life, not precisely to reading and writing. As one parent said, success meant “que
se superen en todos los aspectos de la vida espiritual, emocional y que sean hu-
manos” [to succeed in all aspects of spiritual, emotional life and to be humans].
Overall, parents felt that learning starts at home and continues and fully de
velops at school. The recent immigrants who had been here no more than 10 years
had high hopes and eagerness to see their children succeed in school. Two parents
in the case study and one in the focus group who had experienced schooling in the
United States expressed disappointment in the educational system. As one parent
put it,, “To no hablo bien el espanol ni el ingles... yo no quiero que mis dos ninos
sean como yo ” [I don’t speak Spanish nor English well... I don’t want my two
children to be like me]. Ms. Alva, with great concern, shared that her love of books
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and enjoying reading instilled by her parents had slowly disappeared. Now she will
not read unless it has to do with her class assignments. She is afraid that could
happen to her daughter. However, parents as a whole believed in the value of edu
cation and the important role that the school plays in the schooling of their children.
Two areas hindered the parents from giving more support to their children:
(a) time available, and (b) not being able to speak the English language. In most
cases, both the husband and the wife were working, sometimes in more than one
job. For example, Mrs. Franco worked in Manhattan Beach, cleaning houses
every day except weekends. Her husband worked in two jobs every day in down
town Los Angeles. In the morning, he took Mrs. Franco and David to the pre
school. Then she took two buses and a train to Manhattan; in the afternoon, she
would do the same to get back to the preschool. Since her husband was still work
ing, she had to take two buses to go home. To try to save money on transportation,
she would buy monthly passes; she estimated that she spent about $40 a month on
bus passes.
What Are Your Children Able to
Do?
Both groups of parents agreed that their children were learning. Parents ve
hemently expressed that their children were excited about learning. They gave
themselves credit for their children’s learning, and they were proud to say it. They
were grateful and happy to have their children in the preschool and were surprised
that it was more of a learning center. Through their observations and looking at
their child’s schoolwork, they could see progress. The areas in literacy that parents
identified as having been learned were the recognition of letters, the memorization
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of the alphabet, counting, knowing the colors, and being able to identify their
names and write at least the first letter of their name.
Sampling o f Parents ’ Analysis
Quantitative D ata
Quantitative data were also collected from another group of 36 parents who
were not part of the focus group or the case study families. The purpose was to
offer another sampling of data.
An inventory entitled Lista de materiales de lectura y escritura en el hogar
(appendix) was developed and used by Claude Goldenberg (Goldenberg & Galli-
more, 1991). This inventory has been utilized as a measure of identifying literacy
products at home. Also, a parent survey entitled Cuestionario Familiar (appendix)
addressed key questions on literacy events and the frequency that these events oc
curred within the families.
Parent Inventory
The inventory had five categories of products: (a) school related,
(b) children related, (c) adult-related, (d) daily routines, and (e) technology. There
were 37 products listed as subcategories. The inventory was given to parents dur
ing a monthly parent meeting. Approximately 70 parents had children in the pre
school; 36 parents attended the meeting and responded to the inventory, but only 27
parents completed the entire inventory. That is, 39% of the preschool parents re
sponded to the inventory.
Table 14 represents the literacy products that are part of each of the catego
ries. Parents were to respond either yes or no to having the products. As shown in
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Table 14
Presence o f Literary Products in the Homes o f the Case Families
Category Product Yes No
School-related Notebooks 18 9
Homework 15 12
Textbooks 10 17
Letters/notes 9 18
Child-related Coloring books 25 2
Story books 23 4
Library books 12 15
Religious stories 12 15
Information books 11 16
Magazines/comics 9 18
Instructional material 8 19
Child’s Bible 6 21
Encyclopedia 4 23
Adult-related Bible 17 10
Entertainment books 15 12
Information books 13 14
Newspapers 12 15
Magazines 12 15
School texts 12 15
Recipe books 11 16
Work-related material 9 18
Religious material 7 20
Daily routines Calendar 18 9
Medical information 16 11
Maps 14 13
Letters 11 16
Legal documents 10 17
Shopping lists 10 17
Manuals 8 19
Television guide 6 21
Informal notes '5 22
Checkbooks 5 22
Technology Calculator 16 11
Videocassette recorder 15 12
Computer 7 20
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the table, 18 of the 27 parents had notebooks in their homes, followed by home
work materials, then textbooks, then letters and notes; 25 o f the 27 parents had col
oring books in their homes, followed by story books, with fewer than 5 parents
having encyclopedias; more than half of the parents indicated that they had Bibles,
entertainment books, and information books in their homes; more than half o f the
parents indicated that they had calendars, medical information, and maps in their
homes; and 60% of the parents had calculators, 56% had videocassette recorders
(VCR), and only 26% had computers. This inventory indicates that parents who
responded to the inventory had a wide range of materials that support literacy de
velopment. The highest number of homes had coloring books and the lowest num
ber had encyclopedias.
Parent Survey
Table 15 indicates the frequency of family members helping the child with
literacy-related activities, with responses ranging from almost never to every day.
The number column indicates how many parents responded for each of the literacy
activities. The total number across each row indicates the total number o f parents
responding. The percent column indicates the percentage responding from the 28
parents.
Overall, more than 50% of the family members listened to music and helped
to recognize letters and words every day, and 50% of the family members told sto
ries one or two times a week.
Table 16 indicates the frequency of reading activities done by mothers,
fathers, other members of the family, and the child. The frequencies ranged from
never to more than one time a day. The number column indicates how many
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Table 15
Frequency o f Family Members Helping the Child
Almost Once a 2-3 times 1-2 times Every
never month a month a week day
Activity f % f % f % f % f %
Listen to music
Help recognize letter, words
at home and on the streets
Help learn letters, words,
and numbers
Tell stories
Play children’s games
Help learn how to draw
Read or look at books
Play “pretend” games
Help learn to write
0 0 0 0 2
1 4 1 4 2
1 4 0 0 6
0 0 1 4 4
1 4 0 0 7
3 11 0 0 3
0 0 1 4 7
6 21 0 0 4
5 18 0 0 4
7 5 18 21 75
7 4 14 20 71
21 6 21 15 54
14 14 50 9 32
25 7 25 13 46
11 11 39 11 39
25 13 46 7 25
14 8 29 10 36
14 10 36 9 32
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Table 16
Frequency o f Reading Events
Less than 1 -2 times 1-2 times Almost > 1 time
Never a month a month a week daily a day
Activity / % / % / % / % / % / %
Mother reads a
book, magazine,
newspaper
Father reads a
book, magazine,
newspaper
Other family
member reads a
book, news
paper,magazine
Child reads/
looks at a book
at home
Child is taken
to library by
family member
90
0 0
2 7
4 14
1 3
17 59
1 3
1 3
2 7
2 7
3 10
3 10
6 21
4 14
5 17
5 17
12 34
7 24
3 10
6 21
2 7
11 38
11 38
13 45
14 48
2 7
1 3
2 7
3 10
0 0
0 0
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parents responded for each of the literacy activities. The total number across each
row indicates the total number of parents responding. The percent column indi
cates the percentage responding from the 29 parents.
The child’s frequency in reading is the most important information in Table
16. The highest number (14) of parents responded that, almost every day, the child
reads/looks at a book at home. Seventeen parents responded that the child is never
taken to the library by a family member.
Parent Inventory Sum m ary
Overall, the parent inventory that was used as a measure of identifying liter
acy products at home indicated that the families had a wide range of products. In
the children-related category, 25 of 27 families had coloring books, followed by
storybooks. Parents indicated that they wanted their children to learn the colors,
which was important for them.
In the school-related category, 18 homes had notebooks. During interviews,
parents said that, in their countries, they used spiral notebooks to write and keep
their assignments. The department of education in their countries provided the
reading and subject matter texts, and families had to buy utiles escolares, that is,
school supplies, which included notebooks. Therefore, it was common to find par
ents using notebooks to help their children with school-related activities.
In the daily routines, the calendar was identified to be in more homes than
other products. In the homes that were visited, the calendars had been given to the
clients by neighborhood businesses. Most had more than one calendar, mainly in
the kitchen and living room, and they did mark on the calendar. One important
product that was not included in the inventory was a bus schedule. However,
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schedules for many routes were found in the homd. Many of the parents relied on
the city buses to go to work and to the preschool or any other place. Some of the
parents bought a monthly pass to save money, and they carried a booklet for the
entire month. Of interest is the use of the television guide in the homes. Very few
families (6) reported having television guides. Families that were observed had
television guides in Spanish but they did not use them to read the schedule; they
reported that they had them because there were articles of interest and advertise
ments that they wanted to read.
In the technology category, only 5 families had a computer at home. This is
one of the most expensive products of all, but parents who were interviewed were
hoping to have access to a computer because they felt that it was important.
Parent Survey Summary
Overall, the highest frequency of activities in which family members helped
the child with literacy activities were in the areas of listening to music, followed by
letter recognition and then learning letters, words, and numbers. They ranged from
54% to 75% of the parents helping on a daily basis. The literacy activities that ei
ther parents did not participate in or helped the least were playing pretend games
and helping the child to learn to write.
In the frequency of reading events at home by mother, father, child, or other
member of the family, an average of 60% of them read from once a week to almost
every day. The data also indicated that 70% of the children read/looked at books
at home from once a week to almost every day. What was not happening in the
families was taking the child to the library; about 59% did not go to the library.
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Home-School Relationships
This section addresses the second research question: What reciprocal rela
tionships between the social sharing o f knowledge that occurs with children’ s net
work offamily/community and the formal classroom instruction? The types of data
collected were observations, interviews, and surveys. The classroom observations
were focused on the teachers’ literacy practices and their interaction with the chil
dren of the case study families. The purpose of the teacher interviews was twofold:
(a) to understand the preschool program and (b) to determine how the program
connected with the children and the families whom it served. There were two sur
veys (appendix) for teachers: (a) the teacher self-report on their literacy-based ac
tivities (what teachers do) and (b) the teachers’ perspectives on what children (in
the case study) can do in early reading and writing. The surveys were created
based on the identified developmentally appropriate practices in learning to read
and write. These practices were identified by the International Reading Association
in collaboration with the National Association for the Education of Young Children
(see appendix).
The data that were generated provided an insight into the relationship be
tween the home and the school. This section is organized with a description of the
preschool’s physical and social literacy environment followed by a comparison
between the two contexts, the home and the school.
The Preschool Physical Literacy Environment
The preschool was located east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of
the garment and wholesale district. The main wholesale items in this area are
clothing, jewelry, fabrics and accessories, toys, and food. There is a wide range of
jobs, from working in the warehouses to selling the products. The preschool is one
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of several preschool centers located in downtown Los Angeles to provide support
to low-income families working in the garment and wholesale district. This school
was in its second year of providing services to the community. It operates Monday
through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Due to the area’s high concentration of
crime activity, there is security on the premises to provide a safe environment.
Classrooms and Playground
Three classrooms are enclosed with circular windows between classrooms.
Each classroom accommodates 25 children. The walls displayed children’s work
such as art, teacher-made monthly calendars, a bulletin with information for par
ents, and a “Theme Wall.” During the month of December, the theme was winter
holidays. Each room had a playhouse area, a rug area with shelves with manipula-
tives, and a reading center but with few books. There were about 15 books in each
of two classrooms; in the third room, the teacher had bought her books (about 30
books). In a response to a survey, one teacher indicated that she established a liter
acy-rich environment 2 to 3 times a month; two teachers indicated that they made
changes to their bulletin boards every day. All three teachers had print in Spanish
and English.
There were two playgrounds to accommodate all of the children at different
times of the day. Each area had playground equipment and outdoor play equipment
such as tricycles, wagons, and balls.
Staff
There was one supervisor responsible for the program, three preschool
teachers, three instructional assistants, and other support staff. The three preschool
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teachers had bachelor’s degrees from California State University Los Angeles and
preschool certification. All staff members spoke both English and Spanish.
Curriculum
Although the main goal in the preschool setting was the social development
of the child, the school also stresses cognitive development in their daily activities
(see appendix). There was no specific preschool curriculum guide. Teachers had
monthly meetings to select a monthly theme and plan their instructional strategies.
The Preschool Social Literacy Environment
There were 75 children enrolled in the preschool program. The research
study focused on the four case study preschool children and their three teachers.
Table 17 is an overview o f the time and the activities in which the researcher
participated at the preschool. For 13 hours of class observations, a checklist (ap
pendix) was used as a guide to maintain focus during observations.
During the interview, teachers and supervisor stated that the preschool goals
were to (a) meet children’s social, emotional, and intellectual needs, (b) help them
to be creative, and (3) teach them how to express themselves. These goals were
identified by teachers and supervisor, not from a preschool program. They stated
that the two components significant in meeting these goals were literacy-based ac
tivities and ongoing communication with parents. Based on the goals, the next step
was to learn what teachers thought they were doing about literacy practices.
Literacy-Based Activities
During the interviews, teachers shared that storybooks and favorite stories
read in class helped children to understand their small world and that of others. For
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Table 17
Description o f Research Activities During the Three Phases
Phase Month Activity Hours
1 November Met with supervisor 1.5
Visited classrooms (p.m.) 2.0
Attended staff meeting, presented study 1.0
1 December Attended a book sale at school 2.0
Visited classrooms (p.m.) 2.0
Attended Parent Advisory Council 2.0
Attended Christmas program in each
classroom (a.m.) 2.0
2 January Parent meeting, presented study 2.0
Parent Advisory Council, presented study 2.0
Observed three classrooms (p.m.) 4.0
Updated supervisor on researcher activities 1.0
3 February Interviewed teachers 1.0
Attended parent meeting 1.0
Facilitated first focus group meeting 1.5
Observed three classrooms (p.m.) 1.0
Updated supervisor on researcher activities 1.0
3 March Parent meeting, collected surveys 2.0
Teacher meeting, collected surveys 1.0
Facilitated second focus group meeting 1.5
Observed three classrooms (a.m.) 4.0
Met with supervisor to update and thank her
for support received at the preschool 1.0
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example, books on how to get along with each other were read and discussed. The
teachers shared that listening and singing songs about appropriate behaviors helped
children to develop such behaviors. For example, in the “Good Morning” song,
children learn to greet each other. Teachers explained that, each morning, they do
“roll call” by singing a song and showing the card with the child’s name; the child
stands up, takes his/her card, and places it in the pocket chart. If the child is absent,
the other children respond by saying that the child is not there. This practice was
confirmed during observations. On one occasion while the children were playing
outside, a girl was wearing a tee shirt that had as a design an angel’s halo and the
word “Angel.” She went to a boy named Angel and told him that his name was on
her shirt; he just smiled. Having been exposed to each other’s names gave them the
opportunity to identify print and make meaning out of it.
Teacher Self-Report
Table 18 summarizes the responses from the three teachers on the self-
report (appendix) about their literacy practices. There were six areas to which they
had to respond by indicating whether they practiced these literacy activities. Table
18 indicates that one teacher reread favorite stories every day, and the two other
teachers reread once or twice a week, but all shared and modeled reading behaviors
every day. Children were seen to be reading during each observation. The
rereading of stories did occur; however, it could have been because they did not
have very many books from which to select.
Creativity and self-expression behaviors were evident throughout the day.
These were embedded in their literacy-related play and game activities. Table 18
shows the responses that teachers made regarding the play/game activities. Two
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Table 18
Frequency o f Literacy Activities in the School
Domain and activity Frequency Teachers
Reading
Reread favorite stories 1-2 times a week 2
Every day 1
Use Spanish and English 3
Share books, model reading behaviors Every day 3
Use Spanish and English 3
Play/games
Promote literacy-related play activities 2-3 times a month 2
1-2 times a week 1
Use Spanish 1
Use Spanish and English 2
Engage children in language games
Once a month 1
1-2 times a week 2
Use Spanish 1
Use Spanish and English 2
Reading/writing skills
Talk about letters by names and sounds Once a month 1
2-3 times a month 1
1-2 times a week 1
Use Spanish 1
Use Spanish and English 2
Encourage children to experiment
with writing Every day 3
English and Spanish 3
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teachers indicated that they promoted literacy-related play activities 2 to 3 times a
month, and one teacher reported promoting them 1 or 2 times a week. However,
during 13 hours of observation in the mornings and afternoons, play and language
activities related to literacy were seen to occur on a regular basis. Children were
observed in the morning and in the afternoon activities and they were engaged, in
the three types of play (Jacob, 1984 ): (a) practice play, (b) games, and
(c) symbolic play.
Practice play is an exercise that is carried out for the enjoyment and fun of
doing it: for instance, playing with blocks and manipulatives to build, undo, and
rebuild again, or riding a tricycle. Independently from teacher/student interaction,
the children played on their own. They say the morning songs or carried on a
monologue about Humpty Dumpty and his “fall.” This was the time that they
“practiced” what they had heard.
Games are exercises that follow a set of rules and procedures. For example,
in the afternoons, playground supervisors initiated and taught games in Spanish and
English: La Rueda de San Miguel, La Vibora de la Mar, El Avion, and Duck,
Duck, Goose. The game called el Avion (Hop-Scotch) was a favorite. Children
took turns jumping or skipping on each of the 10 squares (shape of an airplane).
They all joined in counting from 1 to 10 while one child jumped. In the other
games, they practiced rhyming, playing with sounds, naming colors, and demon
strating directionality.
Symbolic play is a pretending activity that uses an object to make-believe
that it represents something. For example, one afternoon, Flor, one of the case
study participants, played with a small plastic container with small blocks inside.
The child gave the small block to the researcher and said, “Ze traigo su medicina.
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Tome esto para que se alivie [I bring you your medicine. Drink this so that you can
heal]. The researcher asked how much medicine she should take. Flor raised the
container, looked for print, and found the bar code on the side. She pointed to the
bar code and said, “ Dice aqui que se tome una en la noche ” [It says here to drink
one at night]. This is an example of the symbolic play of children. The symbolic
play can go on until the task proposed by the child is completed.
Table 18 shows teachers’ responses regarding children’s reading and writ
ing skills. Teaching how to read and write and methods to use were not clearly
defined by the teachers or the supervisor. They did not have guidelines on what
and how to approach the reading and writing processes. Table 18 indicates that
each teacher talked about letters by names and sounds, but not on a daily basis.
The teacher who had the 4-year-old children felt that it was her responsibility to
prepare them for kindergarten, so she did spend time teaching skills about twice a
week. During one of the observed lessons, the teacher working with the 4-year-
olds, while reading a big book, talked about the initial letter of key words. In none
of the observations was direct instruction used on any of the reading skills.
All three teachers indicated that they encouraged children to experiment
with writing. However, the observations indicated that the common writing activ
ity in the three classes was children writing their names. Opportunities for children
to experiment with writing were not evident. Also, there was little evidence on
teachers modeling writing. The activities such as reading a story, singing a song, or
reciting a nursery rhyme relied on the listening skills rather than writing them while
children observed and participated in the writing process. Opportunities to write
for authentic reasons were not seized. For example, when the students were going
on a field trip, a short list of “do’s” and “don’ts” could have been written by the
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teacher with the help of the students. Or, when the Toy Lending project was initi
ated, a list of toys that were available could have been written by the teacher in
front of the students. The essence of these activities is to model purposeful writing.
Teacher Early Reading and
Writing Student Survey
In addition to the self-report, teachers responded to the Early Reading and
Writing Student Survey (appendix) and indicated whether the case study students in
their class could do the literacy activities that were appropriate for their develop
mental level. Table 19 shows the seven areas and the three teachers’ markings on
the areas that children could do.
Table 19
Literacy Events That the Children in the Case Study Families Could Do
Event Ana Art David Flor
Enjoy listening to and discussing storybooks X X X
Understand that print carries a message X X
Engage in reading and writing attempts X X X
Identify labels and signs in their environment X X X
Participate in rhyming games X X
Identify some letters and make some
letter-sound matches
Use known letters or approximations of letters
to represent written language (names, signs) X X X
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For David, one of the youngest of the four children, the teacher marked only four
areas that he could do. Home and school observations confirmed that David was
engaged in these literacy events, as well as two of the other activities. During the
afternoons, while playing outside with the instructional assistant, David joined
others to play rhyming games in Spanish. At other times, when asked to show his
work, he would say “no, es mid" [no, it is mine] and then he would point to his
name. His teacher wrote a comment on the survey saying that David was “shy but,
given attention only to him, he is able to participate and have fun.” It is interesting
to note that in David’s house there were six adults who interacted with him on a
daily basis. At school, there were two adults for 25 children, and that made inter
action less and more of a teacher-directed structure. Even though David had many
more opportunities to interact with family members, his mother stated that he liked
to play by himself and pick a book and pretend to read it while adults were reading.
In Art’s case, who was in his second year at the preschool, the teacher
marked only three areas that he was able to do. In 25 hours of observing him and
his mother while they participated in different community events, Art performed
better outside of the school than what the teacher perceived. It is in this context
that David was fully engaged in activities that included literacy events.
In Flor’s case, the teacher did not think that Flor could understand that print
carries a message. Yet, Flor was observed at school and home, and her ability to
understand the concept of print was demonstrated countless times.
In the case of Ana, the teacher did not think that Ana enjoyed listening to
and discussing storybooks. She said that Ana was always distracted when she was
reading from a book. Nonetheless, at home, Ana pretended to read her books and
even read in the manner that she saw her teacher read. That is, she read the title
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page, then turned the page and read the first page in English and then the second
page in Spanish, and so on (it did not matter in what language the book was writ
ten).
The area that none of the four children were able to do and that was not ob
served at home or school was identifying some letters and making some letter-
sound matches. This is the area that the teacher with the 4-year-olds thought that
she needed to address in her lessons.
Summary
Overall, observations and surveys indicated that the three teachers were
conducting literacy-based activities that were limited in scope. The range of liter
acy products was limited to a few books and only construction paper for drawing
and writing the child’s name, but no other writing materials, such as chart paper,
were available.
Teachers’ awareness and observations skills were limited to the point that
they did not recognize children’s ongoing language and literacy development
throughout the day, while playing alone and with others. During teacher-centered
activities such as reading a story to the class, very little interaction occurred be
tween teacher and child. The teacher mainly lead the activity and asked “wh”
questions intermittently, but made no allowance for a child to ask questions or to
answer.
There was no record-keeping system to assess the children’s language and
literacy development. In completing the survey, the teachers gave information
from what they thought, rather than from any sort of assessment portfolio.
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CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
This chapter consists of four sections. In the first section, the findings of
the study are summarized and the significance o f the findings is discussed. The
second section presents the theoretical framework that evolved from the study. The
third section discusses the pedagogical implication of the study. The fourth section
makes recommendations for further research.
Summary o f Findings in Relation to
Current Research and Significance
The findings summarized here are the result of a descriptive study within an
ethnographic approach to investigate Latino family literacy learning in a sociocul
tural context. This study examined the nature o f literacy and situated it in the con
text of a social activity. It was undertaken to continue to explore and capture these
literacy practices and produce more insight into how these occurred. It also ex
plored the nature of reciprocal relationships between the home and the school. The
aim was to describe systematically the nature of the literacy practices in Latino
families. The study took the form of an embedded design which looked at the
child’s literacy development within the family, community, and school contexts.
Overall Findings
It was clear in this study that the home plays a key role in emergent literacy.
The emphasis on looking at what parents do with their children that promotes liter
acy development was very critical. Confirming Teale’s study, the Latino children
had many experiences with written language before formal schooling. Through
interviews, parents shared that they were the first teachers in their child’s lives.
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They also took credit for what the child knew at the time o f the study. Not only did
children have experiences with written language before school, but they also used
print in their everyday activities. This finding confirms other studies of literacy
practice in low-SES homes (Heath, 1983; Purcell-Gates, 1996; Purcell-Gates et al.,
1995; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988; Teale, 1986).
In research by Teale (1978,1980), he concluded that several home factors
were associated with conventional reading: (a) reading was done by adults and
older children in the home; (b) other persons in the home responded to the chil
dren’s reading and writing activities; (c) a range of printed materials was available;
and (d) writing instruments and materials were readily accessible to the children.
These are some of the areas discussed in the following section.
Findings Related to Research Question 1: Utilization
and Interpretation o f Aspects o f Literacy
Three major themes emerged from this study: (a) home factors that are as
sociated with conventional reading; (b) the family’s ecocultural niche; and
(c) variation in motives, goals, and conditions.
Home Factors A ssociated With
Conventional Reading
Reading was done by adults and older children in the home. The quantitat
ive findings (29 families surveyed out of 70) indicated that all of the adults read a
book, magazine, or newspaper in frequencies ranging from less than a month to
more than once a day. Thirty-six percent of the mothers were reading almost every
day; 38% of the fathers were reading almost every day. Other family members
(45%) were reading almost every day. Family members helping the child to read or
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look at books ranged form once a month to every day. Forty-six percent of family
members read or looked at books with a child once or twice a week.
In the case study families, two families (Ramirez and Franco) read for pur
poses of gathering information, religious studying, or pleasure once or twice a
week. In the Alba and Gonzalez families, the mothers were mainly reading to their
children for the purpose of acquiring knowledge or for pleasure. Ms. Gonzalez
read to Art on a daily basis, and Ms. Alba read to her child on a weekly basis.
Other persons responded to the children’ s reading and writing activities.
In the quantitative findings, family members responded or helped their children to
play pretend games; recognize letters, numbers, and words at home and on the
streets; and learn to write, in frequencies ranging from once a month to every day.
The majority o f the families helped or responded on one or more o f the activities
mentioned above on an everyday basis.
In the case study families, all four mothers were the adults who worked di
rectly with the child on reading and writing activities for the sake of learning to
read and write. However, most of the time, literacy was embedded throughout their
daily routines. During their daily routines, parents responded to reading and writ
ing activities, not with the intent to teach but rather to respond to the child’s in
quisitive mind.
Range o f printed materials available at home. There was substantial quali
tative and quantitative evidence of a wide range of printed materials available in the
homes. In the parent inventory, 37 products were listed as subcategories. The re
sults indicated that families had these products at home. An average of 11 products
were found in each home. The most common one in the school-related category
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was the notebook. It is very common to find this product, not because it is the least
expensive but because it is part of the parents’ custom from their own country to
buy notebooks, where they do all of their schoolwork. Even though the telephone
has taken away the families’ means of communicating by letters, the availability of
a computer in homes is very limited, more so the use of the Internet.
Observation of the case study families showed various products related to
school that the parents had bought for their children. In spite of parents’ limited
monetary resources, they found ways to acquire these materials. In some cases,
they bought them in thrift shops, garage sales, swap meets, or the products were
give to them by their employers. In spite of limited space in their living quarters,
they found a place to put the materials. Flor’s mother made a large cardboard port
folio and placed it in the comer of their one-room home. Ana’s mother converted
the patio porch into a playroom that included all her materials. In the case of
David, with so many people in the small apartment, the parents placed the materials
inside a bookshelf that was closed in. They said that, in order to protect the materi
als from getting damaged or lost, they had to put them away. The acquisition of
these school-related materials was, for parents, a responsibility. They related it to
their own personal experience in which families had to buy school supplies and the
educational system provided the texts. The findings of this study concur with those
reported by Reese et al. (1995), who stated that being Latino and poor does not
mean an absence of emergent literacy practices.
Writing instruments and materials were readily accessible to the children.
Both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data show that writing was the activity
least used. However, parents knew that it was important for the child to leam to
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write. The parents provided a notebook and pencil to have during the time that the
mother sat with the child to practice writing her/his name, numbers, and letters.
Again, these practices were familiar to the parents, based on their own experiences.
Other materials that they provided were coloring books and crayons for the child
ren to color and draw. David Franco also had an Etch a Sketch® on which to write
or draw.
These four factors found in this study clearly confirmed the studies that re
lated them to conventional reading.
F am ily’ s Ecocultural Niche
Due to political or economic circumstances, Latino families leave their
county of origin in search of a new home. In the case of the immigrant families in
this study, not only did they come to a different culture but also to a new setting,
from rural to urban. They had to leam to cope, adjust, and adapt to new conditions
in the new homeland. These new members of our society had to master an impres
sive range of knowledge and skills. One way of mastering these skills is by main
taining a network with members of their community and a close relationship with
other family members. It is through these networking systems that families de
velop knowledge, skills, and experiences that make up the adaptive strategies.
The knowledge, skills, and experiences mentioned above are what have
been called “funds of knowledge,” defined as “those bodies of knowledge of strate
gic importance to households” (Velez-Ibanez & Greenberg, 1992). Funds of
knowledge played a significant role in the lives of the four case study families, con
sistent to the reports by Moll and Gonzalez (1994). All of the case study families
interacted with the community and family members for networking purposes. For
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example, the Franco family was involved in the area of music. They had formed a
group of musicians to perform at parties, at little cost to the community. They also
had a group of people in Los Angeles and in Mexico who were collecting sheet
music for various band instruments to give to the musicians for practice. To buy
this sheet music in the stores was very expensive and sometimes it was not avail
able, especially music from Mexico.
In the case of Ms. Alba, as a single parent, her social gatherings with family
and friends gave her the support that she needed. During her daughter’s birthday,
in addition to her family, she invited Sister Grace, who had given her spiritual and
moral support and assisted her in finding a job in a nonprofit agency. She invited
the preschool teachers and the instructional assistants, whom she considered key
individuals in the schooling of her child. In the case of the Ramirez family, the
small Bible study group, as well as the content being learned, served as a comfort
to them in their everyday challenges.
Routines
In the descriptive analysis of the case study families, it was shown that, in
their daily lives, there was a routine to follow in order to accomplish the tasks. In
the case of all of the families, they were consistent with their weekly schedule,
which revolved around the preschool and work schedule. For some families, that
meant taking the bus at a specific time in order to transfer to other buses to get to
the preschool and to work on time. For some, it took approximately 2 hours to take
the child to school and get to work on time, and 2 hours in the afternoon to pick up
the child and go home. Those families with a car had to manage their time, such as
in Ms. Alba’s case. She took Ana to school in the morning and returned to pick her
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up during her lunch time to take her to a baby sitter, because right after work she
had to be in school herself. Then she would pick Ana around 8:00 p.m. and take
her home and put her to sleep.
During the weekends, their activities were also routinized. Going grocery
shopping, washing clothes, and other pending activities were mainly done on Sat
urdays. Sundays were spent in staying at home or in a family outing, such as going
to the park, visiting family members, or eating out. This was the same schedule
from Sunday through Saturday and was necessary for parents to stay within the
time schedule in order to comply to the demands of each day.
This aspect o f their routinized activities is important to the study because
it demonstrates a consistent and frequent engagement in daily activities. It was
within these consistent and frequent daily activities that the child was an active
participant or an observer of literacy practices.
Variations in Motives, Goals,
and Conditions Within Families
All parents shared the same broad long-term goal: valuing and supporting
the education of their children. This finding concurs with that reported by Reese et
al. (1995). Families want their children to further their education because they be
lieve that there are more opportunities in the United States to be able to do so. The
majority of the parents had schooling up to 6th grade and had learned to read and
write in Spanish, but they knew that their children could go further, including
higher education.
However, the analysis of the domains of activity revealed that the extent of
literacy mediated by a particular domain depended on the conditions, motives, and
short-term goals of each of the families. For example, Ms. Alba was not able to
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spend time with her daughter in the evenings because she had to go to school after
working hours. She decided that she would dedicate time on weekends to help her
child with school-related activities and take her out, which Ana enjoyed. That was
one way of making up for not being there for Ana during the week. The two main
domains of activity were school-related and entertainment.
On the other hand, Ms. Gonzalez spent most of her time with her son after
working hours and during the weekends, engaging him in activities that would mo
tivate him to leam about things. Reading for the sake of knowing became impor
tant for her. Pleasure reading became a second interest.
For the other two families, their motives and interests were significant in
focusing on certain domains more than on others. Overall, six domains of activity
were captured in this case study: (a) daily routines, (b) school-related activities,
(c) entertainment, (d) storybooks, (e) religion, and (f) literacy for the sake o f learn
ing. Even though there was a variation of domains based on families’ conditions,
motives, and goals, all had a positive effect on the child’s learning.
Findings R elated to Research Question 2: Reciprocal
Relationships Between Home and School
When addressing reciprocal relationships, first, one is looking at what belief
systems are in place in each context, what their goals are for the children for whom
they are responsible, how each in their context conduct literacy practices, and what
types of products are utilized in these literacy practices. Second, one is looking to
find whether there exists a reciprocal relationship between the home and the school.
In the context of this study, reciprocal is defined as being performed, experienced,
or felt by both parties, or as interchanged, given, or taken mutually. The nature of
the reciprocity of home and school is viewed here in three major areas: (a) the
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congruence of family goals with the school’s educational goals, (b) mediating roles
of literacy, and (c) contextual literacy skills and decontextual language use.
Congruence o f Family Goals
With the Sch ool’ s Educational
Goals
Parents were well aware that they were, for the first time, “handing over”
their child to a formal educational system and that they were delegating to that
system the responsibility to continue the learning process that they had initiated.
There was a common goal expressed by the families: to have their children suc
ceed in school. As one parent expressed it, “que se superen en todos los aspectos
de la vida espiritual, emocional y que sean humanos'’ ’ [to succeed in all aspects of
spiritual and emotional life, and to be humans]. It was not that parents did not
value literacy; rather, reading and writing were important as a means of meeting
their goals. For teachers, literacy-related activities were important and were to be
implemented along with other instructional goals.
As for the school, the staff made a commitment to have two parent confer
ences for the purpose of sharing the school’s goals and to hear the parents’ goals
for their children. It was a mutual learning experience from their first meeting.
Parents talked about their children and the aspirations they had for them. Indivi
dual parents shared with the child’s idiosyncrasies with the teacher, such as the
child’s habit of taking a nap with his shoes on. Although it may be taken lightly,
the teachers were happy to hear parents share idiosyncrasies in order to better un
derstand the child.
The school staff shared their goals: (a) meet children’s social, emotional,
and intellectual needs, (b) help children to be creative, and (c) teach children how
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to express themselves. The school also invited parents to participate in the Parent
Advisory Council or to attend the monthly parent meetings. These two forms of
communication kept the parents informed of the preschool activities. One of the
issues of mutual agreement was the use of the Spanish language, not only as a
means of communication but also as a tool in the instructional setting. All staff
members were bilingual, and materials and books were found in both languages.
During interviews, parents expressed, with certain pride, that their children could
count in Spanish and English, that they could pick up a book and pretend to read it
in both languages, and that they were singing in both languages. This common
goal was significant in the direction that they were both leading the child.
This agreement on common goals between families and school staff in fo
cusing on important qualities such as emotional, moral, and spiritual content be
comes a complementary dimension in the socialization of the child.
M ediating Roles o f Literacy
While case study families were interacting with their children using literacy
mainly as a tool for inquiry and learning in their everyday lives, teachers were more
into leading, directing, and dictating the learning, with students being the receivers
of information. This confirms what Wells’s (1986) longitudinal study concluded
about children’s linguistic environments during their preschool years. He con
cluded that children had less opportunity to talk in class and that their role in con
versations with adults was less equal than at home. It was observed that children
often attempted to negotiate the meaning o f a literacy activity, with little response
from the teacher.
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While literacy was used to mediate domains of activity at homes, the chil
dren were limited at school to learning the rudimentary uses of reading and writing.
This led to a relationship between teacher and children that was restricted to the
materials presented by the teachers and to what the students were asked to do with
such materials. Moll and Gonzalez stated that “unless teachers are able to over
come the intellectual limits of traditional schooling for these children” (1994, p.
451), no innovation will last. It essential for schools to reach out into the commu
nity and seek to build on the cultural resources of the families and their community.
It is also essential for teachers to engage in real interactive discourse with children
and listen to the experiences and knowledge that the children have gained outside
of the classroom, and respond to them. Unfortunately, the preschool in this study
did not capitalize on the cultural resources for teaching, nor did they allow for a
two-way interaction between student and teacher.
Other than the interactive experience that children encounter at home and at
school, there is the solitary experience, which Teale (1986) identified as the time
that children have the opportunity to make sense of the situation in which they are
engaged by “practicing.” This type of experience was observed often in the class
room, on the playground, and at home. For example, at the laundromat and grocery
store, Flor spent time without interacting with her parents; she watched television,
saw her father play video games, and saw her mother doing money transactions.
Her mother commented that Flor tended to observe intensely and, days later, would
make remarks on what she had seen and heard. She would also act out some of the
activities that she had observed. Art enjoyed hearing his mother read and reread
the poem “Humpty Dumpty.” At school, he recited the poem and acted it out.
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What is not known is what it takes for a child to internalize the behaviors observed
and then be able to externalize them.
Contextual Literacy Skills to
Decontextual Language Use
According to Snow (1983), “Full-blown adult literacy is the ultimate decon-
textualized skill. Even during the preschool years, children show a development
form of highly contextualized literacy skills to relatively decontextualized ones”
(p. 175). This study documented the development of these skills. For example, Art
was able to read Toys R Us (printed on sign) by being exposed to environmental
print. David was able to read his name on the certificate and read the wall menu at
the McDonald’s restaurant. Flor was able to read the label on the snack package,
and Ana identified the word “Angel” on a tee shirt. All of these are examples of
children exposed to environmental print. Mason (as cited in Snow) identified con
textualized print recognition as the first strand to prereading development.
Decontextualized language skills were also documented. For example, in
the grocery story, Flor went through an explanation of the steps to making tortillas.
Flor was giving an “oral preparation for literacy” (Michaels & Cook-Gumperz,
as cited in Snow, 1983). She was using conversation to build a “shared event”
between herself and the listening adult, providing Flor with recounting and building
internal representation o f those events, especially the sequence of the events.
The conversations between Ana and her mother during their car trips be
tween the preschool and the babysitter are an example of “shared histories” (Snow,
1983). The mother would asked Ana questions about what had happened in school
that day. She would also talk about the days of the week and explain what activi
ties occur on what days. These conversations about past, present, and future shared
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events helped Ana to develop a sense of time, to recount events, and to build inter
nal representations of those events. These are examples of decontextualized lan
guage. These skills should be developed along with literacy skills, mainly because
reading will ultimately become more and more decontextualized. The text analysis
by Purcell-Gates (1996) led her to comment that, “for in-home literacy experiences,
children are better served by observing and experiencing the reading and writing of
connected discourse decontextualized from physical and pictorial contexts” (p.
426). Snow (1983) concluded that developing the skill of using language in de
contextualized way relies more heavily on experiences that a home can provide
rather than experiences in the school.
The results of this descriptive study support the contention (Reese & Galli-
more, 2000) that there are some commonalties and some differences between
homes and the preschool when they come into contact. This study shed some light
on the relationships between home and school literacy learning. It suggests that
families play a significant role in early development of language and literacy, that
their contributions as the first “teachers” are significant, and that the schools should
connect formal language and literacy development to the knowledge and experi
ences that the children bring to school.
Theoretical Framework
In this section, the findings summarized in the previous section are utilized
to draft a conceptual framework of what could be a reciprocal relationship between
the home and the school. This framework is based on the findings from this study.
Figure 4 represents the main dimensions to be studied and the presumed relation
ships between them.
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Home School
Sim ilarities
Sharing
Process
Home
Product
School
Process
Product
Interaction
Figure 4. Conceptual model of home/school literacy responsibility.
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Figure 4 shows a set of clusters, with vertical and horizontal arrows con
necting to the adjacent cluster. The first clusters are the home and the school,
which represent two distinct contexts with their own sets of cultural beliefs and
values on how families and schools view literacy. The second cluster is the process
of literacy practices. The vertical arrow connecting the home to the process or the
school to the process indicates the influence that culture has on these literacy prac
tices. The third cluster represents the products used at home and in the school for
literacy development. The vertical arrows between process and products indicate
the relationship that process has on the types of products/materials found at home
or in the school. Each of the circles in this Venn diagram that are connected to the
clusters below represent the literacy characteristics found in the home and in the
school. The horizontal arrows connecting the clusters represent the interacting and
the sharing of goals, literacy practices, products, and materials between the home
and the school. These connections are the reciprocal links between the two con
texts.
If these links occur, the two circles above interlink and create a Venn dia
gram representing a relationship of similarities and differences. It is at this point
that two independent systems come together to create an interdependent system in
which they mutually mediate and support the child’s literacy learning.
Pedagogical Implications
The literature review related to Latino families addressed the issue of the
immigrant experience. The immigrant experience impacts the school as the receiv
ing host. Immigrants bring with them a set of beliefs, knowledge, and skills that
are likely to change with contact with a new culture. Immigrant families are
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continually reconstructing their lives through coping and adapting mechanisms in
order to participate as members of a stable community. This means that families
must understand what is entailed in becoming a new member of a community.
They may choose to adapt or to adopt. If they select the process of adoption, they
embrace the host’s culture (beliefs, values, and knowledge) and abandon their own.
If they select the process of adaptation, they adjust and accommodate their beliefs,
knowledge, and skills to the new culture.
The school, as the receiving host of these families’ children, plays an im
portant role in these processes. If the role of schooling is to extend and build on
literacy practices that began at home, then the school’s process is that of adaptation.
If the role is to define and implement different literacy practices without taking into
account the family’s contributions, then the process is that of adoption— a “do as I
say” attitude (SuarezrOrozco, 2001). In other words, the schools do not adapt to
the families’ experiences and knowledge.
This is why the depth of understanding of each other is so critical for both.
When both can negotiate their roles, goals, and expectations in terms of literacy
practices at home and school, then it may mean changing to adapt to each other.
As a result of these adaptations, literacy practices will be similar in the two con
texts as well as different in each context, based on the negotiation that occurred
between the home and the school.
Today, 1 in 5 children in the United States is the child of immigrants; it
projected that, by 2040,1 in 3 children will fit this description (Rong & Prissle, as
cited in Suarez-Orozco, 2001). Approximately 75% of these immigrants are of
Spanish-speaking origin. With the high increase in immigrant population comes a
high-stake process o f adapting to a new environment for parents and children.
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However, this change of demographics also becomes a high-stake issue to the re
ceiving community.
The results of this study challenge the schools to look at each family in a
unique way and to look at the role of the community in which the family resides
and learn to work with these social structures, not against them. Literacy practices
within these families and community are functional and authentic. The utilization
o f reading and writing is for real-life purposes. Schools must value these literacy
practices and integrate them with their school-related literacy behaviors, as parents
have been willing to integrate school-related activities into their daily lives.
Looking at the assumptions addressed in the literature review can assist
educators in understanding the distinctiveness that each family brings into a school
setting and the critical role that the community plays in the lives of Latino families.
These four assumptions are addressed below.
First, families are not in static, unchanging geographical locations. The
locale of each family depends on that family’s circumstances. For the case study
families, housing depended on their economic condition. One family was renting a
single room in a house, another family was sharing an apartment, another was rent
ing half of an apartment, and one was living in a building operated by a nonprofit
agency that helps homeless people until they are able to afford a place to live. Yet,
all four families were striving to move to a better environment for the sake of their
children.
Second, no set o f family structures is common to all. These structures vary
based on past and contemporary experiences. Within the four case study families,
family structures included two single-parent families, a nucleus, and an extended
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family. However, within each of these structures there was a support system in
place for the child.
Third, the fam ily’ s contributions in terms o f knowledge and skills are dy
namic; they change according to changes in their realities. The community played
an important role in the lives of the families. It served as a support system provid
ing resources, services, and a place where members of the community could con
tribute or acquire knowledge and skills. For example, the Flores parents and their
extended family were involved in art and music functions in the community. Be
longing to a group with common interest allowed for knowledge to be acquired,
shared, and exchanged. In the case of the Ramirez family, the Bible study group to
which they belonged served not only as a religious learning/teaching purpose but
also as a moral and spiritual support system. Ms. Alva worked in nonprofit coun
seling center that provided services to the youth in the community. The center
helped Ms. Alva by teaching her office skills and finding her an affordable place to
live. The director, Sister Grace, became Ms. Alva’s mentor.
Fourth, literacy can be seen as a continuous, changing activity that is
modified as a result o f critical events. As the families’ lives changed based on their
experiences and circumstances, their literacy practices changed. Leaving the coun
try o f origin, in itself, is a major change. These families experienced moving from
a rural setting to an urban setting, speaking one or two languages to learning an
other language, moving from one educational system and to another, and having a
set of working skills and learning new ones. All of these changes required the
utilization of literacy to mediate the social activities. The families in the case study
were in constant and continuous activity that made literacy a dynamic process.
Mrs. Franco learned to read bus schedules in order to go to work a distance of 30
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miles, Ms. Alva learned to use a computer to be able to work in an office, Mrs.
Ramirez learned how to deal and work with the insurance system in the United
States, and Ms. Gonzalez learned to use the cultural/learning centers to expose her
son to knowledge. Each had needs and goals and, through the social domains of
activity with literacy as a mediator, they were becoming members of a community
as well as members of a literate community.
Implications fo r Teachers
The role of a teacher goes beyond delivery of content. Capitalizing on what
students bring to the classroom allows the teacher to challenge the traditional mode
o f instruction, that is, of not wanting to understand that children have intellectual
capabilities and that, long before formal instruction, they have been exposed to a
learning environment within their communities. Teachers should assist students to
learn how to use their resources, knowledge, and experiences in the context of new
learning. They should help children to make connections from their funds of
knowledge to new knowledge, from their experiences of reading and writing to
further development of literacy, from their native language to a new language.
It is of critical importance that teachers develop observation skills to be able to
do informal ongoing assessment of each of their students while the students are
engaged in a wide range of school activities.
Implications fo r Parents
Parents, as stakeholders in the education o f their children, have the right to
participate in the planning and decision making regarding the schooling of their
children. At the school level, parents can participate by communicating what their
children can do at home with regard to early reading and writing; they can share
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their funds of knowledge. At the district level, they can participate in the decision
making plans with regard to reading and writing. At the state level, they can be
come informed, inquire, and take action on laws and policies that are detrimental to
their children and to all children. Ultimately, parents as key stakeholders, have the
right to decide what is best for their children.
Policy Implications
Alternative assessment, rather than a single testing system to determine
identification, placement, and instruction, validates the student’s unique strengths.
These dynamic forms of assessment seek to measure student’s potential, which
allows instruction to be based on the learning potential of the student. A compre
hensive staff development in the area of alternative assessment is necessary.
Teachers need to know the various ways of assessing students, from observation
skills to documenting student learning behaviors. Developing the skill of task
analysis, teachers can develop an instructional plan that takes into account students’
strengths and needs.
The traditional ways of parent participation in public schools have been
more through a formalized structure, such as membership on an advisory commit
tee, council, or parent-teacher organization. The two-way interaction is minimal. It
is more of the school informing parents and telling them what to do. This is a re
flection of an educational system that does not believe that parents have something
to contribute. Policy change should come at state and district levels so that families
have real participation in the schooling of their children. The parents have dele
gated this responsibility to schools, believing that the schools know what they are
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doing. It is the responsibility of schools to give back to the community educated
students who will succeed outside of the classroom. That is what parents want.
State laws and district-level policies defining literacy, selecting methodol
ogy, and selecting state-adopted texts are limited and restrictive, with the mentality
that “one size fits all.” These laws and policies have a major impact on teacher
training programs and classroom instruction. A conscious and intellectual probing
of these laws and policies should be made to reexamine them and bring about
change.
These ideas and recommendations are not new; rather, they are reminders of
what needs to be done. All of us are stakeholders in the education of children, and
all of us are responsible for their learning experiences. If one stakeholder makes
decisions, for whatever reason, and places children in “harm’s way,” it is the re
sponsibility of other stakeholders to respond and take action, if necessary, to undo
the wrongdoing. Each stakeholder has a major role to play.
Recommendations for Future Research
This study undertook only a snapshot of literacy practices in Latino fami
lies. It will take more than a snapshot to began to put pieces together to understand
the nature of literacy development within Latino families. Although other studies
have documented well the Latino experience in literacy, the sole nature of the dy
namic and changing experiences that the Latino community is undergoing opens
the field of research. Further research should focus on understanding how family
literacy practices began to evolve, based on the contact o f a new culture. In the
area of home and school relationships, further research should focus on ways in
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which schools assess the knowledge and experiences that children bring with them
to school, and how these contributions can be incorporated in formal instruction.
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132
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APPENDIX
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Sample of Questions for Interviews
Who are the members of your family?
What do you think about the education of your child?
What are your interests in reading? In writing?
What expectations do you have for your child’s learning? Reading? Writing?
In what way does the family participate in literacy activities?
How do you know your child is learning? ...to read? to write?
How does knowing how to read and write helps you and your family?
How can your child’s school support your family with reading and writing?
How can you support your child’s school?
What type of help does your child get from family members? Others?
By Martha Alvarez-Martini
134
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Muestra de entrevista para padres de familia sobre la lecto-escritura
• /.Quienes son los miembros de su familia?
• ^Que piensa sobre la education de su hijo/a?
• iQn6 intereses hay en la familia sobre la lectura? La escritura?
• ^Que expectativas tiene sobre el aprendizaje de su hijo/a? de lecto-escritura de
su hijo/a?
• < ^ E n que maneras se envolucra la familia en actividades de lectura? de escritura?
• ,?,C6mo se da cuenta que su hijo/a esta aprendiendo? a leer? a escribir?
• £En que forma le ayuda a usted y a su familia la lectura y la escritura?
• ?,En que manera le pueda ayudar a su familia la escuela de su hijo/a en lecto-
escritura?
• ^En que manera puede su familia ayudar a la escuela de su hijo/a?
• ^Que tipo de apoyo recibi su hijo/a en su aprendizaje de parte de su familia?
By Martha Alvarez-Martini
135
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Parent Inventory
N om bre:_____ fecha:_______ _____
LISTA DE MATERIALES DE LECTURA Y ESCRITURA EN EL HOGAR
C lase de
material Material Si No Esp Ing #
Escuela Tareas
Cartas/notas
Textos escolares
Cuadernos
Ninos Libros de cuentos (propios)
Libros de informacion
Libros de la biblioteca
Enciclopedia
Cuentos religiosos
Biblia infanti!
Revistas/tiras comicas
Libros para colorear
Material didactico
Adultos Periodicos
Revistas
Biblia
Material religioso
Material relacionado con el
trabajo
Libros para entretenimiento
Libros para informacion
Libros escolares de adultos
Libros de recetas
Diario Guia de la television
Instrucciones/ manuales
Documentos legates
Informacion medica
Notas informales
Listas de compras
Cheques/chequera
Cartas
Mapas
Aqenda/ calendario
Technol. VCR
Computadora
Calculadora
136
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CUESTIONARIO FAMILIAR (Parent Survey)
La lecto-escritura en ninos pre-escolares
Nombre del nino/a:________ Nombre de madre o
padre_________ _
Marque dentro del crculo que ms indique la frecuencia de la actividad.
1. cCon que frecuencia lee el papa un libro, una revista o un
periodico?
O Nunca
O Menos de una vez al roes
O 1 6 2 veces al mes
O 1 6 2 veces a la semana
O Casi diario
O Mas de una vez por dla
2. cCon que frecuencia lee la mama un libro, una revista o un
periodico/
O Nunca
O Menos de una vez al mes
O 1 6 2 veces al mes
O 1 6 2 veces a la semana
O Casi diario
O Mas de una vez por dsa
3. iCon que frecuencia lee otro miembro de la familia un libro, una
revista o un periodico?
O Nunca
O Menos de una vez al mes
O 1 6 2 veces al mes
O 1 6 2 veces a la semana
O Casi diario
O Mas de una vez por dfa
4. ^Con que frecuencia va el nino/a a la biblioteca con alguien de la familia o del
hogar?
O Casi nunca
O Una vez al mes
O 2-3 veces al mes
O 1-2 veces a la semana
O Diario
5. iCon que frecuencia lee el nino/a o mira libros solito (por su
cuenta) en casa?
0 Casi nunca
0 Una vez al mes
0 2-3 veces al mes
0 1-2 veces a la semana
0 Diario
137
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CUESTTONARIO FAMILIAR
La Iccto-escritura en ninos pre-escolares
Nombre del nino/a: _____ Nombre de madre 6
padre ___
Para cada una de las siguientes actividades, indique la frecuencia
que un adulto o un hermano mavor la hace con el nino y en el idioma
que usa.
Ponga una X en el cuadro apropiado.
Actividad
Casi
nunca
Una
vez
al
mes
2-3
veces
al
sues
1-2
veces
a la
semana Diario
En
Esparto!
En
Ingles
Escuchan
musica
Juegan juegos
infantiles
Le cuenta
historias y
cuentos
Le lee o ven
libros
Juegan a
“pretender"
Le ayuda a
reconocer
letras,
palabras en
casa y el la
calle
Le ayuda con el
aprendizaje de
letras,
palabras, y
numeros
Le ayuda a
dibuiar
Le ayuda
aprender a
escribir
iMuchfsimas gracias por su colaboracion!
138
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Teacher Self-Report
Please indicate the frequency of doing the following literacy practices in your class
room and indicate what language is used.
Teachers do
Never
Once a
month
2-3
times a
month
1-2
times a
week
Every
day English Spanish
Share b o o k s, model
reading behaviors
Talk about letters by
name and sounds
Establish a literacy-
rich
environment
Reread favorite stories
Engage children in
language games
Promote literacy-
related play activities
Encourage children to
experiment with w rit
in g
Comments:
Name:____________________________________________________ Date:
139
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Early Reading and Writing Student Assessment
(Survey)
Please place a check mark on your student who can do the following literacy
events
Indicate the languages they use
Children can do Ana Art David Flor Eng Span
Enjoy listening to and dis
cussing storybooks
Understand that print carries a
message
Engage in reading and writing
attempts
Identify labels and signs in
their environment
Participate in rhyming games
Identify some letters and
make some letter-sound
matches
Use known letters or ap
proximations of letters to rep
resent written language
(names, signs)
Comments:
Name: . ______________ Date:
140
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Classroom Observation Checklist: Early Reading and Writing— Teacher
Date:___________ Time:_______________ Teacher:
(Increments of 10 minutes)_______________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _____ ______
Teachers do
0-
10
10-
20
20-
30
30-
40
40-
50
50-
60
Share books, model reading behaviors
Talk about letters by name and sounds
Establish a literacy-rich environment
Reread favorite stories
Engage children in language games
Promote literacy-related play activities
Encourage children to experiment with
writing
Classroom Observation Checklist: Early Reading and Writing— Student
Date: ____________________ Time: ____________________________
Teacher:______________________ _ Student_______________________
(Increments of 10 minutes) _____ _____________________ ___________
Children can do
0-
10
10-
20
20-
30
30-
40
40-
50
50-
60
Enioy listening to/discussing storybooks
Understand that print carries a message
Engage in reading and writing attempts
Identify labels and signs in their envi
ronment
Participate in rhyming games
Identify some letters and make some
letter-sound matches
Use known letters or approximations of
letters to represent written language
(names, signs)
141
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CLASSROOM SCHEDULE
7:00
7 :5 5 -
8:3 0 -
9 :0 0 -
9 :3 0 -
9:45-
10:00
10:30
11:15
11:30
11:35
12:00
12:15
2:45
3:00
3:15
4:00-
4:45-
7:55 am Children arrive free choice activities available:
manipulatives, block area, play house
8:30 Inside free choice activities
9:00 Outside play
9:30 Good morning circle, wash hands, breakfast
9:45 Circle Time
10:00 Small group activity
- 10:30 Free choice activity available: art, block area, manipulative,
play house
-11:15 Clean up and outdoor play
-11:30 Music and movement or Story time
-11:35 Make beds, wash hands and sit down for lunch
-12:00 Lunch
- 12:15 Toileting and brush teeth
- 2:45 Naptime
-3 :0 0 Put beds away, wash hands for snack
- 3:15 Snack
- 4:00 Indoor free choice activities
- 4:45 Outdoor play
- 5:00 Small group activities
142
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Continuum of Children’s Development in Early Reading and Writing
Phase I: Awareness and exploration (goals for preschool)
Children explore their environment and build the foundations for learning to read
and write.
Children can:
• enjoy listening to and discussing storybooks
• understand that print carries a message
• engage in reading and writing attempts
• identify labels and signs in their environment
• participate in rhyming games
• identify some letters and make some letter-sound matches
• use known letters or approximations o f letters to represent written lan
guage (especially meaningful words like their name and phrases such as
“I love you”)
What teachers do:
• share books with children, including Big Books, and model reading be
haviors
• talk about letters by name and sounds
• establish a literacy-rich environment
• reread favorite stories
• engage children in language games
• promote literacy-related play activities
• encourage children to experiment with writing
From “Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for
Young Children,” by International Reading Association and National Association
for Education of Young Children, 1998, Young Children, 53(4), 30-46.
143
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Asset Metadata

Creator Alvarez-Martini, Martha (author)

Core Title Emergent literacy: A sense of becoming and being literate in Latino families

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Education

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag education, language and literature,OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, ethnic and racial studies,sociology, individual and family studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Yaden, David B. (committee chair), Manis, Franklin (committee member), Rueda, Robert (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-246064

Unique identifier UC11334686

Identifier 3093729.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-246064 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3093729.pdf

Dmrecord 246064

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Alvarez-Martini, Martha

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA