Increasing Community Resources to Build Family Literacy Skills

In a collaborative working partnership, The Literacy Center, The Allentown Public Library, The United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and United Way’s Women’s Leadership Council have announced a new initiative to support Family Literacy and reading.
 

According to MaryAnn Przekurat, Executive Director of The Literacy Center, “While research on early childhood education contains a myriad of conflicting data, there is no topic that generates greater agreement than the need for positive parental involvement.   Given that family involvement is imperative for student success, we must address the more difficult question of how ALL families can become involved in their children’s education.”
 

In addition to Allentown’s increasing diversity, with recent census data reporting 40% of residents speaking a language other than English at home, more than 87% of Allentown School District’s students are also living in poverty.  (ASD, 2013)  The Literacy Center’s Family Reading, Literacy and Support Program will help parents discover that their involvement is the number one predictor of their child’s early literacy success and future academic achievement.  Creating a parent/child learning environment at The Allentown Library will support the development of auditory comprehension and expressive communication using a dual language approach that teaches effective forms of parent involvement. 
 

“This is a great collaboration and we are thrilled to be part of this effort.  Early literacy has always been a focus of our library’s service, but as the demographics of our community change, it becomes increasingly difficult to meet the needs of every user” says Renee Haines, Allentown Public Library Director.  “Together we can provide early literacy programming that impacts an even wider range of people than the library alone might not have normally reached, in languages that we might not otherwise have been able to accommodate.  We are building a collection within the library that reflects the diversity of community and can support bi-lingual families in their efforts to make reading and learning part of their every-day lives “  
 

The program promotes school readiness with an emphasis on home language skills in early childhood as a scaffold for the acquisition of English and improved reading.   “A child who has developed early literacy skills in his/her first language will find it easier to develop these same skills in English.”  (Ford, 2010) The program includes Story Time and numerous literacy based child/parent activities in multiple languages mirroring the diversity of the local community. The Literacy Center is also increasing the number of available resources, especially non-English/dual language children’s books, to encourage and support reading to children.  
 

“United Way’s Women’s Leadership Council (WLC) is committed to making a difference in the lives of women and children in the Lehigh Valley said Donna Haggerty, President of the WLC. Adopting family literacy as a new signature project for our Council was important to our members and we are so pleased to be in partnership with the Literacy Center as it expands these endeavors.”
 

When the Literacy Center asks their adult learners why they want to learn English, two of the most common answers are “to help their children with their schoolwork” and “to be able to speak to their child’s teachers.”  Guided instruction at each learning activity provides parents with key pre-literacy skill development information.   The program emphasizes how to read aloud and engage their children, maximizing the long-term impact of early reading. Additional parent instruction will be focused on themes that are relevant to supporting their child’s pre-literacy skill gains.  
 

Parent instruction is first offered in home language (English, Spanish and otherwise) to ensure content is understood and then used as the basis for English instruction for limited-English speakers, with the goal of increasing parents’ English proficiency to a level where they can be successful partners in their child’s education.  As English language acquisition takes time, parents need to be able to read to their children now, while learning English, so their children can build the pre-literacy skills they will need to be kindergarten ready. 

Recognizing the community’s need for dual language resources to empower bilingual families to have access to books in their native language while they are learning English, the Literacy Center began a project to amass dual language children’s books.   Thanks in part to a grant from the United Way and the Kiwanis Club of Emmaus, The Literacy Center will build dual language reading resources at The Allentown Public Library.  To date, more than 400 books in languages other than English, such as Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and French has been purchased.  At least one half of the dual language books will be donated to the Allentown Public Library to become part of their permanent collection, allowing for dual language Story Time and parent check-out.  
 

Access to dual language books will significantly increase the likelihood of immigrant parents reading to their children and using reading activities to become more involved in their child’s education.  Dual Language books will also be used for The Literacy Center’s Family Literacy classes. The Literacy Center will continue to build the supply of available dual language resources and is seeking support for this initiative through community partnerships and grants.  This is a real partnership taking action to improve literacy in the Lehigh Valley and recognizing that literacy promotes healthy families, economic development, and thriving communities.    
 

According to a report by the Clinton Foundation, “by age four, children in professional families have heard an average of 30 million more words addressed to them than children in families on welfare.”  The Literacy Center’s educational instruction helps reduce that gap by increasing the education and resource level of parents, providing the tools and support needed to prepare their children for school.  It will also increase the parents’ level of English which will open doors to obtain better paying employment, reduce the level of poverty, and improve quality of life for their family.