Family Literacy In Family Literacy by Guofang Li, to better understand the life of Lis home literacy and school

practices, the author used Leseman and de Jongs four interrelated facets of home literay practice as themes to categorize Yangs experiences at home: (1) literacy opportunity, (2) Instruction, (3) cooperation, and (4) socioemotional quality. Literacy opportunity refers to your interaction with literacy of whatever kind, in whatever form. When I was a little kid I remembered that whenever I went for a walk with my dad, there was always something weird, funny or incomprehensible to read, correct or figured out. When I was about six my family and I went on a vacation to Liberia from Ghana and on the sidewalk we saw a sign that was misspelled and my dad called my brothers and I over and show it to us. This little misspelling turn into a great opportunity to get playful with words, while at the same time showing us how to avoid typos. Whenever we did go out as family we always played the word game, where my father would point out a word, and we were allowed to used all the letters or just some of the letter to create new words or phrase and it was a fun game to play but yet we were learning how to spelled new words and things. Literacy opportunities are everywhere you dont always need books to learn. You can use the things you have around to learn new things and farther expend your literacy. Literacy instructions refer to the direct or indirect guidance provided by parents to child through literacy activities. Yangs parents used instructional strategies such as pointing and explaining such as during parent-child shared story reading. I was home school for the first six years of my life so my dad had a direct guidance to my literacy. I learned how to reading from watching my older brother read and from making my dad read African Folktales to me before bed. He would explain all the different parables that followed each story making sure that I understand the concept behind each story. As I grew up and begin to read on my won he was always there helping me pronounced words that I couldnt and explained the meaning of the word to me after. The first book I receive from my father was a homemade stories book and it was filled with African adventures and tales. We always read it together; we would take turn switching back and fourth like the reading game popcorn. Since I was homeschool I had flashcards with list of vocabulary words that I had to learned each week and at the end of the week I was tested on them and if I got all right I was rewarded and if not I was punish, to make sure that the next time I that I would get them all right. My father taught me many things when I was hole schooled and most of the activities we did was fun but others were painful. Literacy cooperation refers to participation of the child in literacy-related events, which is reflected in the childs understanding and acceptance of the role he or she plays in the activities and how he or she responds to parental literacy instructions. Literacy Cooperation was reflected in Yang literacy role during stories time with his mother, they took turn reading, this way both were learning. This is kind of like my dad and I. We took turn reading back and fourth, my dad would usually read his part in a weird voice to mimic the characters, and this was always amusing to me, and I responded well to it. Whenever I got stuck he would help me pronounced it or ask me to break it up into syllables. Those were the good old days. Lastly we have socioemotional quality is an effective factor that includes indicators such as bond between the parents and child. The bond between my father and I

was as strong as it can get. My bother and I was his little men and still are. Socioemotional played a huge part on me at an early age. Coming to American like Yang Li, I didnt know much English, my English was terrible and whenever I used to talk in class when I started school kids used to laugh and because of this I never took part in anything even though I knew the answer to many of the question. As a kid it was kind of hard to know that if you do decide to take part you might be laugh at. I was always a shy kid growing up so that didnt help much but with the help of my family I was able to improved on my English and that gave me confidence. Of the four primary literacy domains we discussed in class (home, workplace, community and institution) I think that home is the most important domain in developing literacy. There is so much in the home that can enrich your literacy. The home provides you with different learning opportunities. In my house we have bookshelves that contain several books from childhood and from the present. Additionally to that we have magazines in all the bathrooms and in the living room. Wherever you go you have an opportunity to pick up a book or magazine learning new things that you didnt know before. In my room at home I have a desk, where I can do my work, write new things and even have a CD-rom to help improve my French. Last but not the least, we have a lot of different media in out house; computers, TV, iPod, and iPad. You can a lot from all these media. I learn something new everyday watching TV, the new keep me up with what is going on around the world, without media this could/would not be possible. Your parents give you instruction each and everyday how to live your life, how to study, how to be a better student and for me growing up I received a lot of instruction from my father. To this day I am still receiving instruction from my parents about my English. To help better my English I am helped with pouncing the s at the end of words because I tend to leave it out sometimes. My mom has made me flash cards to help me with this and sometimes make me repeat words after she say it. Cooperation between my mom and I is key because we have to work together to make sure that I learn how to pronounce the S at the end of words and we do so by saying and repeating. It works for us best because by hearing it I can better hears the S at the end. Socio-emotion is also a key part of the home domain because you need that bond between the child and parent to be able to do anything. Without that bond, nothing else is possible. The home is where bond are built from early child hood. For me my father and I have always had a good bond. Little I mention before, kids used to make fun of the way I spoke but because my parents were so encouraging I was able to break the fear speaking in public or school. Although the four domain help with our literacy I think that home literacy should be focus on the most. Literacy in the home is key into growing up. You can learn more form home schooling than from going to school. Schooling does not teach you everything because each individual child have different needs to be recognized and most school does not pay attention to that. In Yangs story demonstrate that school does not pay attention to the needs of the child.