Home and School Influences Literacy: Multiple Roads to Literacy Learning

Yetta Goodman

 

 

As I consider the kids who have informed my literacy development research and read the work of those who have studied literacy development of children in many places in the world, I become more and more convinced that it is extremely important to legitimatize the concept of the multiple roads to literacy learning. There is a tendency in the United States to decide that if a researcher discovers a factor that is of major importance in the literacy learning of some children that such a factor should be imposed on all children to enhance and quicken their literacy development. For example, it is not uncommon at the present time in the U. S. to hear and read in schools, in family literacy programs, on t.v. and in the popular press that the major or only way for children to learn to read is to be regularly read aloud to by their parents. Such suggestions build a cultural view in society that being read to is the only activity that counts as an influence on children's literacy learning.

Such a view belief places a heavy responsibility on families who do not participate in read aloud experiences and if their child is not doing well at school, the parents often feel irresponsible and the cause for their children's lack of literacy. It is not reasonable and perhaps even dangerous to expect all families to follow the same prescriptions for literacy learning to occur.

Those who work with families and communities in literacy programs; who plan literacy curriculum for schools or who publish literacy materials must be knowledgeable about the literacy events that occur in a wide range of households. As the variety of literacy experiences in different homes are acknowledged and respected, families come to value the literacy funds of knowledge in their communities (Moll & Gonzalez, 1994, 1997). At the same time educators in school settings benefit from examining literacy practices in the homes to make sure that school curricula include a rich range of literacy experiences and opportunities for students. Schools tend to over emphasize reading and writing of stories and the use of books as the major literacy experience in the curriculum.

In this paper I suggest and provide research evidence that there are multiple roads for humans to travel to becoming literate. I also suggest ways for teachers to apply the wide range of rich home and community literacy practices to school settings so that literacy pedagogy includes many opportunities and experiences for children not only to learn to read and write but also to develop understandings about the roles literacy plays in modern society. Descriptions and ethnographies of literacy histories of people from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, from students in teacher education programs and from children reveal the various roads to literacy development. (Goodman, 1990; Taylor, 1998; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988). Case studies (Bissex, 1980, Shickedanz, 1990 and Martens, 1996) and careful observations of young children at home and school (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982, Owocki, 2002 and Taylor, 1993) document the many different ways individual children come to know literacy. I have organized the many roads to literacy into the following categories.

Certainly being read to by parents, grandparents, teachers, siblings and other care givers establishes one kind of context in which children are engaged and immersed in becoming full fledged members of a literate community. But, immersion in the connected discourse of children's books is not the only road to literacy. There are many formats and genres that connected discourse takes in addition to those in books for children. Daily newspaper or magazine reading is a ritual in many households and children are involved by seeing, hearing and often participating as family members share news and advertisements, decide what movie to attend or where to do the family shopping that evening. Some families read comics while others sharing notes or letters from family members or friends. Some families participate in bible reading on a regular basis and young children are included in the oral reading and interpretations that follow.

Children are immersed in the daily reading and writing experiences of family members as they take care of health, business transactions and the general "goods and services" necessary for the well being of the family. As people use buses, go job hunting, pay bills, make application for schools or other kinds of care, they are involved in literacy transactions. Some parents read to understand the cautions listed on cleaning materials or medicines. Family members may collect and organize coupons or trading stamps to take to the store. In order to shop, family members write lists and read them as they scrutinize signs and labels to discover the best buy, or the healthfulness of the food. Their young children are often at their sides participating, observing, or playing at similar experiences. In bilingual homes or homes of new immigrants, children are often the "culture brokers" who are asked to read and interpret official letters and proclamations that parents or the extended family may not be understanding.

Often children read with their siblings or family members. Such collaborative reading is often followed by discussions about the meaning of the text. Reading is a powerful social activity. At the same time even very young children read by themselves. They are often seen exploring books intoning the language of the text as they read aloud to themselves. Or they play house and read to their dolls or teddy bears.

To bring such reading experiences into the classrooms, it is important to develop a library with a range of materials. Mexico and a number of other countries in South American have established a policy to develop classroom libraries of children’s literature as well as a range of resource books in every classroom. Newspaper publishers sometimes provide multiple copies of the daily newspaper for a specified time to be used by the children or children are asked to bring in newspapers from the home. Big Books, oversized literature texts, which can be read by a whole class together provide opportunity for class discussion of illustrations, the meanings of the text and specifics such as punctuation and format. Teachers add to their classroom libraries brochures from travel companies, pamphlets from doctor’s offices and old magazines and books families want to discard from their home.

Teachers read to their children from wonderful children's books daily. They read aloud from daily newspapers and from science and social studies books so that children become familiar with the different kinds of language that is used in different types of texts. These reading experiences are followed by engaging conversations as children and teacher discuss the book focusing on its meaning and its power. Children are encouraged to read in pairs or small groups and to collaborate about the meanings of the texts they are reading. Enough time is set aside daily for children to experience reading in many ways.

Writing

The writing road to literacy development in homes occurs, often simultaneous with the reading roads. Families write letters, notes and special occasion cards, sometimes in more than one language, to family members in distant places. As we understand that literacy in any language is helpful to the literacy learning in another language, the bi- and multi-lingual nature of writing (and reading) in the home takes on great importance. Children learn that writing (and reading) occur in many languages and sometimes in different orthographies. Children see the members of their household take phone messages, leave notes on pillows, on tables or on the refrigerator door. Children see homemade posters and often make their own to keep their older brothers and sisters out of their bedrooms. Children are encouraged to be part of the writing experiences that takes place incidentally and daily in the home and in community settings.

The writing road to literacy development is an exciting experience to organize in classrooms. All shapes and sizes of writing paper need to be available with a range of writing implements – markers, crayons, pencils and pens. Surrounded by interesting writing tools, children are encouraged to write and publish books, magazines, pamphlets and newsletters in collaborative groups and teachers take dictation and write books with the youngest children. If computers are available the final copies of the materials made by the children often look as if they have been commercially published. But fine illustrated books, magazines and newspapers can be made from old wall paper, paper bags and newspapers.

Children are encouraged to write to new friends as teachers set up pen pal opportunities with classrooms of children from other communities and sometimes even from different countries. Sometimes whole schools set up a post office so children can write to school mates and adults in other classes. Children are encourage to write invitations and thank you notes to people who come to their classrooms and to write letters to the editor when events take place in the community that the students believe need to be addressed. Children are encouraged to write labels and signs in classrooms and to notice the labels and signs in the communities in which they live.

Playing with Literacy

Involving literacy experiences in their play is another road to literacy that many children participate in their homes. Children love to pretend to do the things adults do. Children pull pencils and pens from their parents' purses or pockets to write mock bills or receipts, to make menus or recipes when their parents are engaged in related activities. They write tickets for the plays they perform, writes faxes to send as they play office and they sometimes even make worksheets while they are playing school. When parents and teachers allow children to have easy and open access to reading and writing opportunities in their play, literacy learning expands .

Teachers also should set up many opportunities for the children to read and write in the classroom as they play. The doll corner, the dress up center, the wheel toy area and the play telephone have pads of paper and pens or pencils readily available so children incorporate writing in their play. The store area has advertisements, labels and signs that the children first write and then read as part of their play. In some kindergarten and first grade classrooms the teacher changes the play center from a doctor's office to a restaurant to a machine shop every few weeks. In such areas children make a medical chart for each child in the class, develop menus and recipes which the children use for cooking and shopping and they have catalogues to use to order parts for the cars they are fixing in the shop. Literacy is seen in such classrooms as something which is part of everyday life's experiences.

Environmental Print

I believe that most children from a range of socio economic backgrounds become literate as a result of perceiving the rich print environments in most urban communities. Even rural communities have print in their environment that children notice long before they come to school. Such print is an integral part of their home and community. When I ask teachers, graduate and undergraduate students to reflect on their personal literacy biographies, it is common for them to be consciously aware of the impact print, in a variety of contexts, had on their early reading. Some remember being intrigued by the print in super markets or malls. They vividly remember a particular street sign because it made a connection with their name; or there was some special connection between some aspects of their lives and a specific super market sign or billboard. We all have had experience with three or four year olds who get excited as they recognized McDonald's or their favorite drink on a billboard.

Teachers can take advantage of the excitement children have about signs by seeding the environment of the classroom or the school with authentic signs. The teacher helps the children label the spaces where they keep their coats or materials with their names. Children learn each others names easily in this way. Cupboards or closets are labeled so that children know where to put back sports and art equipment.

Children are involved as much as possible in making the labels and signs themselves.

Teachers and children go through their streets or school buildings making videos, taking photos or writing notes about what they can read. The children come back to their classroom and make their own personal book or a class book called I Can Read.

The teacher sets aside a bulletin board for children to place signs or labels that they can read that they cut out from magazines and newspapers. The idea is to help children become consciously aware that literacy surrounds them and that they read all the time not only in school.

Computers and Other Technology.

The technological road to literacy includes all the written language that family members including the children transact with on computers, t.v., video games and other technologies available in their homes. These technologies always include written messages. New information networks are adding to the literacy learning of the growing numbers of people who have access to technology. Libraries, media cafes and other venues are available in many communities throughout the world to provide access to technology. If the schools does not have computers in the classroom, the teacher can set up visitations to offices, internet cafes, or the local library so that children experience the availability and uses of technology. In rural communities in Columbia, South America, I rode on buses filled with local people taking their produce for sale to the marketplace of a small town. Tucked into the front corner of the bus was a t.v. set operated with videos including print from titles, commercials, and the news. The children on the bus were watching carefully the drama as well as the written language unfolding on the screen.

One of my grandson’s visited me when he was five years old. I was working on a new keyboard which was unfamiliar to me. I wanted to finish what I was writing quickly so I could enjoy his company and called out to Joshua who was standing at my elbow watching me: “Where’s print! Where’s print!” He looked the area over and said, “Here it is, Grandma,” pointing to an orange switch that we labeled: Printer. Amazed, I said to him, “How do you know that?” Matter-of-factly, he responded as he point to the P with his finger: “Because it has that letter.” What letter is that?” Grandpa asked entering the conversation. Joshua took his index finger and drew a P in the air. “Whose letter is that? his mother inquired. “Pedro’s, of course!” Joshua answered. I often document the literacy experiences of children so I wrote the incident up as Joshua was watching and then read it outloud. Then Joshua asked if he could write his name. He first wrote his name on the computer at the end of the printed documentation and then drew a picture of himself below that. He then wrote his name in large letters and capitals with a pencil. The first line from left to right is his first and middle name and the second line, his last name, he wrote going in the opposite direction. He then drew a speech balloon around the whole message and said, “I’m going to make me saying all this”. (Example)

Young children are often more comfortable with the new technology than their teachers who grew up in a generation in which technology was not so pervasive. Children should be given the lead in setting up and experimenting with computer equipment. Teachers and parents can discuss with the children all the reading and writing they do with different technologies so they know that literacy is integral to a range of technological tools. Technology does not replace a teacher but is a tool which has the capacity to expand literacy opportunities and open up new worlds. For rural children, videos, computers and t.v. bring an unfamiliar world into the home and classrooms that previous generations never knew about. But it is a tool like all others that can be abused or it can be used to support literacy development.

Family Literacy Traditions and Demonstrations.

Families who gather around a musical instrument with song sheets to sing together, who read the bible at home or in church, who participate in acting out comics or who write diaries together are engaging in famly literacy traditions. Through these traditions, family members demonstrate the significance of literacy in people's daily lives. In my family, the children and grandchildren anticipate when they will read from the Hagaddah written in Hebrew, English, Spanish and Yiddish at our traditional Passover. At age three and four, they learn their parts for oral presentations which they read from the script and eventually they are equally a part of a Jewish family's tradition of the reading of the Hagaddah during our family Sedar and festive meal.

In interviews I've had with people from a range of socio economic backgrounds, I discover family traditions that are often unique. Coleen, a working class adult I interviewed, reported the importance of reading maps for her father when he was driving from place to place looking for work. She remembers clearly that her mother was always immersed in reading mysteries. The messages about literacy in this family were loud and clear. Not only did reading serve important functions for daily survival, but family members found pleasure in reading silently and alone. This is the demonstration road to literacy. Coleen is herself now an avid reader, never without a book, often taking a break to get in some reading between her chores as a housekeeper.

Marilynn, a preservice teacher was aware that her mother, her older brother and sister were annoyed whenever they had to read to her and so she began to read in self defense. Marilynn said, "I knew that if I could read by myself, I would be able to enjoy books like my mom did. She was always immersed in a book. Even in the kitchen she would be reading and beating eggs at the same time." Everyone in her family breathed sighs of relief when Marilynn prior to kindergarten was reading on her own. Such demonstrations are integral to daily family and community life and the children in such environments take for granted that they are also literature participants in that culture. Such responses are most often without conscious thought about the functions literacy plays in their lives. Through these demonstrations of literacy use and family traditions, children become aware, although not always consciously, of the role of literacy in the lives of human beings.

Teachers and children often set up their own classroom traditions. They may set aside twenty minutes a day for silent reading. Many teachers in the U.S. call this DEAR time (Drop Everything and Read). During this time everyone chooses their own reading material and reads independently. There are some teachers who organize a classroom or school wide post office or a publishing center in which the children are involved in editing and revising the reports and stories that children write and decide to publish. Children learn about publishing by reading books, inviting authors and reporters to their classroom and interviewing editors and publishers to discover the procedures and hardships of publishing.

In some classrooms teachers engage student’s in leading classroom activities that involve reading and writing activities. Children as assigned to read the weekly lunch menus or to take attendance or to read the weather from the daily newspaper and write it on the board.

Unique Literacy Experiences

There are many unique and personal literacy experiences that provide different roads to literacy. One women remembers learning to read with her dad as they were cooking. A working class reader remembers working with his father fixing their car looking up car parts in a catalogue which they would then order by mail. A number of research reports document unique literacy experiences. David Hartle-Shutte (1998) reports a Navajo fifth grade proficient reader who recalls learning to read by watching t.v. commercials with words and the credits at the end of movies. Gertrude Hildreth (1941) documents Philip's literacy development in her longitudinal study of his train drawings from two and a half to eleven years of age. Although the major focus of her study is artistic development focusing on art as a symbol system, Hildreth examines how writing becomes embedded in Philip's train drawings. His writing increases over time and he not only labels features of his drawings but writing serves his functions of providing instructions and narratives to accompany his art work.

Careful documentation of literacy histories of people from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, from students in teacher education programs and from children reveal these unique and personal roads to literacy development. Each of the roads to literacy are surrounded and nourished by semiotic systems other than written language such as art forms, music, talk and these also become a vital part of the literacy histories of each member in literate societies.

Most literate people travel more than one of these roads to literacy. Traveling such roads often result in children and adults becoming successful readers and writers who learn to use literacy in a range of ways for work and pleasure. These multiple roads to literacy often are accompanied by critical discussions about the affairs of the world among family members and friends. Flyers are questioned, letters from teachers and principals are explained and memos and prescriptions from medical centers are thoughtfully discussed and often worried about.

Unfortunately, too often, these roads to literacy are taken for granted by parents and teachers. Such experiences are often considered mundane and an important influence on literacy development. In fact, there is a tendency to give credit for literacy learning to only academic events such as being read to, the writing of story or being taught to read and write in school settings. When the range of literacy events that occur regularly, daily, and often, incidentally in homes and communities are recognized as important aspects of the literacy learning of that community, then it is likely that members of that community will come to realize that these reading and writing experiences are rich reservoirs for literacy learning as children are actively engaged in a range of literacy practices. There is a place in school settings to make conscious the ways in which these experiences count as literacy events in the daily life of a family or community and to continue to research and document the impact of these events on literacy development.

When the Multiple Roads Concept is Not Conscious

The reason conscious acknowledgement and legitimacy for multiple roads to literacy is essential, is that the same roads to literacy that influence the literate members of society are also responsible for the attitudes about literacy learning held by those children and adults who do not see themselves as successful literate members of society. These may be readers who do not perform well on standardized or reading tests and therefore diminish their daily literacy experience as not very important. Parents and teachers sometimes corroborate the beliefs of such readers through a variety of talk and actions placing greater value on test scores than on active literacy events. Such readers do not perceive that they are already readers and writers as part of their cultural community. I’ve heard tragic stories from parents about children who have been eagerly reading and writing at home only to see the activities cease as their children enter school and learn that reading and writing are narrow literacy practices such as lesson routines, boring dictation and copying exercises. Such children often come to believe they are not valued by the literacy establishment and what they read and write does not count as literacy.

It is therefore necessary to help children as well as their family members to recognize and value the range of their literacy experiences and practices. Teachers play an important role in helping students identify the richness of their literacy engagements. Whenever I consider the role of such attitudes in literacy learning, I think of a man who was sitting next to me on a long plane ride. We talked about our jobs. He found out that I was a professor of reading. I learned that he was a successful jewelry artist. He involved his customers in making sketches and incorporated their visions and interests into his creations for them. While telling me about his role as an artist, he also kept telling me that he could not read nor write. He described how his employees wrote his correspondence and how his wife kept his financial records. However, it was clear as we talked, that he was well read. He talked about the influence of Robert Heinlein's books on his view of life, about the Christian concepts he has been exploring with his pastor in a bible reading study group. He told me about the latest black hole theory he had read in Omni Magazine and about the insights he was gaining from reading about chaos theory. When I pointed out all the reading and writing he was doing: labeling jewelry designs; organizing information about gems for his customers to read; knowing the technical and common labels for a wide range of gems and metals; ordering hotel rooms and airline tickets for himself and his family; and discussing theories about the world that came from books and magazines, he repeatedly said that he knew he was creative but he was not a capable reader or writer. Even when I asked him how he got a master's degree in psychology without being able to read and write, he said, "I think they wanted me to get the degree because they recognized that I was creative. They overlooked how I wrote papers and a lot of my spelling problems".

In this highly literate society, this creative artist actively participates in literacy events all the time but his many roads to literacy have remained invisible to him and have not allowed him to perceive or define himself as literate. He does not count nor value his reading and writing as acts of literacy. These beliefs influence his attitude about himself as being non literate which leads him to avoid participating consciously and actively in many literacy activities.

Roads to literacy are not always smooth. They may include bumps and cracks which interfere with considering oneself literate. Unfortunately, such interferences occur often to the children in our society who are not well supported in school contexts and often do not succeed in school. It is, therefore, not difficult to explain how the same phenomena and sometimes even the same context for different readers and writers produce people who do not value themselves as readers. They reflect the values of the academic community rather than the reality of their daily and often rich literacy practices. It is not because people do not learn that leads them not to value their own literacy and literacy learning. It is indeed what and how they do learn and the roads they travel that lead them to their beliefs about their literacy.

Most readers and writers travel many more than one of these roads and such literacy development remains a life long adventure. Traveling such roads results in most children and adults becoming successful readers and writers who learn to use literacy in a range of ways for work or for pleasure.

Classrooms, therefore, need to be places where literacy is used for real purposes and children can be engaged in discussions about what they are reading and writing. I want to close this presentation by sharing how one teacher uses inquiry about reading with her bilingual English/ Spanish classroom during an instructional sequence. Wendy Goodman brings a small group of her bilingual children together on a regular basis to read something unfamiliar. In this case she has a Big Book in Spanish entitled Mariposa. The teacher sits next to the children as they sit on a rug in front of the book. She plans to support the inquiry and is careful about when to give children ideas about the text. She wants to children to make their own discoveries. The transcript below provides insight into this procedure. Some children in this classroom speak mostly English, others mostly Spanish and some children speak both. This group of children are reading selected English books fairly easily and the teacher decides it is time to introduce her children to reading in Spanish. The Big Book sits on an easel in front of the children. The children are looking at the book cover with a large butterfly and the word MARIPOSA in very visible colors across the butterfly. The teacher wants the children to discuss what they are thinking as they read the book. She knows that talk among children help them name what they are thinking about and come to understand more deeply. The other children in the class are working quietly and independently at tables reading, writing, doing art work or engaging with math and science manipulatives. The children in the small group begin to respond immediately. They are used to reading together out loud as the teacher sits besides them and pays careful attention to their shared exploration of the text helping them think about the learning and reading processes they are using.

Sarah:Butterfly!

Rene:Yeah, Butterflies

Greg:No, there's no S. (he points to the title and moves his fingers under the letters) BUT-TER-FLY

Sarah: Butterfly, no S.

Danny: No. Look, the M.

Greg:My Butterfly. (moves his finger under the title)MY-BUT-TER-FLY

A chorus of voices say together:

My butterfly!

Tiffany:My is M... Y...

Marina:It starts like me, Marina,

MA-RI....

Mariposa!!!

Danny:It's Spanish

Teacher: Why did you think it said, Butterfly?

Anna:'Cause the picture.

Teacher:Was that a good prediction?

Anna:Yes. It is a butterfly. Mariposa is butterfly in Spanish.

Teacher:Greg, what made you think it was My butterfly?

Greg:Well, I know that this book should be about butterflies because of the picture but it couldn't just say butterfly 'cause the M. Butterfly can't start with M.

Teacher:What could butterfly start with?

Vanessa:'B'. B... B... Butterfly, like Brian!

Greg:I thought the P. I forgot.

Teacher:P and B are very close sounds. Patricia's name begins with a P. Say Patricia and say Brian. Can you feel how they are the same?

Luis:They're both with the lips. They look the same, too. But it couldn't be butterfly because it was like Marina.

Angela:Yes. When Marina said that, I started to say it, too. And it sounded like Spanish. And I looked at the letters, and it was Mariposa!

Teacher: I'll open the book and we'll start reading and see how your predictions hold up.

Ms. Goodman, the teacher, organizes her classroom so that the children explore together and talk about the constraints of the text. She knows that children learn best through talking and thinking about what they are doing. She wants them to consider and ask each other questions about how reading works and what it means – to engage in this inquiry process. She provides them with the space to co-construct the reading experience without interruption and then at a particular critical teaching moment helps them revisit the kinds of thinking in which they were engaging. She takes notes about what the children say, so she can remind them of the language they use. As the lesson continues, she moves them further into the reading by inviting the children to continue thinking about the process.

These inquiry lessons are only part of the reading program. Teachers like Ms. Godman provide a rich literacy environment and a range of opportunities and experiences that engage children in as much real reading and writing as possible. They engage in the range of experiences that I document earlier that move children along on their multiple roads to literacy.

References