A collaborative approach to program evaluation combined with the use of a variety of evaluation methods using currently available technology can yield valuable information about the effectiveness of family literacy programs. Such an approach was used for McCosh Even Start, a federally-funded family literacy program located at McCosh School in an…

Describes a Community Literacy Day that attempts to involve as many family and local community members as possible in a positive and enjoyable celebration of literacy. Notes that the objective was to begin to form a community as an interacting population of various kinds of individuals with common interests living together in a common area--a…

Presents detailed descriptions of two intergenerational literacy programs currently functioning to meet family literacy needs. (MG)

Even Start Family Literacy Program is a three-part program serving thousands of children from birth to age seven. The federal program supplies parents with the training to be their child's first teacher; allows them to gain needed literacy skills and complete their own formal education; and provides a preschool for young children. Children gain at…

Notes that literacy practices of caregivers are the building blocks for establishing a home environment conducive to emergent literacy. Recommends practices to incorporate into family-telling experiences and suggests published stories that promote diversity and literacy. (HTH)

Suggests that juvenile offenders with poor literacy skills and a child to support need all the help they can get. Describes and examines a classroom at a juvenile residential facility. Finds that these juveniles must see themselves as readers, writers, and storytellers before they can carry literacy home to their own children. (RS)

At Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, an innovative program promotes lifelong literacy skills for university physical-plant employees and, in turn, helps these adult learners support their children's education. Instructional activities link families through children's literature, work-related readings, and personal literature. To…

Describes family literacy, examining how families are already read by teachers, researchers, policymakers, and the media and arguing that the rhetoric of family literacy has defined the family in somewhat pathological terms. The paper examines the continued pervasiveness of deficit discourses to describe families, noting why it prevails in the…

Written by teachers for teachers, "A Kaleidoscope of Models and Strategies for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages," is a practical introduction to models and strategies employed in the teaching of English language learners. Each chapter discusses several models and/or strategies by focusing on particular methods and gives…

Successful, Culturally Enriched, and Linguistically Sensitive family literacy programs incorporate families' life experiences, ways of knowing, educational needs and resources, and goals. Alma Flor Ada (2003) reminds us that "students live in two worlds: home and school. If these two worlds do not recognize, understand, and respect each other,…

When adult students arrive in the classroom, they can be at just about any level in their reading development, from beginning readers working on the fundamentals to more advanced readers ready to begin study for a high school level equivalency diploma. This Partnership for Reading publication summarizes the emerging principles and trends in adult…

"Connect" is an approach to family literacy in Scotland that recognizes that people have different literacies used in different life domains. It values home and community literacies and challenges the deficit perspective and dominant cultural and ideological patterns. (SK)

Describes how the Newall Green Infant School in Manchester, England includes parents in their children's learning. Explains how a welcoming school policy contributed to student achievement and behavior. (JOW)

Reflects upon the development, implementation and research of specific intergenerational family literacy initiatives in the Anglophone section of New Brunswick. Presents four initiatives and discusses working with the community, working in the neighborhood, and working within a university context. (SG)

A family literacy program used television soap operas as a starting point for investigating home and community literacy practices. Parents participated as co-researchers, comparing media portrayals of literacy events with their own everyday practices. (SK)