Abstract
“Lynch and Prins report that most literacy practices are centered around the dominant white culture of mainstream literacy practices.”
Adult learning not only improves resources for parents, such as opportunities for better job possibilities, but it can also enhance support for children’s learning in the home. The main purpose of family literacy programs is to assist parents in the educational development of their children. In Teaching and Learning about Family Literacy and Family Literacy Programs, authors Jacqueline Lynch and Esther Prins routinely suggest when creating and implementing a family literacy program, respect for diverse cultures and cultural practices need to be considered. They posit the goal of family literacy programs is not to fix or remediate, but to diversify and strengthen learning opportunities. Data supports a positive outcome when parents exhibit a contributing role in their children’s literacy learning, resulting in fostering skill development in those children.
Jacqueline Lynch, professor of literacy education and Esther Prins, professor of lifelong learning and adult education, bring their knowledge and expertise to each topic presented. The authors present a wide range of data driven research for educators, instructors, and program developers of family literacy programs to incorporate when creating and teaching these programs. At the conclusion of each chapter, in addition to providing supplemental resources for the authors include three activities for personal reflection and application, challenging readers’ thoughts on theoretical perspectives and encouraging readers at times to extend their own skills and opinions to design blueprints, strategies, and programs on topics of family literacy explored in each chapter.
Part 1 of the book introduces the reader to the theories from which family literacy is grounded. The authors contend that adult education is the essential component of family literacy because it assists those who are most marginalized: families who come from low socioeconomic backgrounds and caregivers who desire to strengthen their language and reading skills. Lynch and Prins argue for the incorporation of authentic instruction as they purport that real life experiences tend to show promising outcomes in literacy development. The authors note that as parents help children develop, they gain confidence to pursue loftier career and personal goals for themselves. The majority of family literacy programs center around parents assisting children in the development of literacy skills, with a secondary goal of strengthening the literacy skills of the other family members, including siblings and grandparents. The authors provide examples of case studies from around the country of family literacy programs that demonstrate evidence of participation of adult family members as a motivating factor in strengthening their own education and career opportunities.
Part 2 discusses how family literacy programs need to respect race, ethnicity, and culture while focusing on social class and its implications on family literacy. Lynch and Prins report that most literacy practices are centered around the dominant white culture of mainstream literacy practices. However, they mention the concepts of funds of knowledge, cultural models, and antiracist education more recently shape family literacy practices around culturally responsive strategies, as opposed to previous deficit model approaches. They argue for awareness of educators’ own biases and how they can become ingrained as assumptions towards poverty, perpetuating both the deficit approach to teaching literacy and misconceptions of culturally diverse families. To counteract these biases, they recommend employing specific and useful guiding principles and strategies to avoid teaching through a deficit lens.
The final section, Part 3, delves into the realm of accountability and funding of family literacy programs. The authors contend that more data needs to be collected for evaluation purposes to determine the outcomes of program implementation and justification for funding these programs. In some cases, students or parents who are recruited for participation are typically those who will most likely show promise and success. Because of this process called “creaming,” families who are most underprivileged might be overlooked for involvement in such programs.
Despite the latter part of the book examining several signature programs of family literacy, the reader must navigate the first section of the book before an example of teaching and learning about family literacy learning is described in detailed practice. Although the authors describe the benefits and challenges of a number of these current programs presented in the book, there are no specific set of defined resources readily available in the text for scholars or practitioners to locate.
Lynch and Prins caution that family literacy programs cannot be formulaic, as each family situation is individually unique. They conclude by advocating for more research and program evaluation to be conducted on family literacy programs, due to the paucity of data on the outcomes of family literacy programs to date.
