1. Home Influences on reading and writingBy
Tamara L. Robison

2. Where did it all begin?
The earliest studies into language learning begun in where researchers in language acquisition carefully studied and observed young children to determine how they solved the mysteries of printed language (p. 25).
The “Great Debate” began on whether children were mature enough to handle “real” books in the beginning of instruction or should they be put into “reading readiness” or pre-reading activities (circling pictures that matching sounds or identifying letters in isolation.

3. Ground breaking studies
Delores Durkin
Denny Taylor
Family Literacy: Young Children Learning to Read (1983). In her attempt to understand literacy activities within the family, Taylor spent three years with six families to understand what made these children successful in learning to read and write.
Children Who Read Early (1966) She found some young children could already read write before exposure to formal schooling and instructional methodologies.

4. Ground breaking studies
Shirley Brice Heath
D. Taylor & Catherine Dorsey-Gaines
Denny Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines made the first of what were to be many visits to families living the inner city of a major metropolitan area in the Northeast. Their aim was to study the familial contexts of young black children who were successfully learning to read and write despite their horrendous economic hardships, the ways the personal biographies and educative styles of the families shape the literate experiences of the children.
Ways with Words (1983)
What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school

5. Ground breaking studies
Hart & Risley
Monique Sénéchal
In early 1990s they conducted a study to learn about “what typically went on…with…children learning to talk” (2008, p. 57) after learning many children of poverty arrive at school with language delays that would later affect their success in learning to read and write.
Monique Senechal’s (2006) meta-analytic review of 14 studies on 1,174 families focused on the extent of how parental involvement enhanced reading achievement of children in grades K-3.

6. Dolores durkin 56 years later
Why is her study significant 56 years later?
1957 while conducting observations in 1st grade classroom..makes a discovery
Durkin research consisted of two studies. 1. Oakland, California 2. New York City where she identified early readers.
She to gain a better understanding of how they became early readers.
She compared early readers to non early readers over a various socioeconomic backgrounds.
The difference was the attitude of the families. Parents of early readers provided assistance to their children.

7. Denny taylor Family Literacy
Taylor focused on the effect a family’s educative style has on the development of children’s literacy.
Taylor observed six middle-class suburban American families, each with children who were learning successfully to read and write in order to discover what parents did to foster literacy.
Functional literacy occurred in the home setting involved parents listening to children read printed matter, playing word games, reading aloud, pointing out signs, reading and talking about instructions for games and activities.
In 1983 when Family Literacy first appeared, the term was new. Denny Taylor not only coined a concept, but opened up a field of study that involves debate and discussion in public as well as academic circles. Encouraged by Taylor's probing questions, our understanding of the term "literacy" has deepened during the past two decades. —Yetta M. Goodman, from the new foreword

8. Shirley brice heath Ways with Words/What No Bedtime Story Means
Heath presents an ethnographic description and an analysis and explanation of literacy and associated values in three literate communities.
1. “Mainstream” community (Main town) which is middle-class and school oriented culture
2. Roadville, a white mill community of Appalachian origin.
3. Trackton, a black mill community of rural origin.

9. Allowed to invent and elaborate
Main town
Labeling procedures
What explanations
Allowed to invent and elaborate
The bedtime story is an early link in a long chain of interrelated patterns of taking meaning from the environment

10. Roadville and Trackton two perspectives on children learning language
Teach kids how to talk
Bedtime stories-main literacy event
Books and toys available
Do not make connections in real world
Processes are not explained
Taught to be passive
Trackton
Learn to talk/no books in home
No manipulative toys/puzzles, blocks etc.
No reading materials especially for children
No bedtime routine/few occasions for reading
Both Roadville and Trackton children were unsuccessful in school!!
Usually score the lowest percentile range on the Metropolitan Reading Readiness tests.

11. Taylor/dorsey-gaines Growing Up Literate: Learning from Inner-City Families
Conducted a study (The Shay Avenue Families) on family literacy which focused on Black children living in urban poverty who are perceived by their parents to be successfully learning to read and write.
Tanya, Queenie,and Gary
Pauline, Shauna and family
Jerry, Jemma, Tasmika and Jamaine
Ieshea, Teko, Danny, Hakim, Jarasad, and Sarita

12. Taylor/dorsey-gaines findings
The families use literacy for a wide variety of purposes (social, technical, and aesthetic purposes), for a wide variety of audiences and in a wide variety of situations.
Education and literacy cannot be used interchangeably. With the Shay Avenue families, many of the family members were highly literate, yet they were not educated in the traditional sense.
Literacy is not always liberating. The economic circumstances in which the families live create a social (political?) climate in which print various forms is used to intrude upon their everyday lives.

13. Professional families
Hart/risley
Hart/Risley spent 2 ½ years intensely observing the language of 42 families throughout Kansas City.
Welfare families
Working Class
Professional families
Children of professional families heard 2153 words per hour
Welfare children heard 616 words per hour

14. Sénéchal Findings
Teaching parents to teach their children was a more effective intervention than teaching parents to listen to their children read (p. 59)
Though parts of her study does require additional research, the overall idea of parental involvement does have a positive impact on children’s reading achievement is overwhelming.

15. Family characteristics that promotes literacy
Parents belief in their children’s abilities/determination to raise healthy children.
Parents provided a loving environment
Parents created a structured environment. Rules were understood by children and reinforced by parents
Parents were concerned with the safety and well being of the child.
Parents valued the growing sense of competence and independence the child experienced in the social life with family, friends and community.

16. conclusions
After 16 years of ethnographic research with families and communities have taught me that sex, race, economic status, and setting cannot be used as significant correlates of literacy (Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988)
It is not the differences but the ways in which print is used in the home.
We must learn about the family and its members to understand the knowledge they bring to the learning situation.
Abandon prepackaged programs

17. conclusions
We need to find ways to develop sincere relationships with parents and other guardians with whom the child interacts with outside of school.
We need, in short, a great deal of ethnography to provide descriptions of the ways different social groups “take” knowledge from the environment.
Older siblings usually played a part in the literacy success of younger children in the family.

18. conclusions Growing Up Literate: Learning from Inner-City Families
Grp. negotiation of meaning from written text, writing family records in Bibles for ex.
Where books or other text is integral in interaction
Types of literacy events
Labeling, what explanations, affective comments
Reason explanations, etc
Features of literacy events
Interpretation of literacy events
Caregiver roles, age and sex segregation according to community
Larger sociocultural patterns

19. Family literacy programs
From the efforts to research family literacy, a number of programs have grown.
To offer parent support in their literacy efforts

20. example
Videos\Storytime How to Share Books With Your Child.flv

21. References
Hart, B. &. (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children. P.H. Brookes.
Heath, S. (1982). What No Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and School. Language in Society,
Heath, S. (1983). Ways with Words: Language Life and Work in Communities and Schools. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Padak, N. &. (2008). A 50-Year View of Family Literacy. In M. J. Fresch, An Essential History of Current Reading Practices (pp ). Newark: International Reading Association.
Reutzel, R. &. (2004). Language Learning and the States of Literacy Development. In Teaching Children to Read: Putting the Pieces Together (p. 25). Columbus: Pearson.
Taylor, D. &.-G. (1988). Growing Up Literate: Learning From Inner-City Families. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Taylor, D. (1993, Autumn). Resisting Deficit Models. TESOL Quarterly,
Taylor, D. (1998). Family Literacy: Young Children Learning to Read and Write. Portsmouth: Heinemann.