Running Head: FAMILY AND COMMUNITY LITERACY

Family and Community Literacy

Cassandra Aragon
EDUC 435 Fall 2015
Learning Task #2

FAMILY AND COMMUNITY LITERACY

Research Question
Family and community literacies were explored in creating our understandings of the
themes. The exploration of this particular question allowed us to foster our awareness of the
extent at which families and communities were involved in student development. The strategies
that were discussed in the articles read, previous to the field experience, were highly effective.
As a result, the formation of our research question aimed to investigate the relevance and
practicality of these methods. The question is as follows: What strategies are used in the school
community to acknowledge student diversity and how does it influence child literacy
development?
Data Collection
School A. A Calgary Board of Education (CBE) elementary school located in the Central
East quadrant of the city within a neighborhood of low socioeconomic status (SES); and is a high
needs school. The school is the only K-2 elementary school in Calgary, and offers a variety of
specialized programs, such as a music specialist program and a heavy focus on early child
literacy development. In order to foster this goal, School A has created a specialized Early
Development Centre (EDC) for children between the ages of 2-4 with behavioral and severe
developmental delays, to help develop skills that will help the transition into kindergarten. In
addition, the school population is highly multicultural, with many complex learners (Principal A,
personal communication, October 19, 2015)
School B. This CBE secondary school is a located within the Central East quadrant of the
city, within a low SES community, that is highly culturally diverse. The school population
consists of Grade 10 to 12 students, with a large ELL population. There are a diverse variety of
programs offered to students, such as specialized CTS, fine arts and RAP apprenticeship

FAMILY AND COMMUNITY LITERACY

programs. The presence of a Wellness Centre, unique to this school in the CBE, allows for access
to a variety of outside agencies to accommodate for all student needs. (Principal B, personal
communication, October 26, 2015)
Data Source and Collection
Data Source

Description

Notes from recollections of interviews and

conversations

Maps and Diagrams

Artifacts
Field Notes

Interview with Teacher A

Interview with Assistant Principal B
Interview with Teacher C
Interview with Principal A
Interview with Principal B
Diagram of classroom A
Diagram of classroom B
Brochure A from School B
Classroom Observations from
School A
Classroom Observations from
School B
Observation of Professional
Development Day, School B

Data Analysis and Interpretation

Theme 1. The exploration of roles within the school community allow for real-world application
of skills.
As explored in the article written by Mui and Anderson (2008), the assumption of roles
was integral in the development of the children in the Johar family. By allowing the children to
assume the role of teacher during play, they were able to practice language to communicate and
implicitly associate acquired skills with potential careers. Throughout my observations in School
A, an elementary school, the emphasis on role-play was explicit. Every start to the day students
would be assigned various roles. Roles would range in complexity and responsibility, some
examples include, Lights Manager, Accident Attendant, Lunch Box Helper, etc. The roles that
required more responsibility and received more recognition, like the Helping Hand or Star

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Student, were the most desirable (School A, observation, October 21, 2015). The selected
students showed a sense of pride and accomplishment in the tasks they were responsible for. The
act of assigning roles to students was extremely prevalent at the elementary level, as an early
literacy development school, this role-playing instilled confidence in their ability to express their
knowledge.
The explicitness of role-playing at School A was evident; the students were taking on
variations of the roles and experiencing them in a smaller scale. In School B, role-playing,
though more implicitly assumed, seemed to have a bigger influence on student literacy
development. Students participating in an ELL Drama class were observed to use the acting class
to explore their understanding of Canadian culture in relation to their own knowledge from
individual cultural relevancies (School B, observation, October 27, 2015). Through the reading
and writing of scripts and the character development, the students were able to experience firsthand the roles they have witnessed, assigning them meaning, while fostering their developing
literacy proficiencies. Multiple instances within classrooms at School B utilized the idea of realworld relevance within lessons. The application of tasks to future employment and the
professional input from experts allowed them to see the relevance in their learning. Both
instances of role assignment at School B exemplify place-based learning, as discussed by
Comber (2013). Place-based learning encourages meaning to be attached to every role,
facilitating experiential learning and the development of complex literary repertoires while
incorporating existing cultural backgrounds.

Theme 2. The provision of resources facilitates the awareness of student diversity.

FAMILY AND COMMUNITY LITERACY

The schools nurtured inclusivity through their diverse communities. The availability of
specialty support, for example; Educational Assistants and a Literacy Support Teacher, allowed
for specific identification and modification of behavioral and developmental delays. The
presence of these extra supports allowed for the personalization and perpetuation of learning.
Through this diverse community, I observed peer support in conjunction with teacher support.
Student peers were readily used in the development of proficiencies amongst students, the range
of knowledge allowed for teachers to encourage collaboration and the exchange of intelligences.
Through activities like paired collaborative reading and peer language translation, the individuals
within the classroom became essential resources for student success.
In addition to teacher and peer support, technological resources, like computers and
multimedia programs, allowed for ELL students to develop communication skills and literacy
capabilities. School A, utilized specialized computer programs that allowed for ELL students to
be receptively exposed to phonics to help with oral, written and reading development (School A,
observation, October 21, 2015). The use of technology to assist ELLs help develop literacy
proficiencies and valuable 21st century skills (Black, 2009). In addition to new media, print-based
contexts were available. School A offered a plethora of bilingual texts, while School B provided
ELLs with leveled contexts (Observation, October 26, 2015).
Finally, one of the most evident resources available for students was evidenced at School
B. The availability of a Wellness Centre was unique, this center offered students access to a
range of agencies that would provide educational, cultural, emotional and social support. Various
artifacts depicting accommodations for diversity were available, providing information on
cultural integration, employment opportunities, language translation, etc. (Calgary Immigrant
Womens Association, 2015). The openness and acceptance of differences and the

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acknowledgement of diversity in all aspects of the funds of knowledge, allow for the creation of
an environment where families and communities can be involved in the educational development
of their students.
Theme 3. The school community acknowledges and fosters familial relationships in developing
student knowledge.
The investigation into family involvement in student education was quite strenuous and
required multiple interviews with staff; they discussed the importance of developing
relationships with families to demonstrate support for cultural diversity and student individuality.
In a school community with high diversity coupled to a low socioeconomic status, many families
within the community are high-risk, young parents, single parents and multi-generational
families (Principal A, personal communication, October 19, 2015). School A relies heavily on
familial involvement in program design for their Early Development Centre, enabling student
personalization and assuring that student needs are met (Teacher C, personal communication,
October 22, 2015). A school wide system at School A was created to assure familial
communication is met regardless of potential language barriers. This is a variation of a brokering
strategy, used to communicate expectations and translate forms, facilitated by communication
folders with detailed explanations of tasks and consent forms. Teachers would acquire the help of
siblings or illicit a translator to assure that the relationship between teacher and family was not
hindered by language (School A, observation, October 20, 2015). In the article by Perry (2014),
brokering was integral to immigrant families to expose children to a wide variety of genres;
genres that they engage with and can explain the role of. Brokering bestows upon students the
role of teacher and translator within their family (Perry, 2014). Unique to my observation at
School A, noted by Perry (2014), brokering between teachers and parents chiefly occurs in

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absentia, i.e., with the two benefiting parties not being present in the same place at the same
time, in this case, teachers were acting as facilitators for brokering, though unbeknownst to
them.
Apart from the brokering strategy, the creation of positive relationships with students and
their families are important in high needs and low socioeconomic status communities, though
this relationship takes time to develop, school support is needed for student development
(Teacher A, personal communication, October 19, 2015). In every conversation with teachers and
administration within the schools, those that positively supported strategies to encourage student
diversity, made conscious effort in developing relationships with students and families in every
decision they made (School A and B, observation, 2015). While observing an ELL Lead class at
School B, the EA introduced an activity where the students were to interview the principal
(Observation, October 27, 2015). My focus was on the interactions of the principal with the
students and his obvious interest in their cultural backgrounds and history. In fact, the students
were encouraged to bring an object from their home country, they were to speak and write about
it, developing their communication and literary proficiencies. To further the relationship between
students and families and teachers, personal responses to class content was one of the primary
strategies used in classes outside of the specialized ELL programs (School B, observation,
October 28, 2015). These responses were used to develop different perspectives using their
familial and cultural backgrounds as a reference, though also emphasizing acceptance for their
diversity while incorporating literary components.

Implications and Recommendations

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The exploration of family and community literacy within the school community allowed
me to explore the extent to which student diversity is utilized within a classroom setting. One of
the biggest struggles that I had throughout my research was the visible identification of strategies
to facilitate student diversity. Many of the relevant data that I collected were through interviews
with staff or through artifacts collected from resource centers; it was quite rare to witness the
explicit application of these strategies. This helped my understanding of the need for more
explicit strategies of inclusivity within classrooms. For the future, by making students aware of
these strategies, they would be more open to sharing their funds of knowledge and incorporating
them into their literacy learning. Many of the strategies that I witnessed seemed to be quite
effective, though I think that incorporating more of the approaches learned about in the
discussions, like place-based learning (Comber, 2013) or more awareness of at-home literacy
practices, would be beneficial for individualizing student literacy development at school.
The data collection from my findings challenged my original expectations of my field
experience. Many of the articles depicted idealistic situations and obvious implementation of the
strategies, making me optimistic and hopeful of what I might see in the schools I visited, though
some tangible implementation occurred, it was not obvious or explicit. My perception of schools
was challenged; a different perspective of the administrative side of education explored. My
observations challenged the idealistic articles and demonstrated the breadth of a possible
transition to accommodate for the implementation of the strategies encountered.
Through the analysis of my findings, my recommendations would be to incorporate
cultural contexts into literature and apply real-world relevance of content to careers and cultural
understandings. One of the concerns raised from School B, discussed during the Professional
Development Day, was the low percentage of aboriginal graduates within the graduating class

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(Principal B, Speech, October 30, 2015). Interestingly, while observing the English Facultys
Professional Learning Community, Assistant Principal B (Speech, October 30, 2015) suggested
incorporating Aboriginal literature within the English curriculum and utilizing community elders
to reference these stories. As an aware observer of the potential benefits of this proposition, I was
hopeful and excited about the recommendations; this would act as a hook to spotlight the
aboriginal culture and potentially help the level of engagement amongst students. The article
written by Cummins et al. (2005) explicitly identifies the benefits of nurturing culturally relevant
and responsive pedagogy. As a result of cultural inclusion, students see a variety of perspectives
on course material (Cummins et al., 2005) and it encourages them to relate the root of their
culture, language, to their literacy development.
The real-world application of ideas is relevant, as it emphasizes the importance of placebased pedagogy and experiential learning. This recommendation is particularly compatible
within these schools, coming from a diverse low SES community, community involvement and
integration is important in creating a sense of belonging and support (Comber, 2013). Through
tasks like the gathering of student researchers, you can create an atmosphere of inclusion in the
community, which fosters meaning and cultivates knowledge and experiences (Comber, 2013).
Therefore, these recommendations would work collaboratively with the student diversity that is
already embedded within the school community.
Finally, I think that the research question chosen allowed a breadth of topics to be
explored. In hindsight, it was quite overwhelming to assess the data collected that pertained to
the question. Now, my perception has changed, it forced me to reflect on my observations and
the implications of what I saw. It also encouraged me to identify strategies that I could

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10

implement as a future teacher. Overall, it was a unique and eye-opening learning experience that
will help influence my ideologies and values for the future.
References
Black, R. (2009). English-language learners, fan communities, and 21st century skills. Journal of
Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(8), 688-697.
Calgary Immigrant Womens Association. (2015). Cross Cultural Parenting Program [Brochure].
Calgary, Alberta: Author
Comber, B. (2013). Schools as Meeting Places: Critical and Inclusive Literacies in Changing
Local Environments. Language Arts, 90(5), 361-371.
Cummins, J., Bismilla, V., Chow, P., Cohen, S., Giampapa, F., Leoni, L., et al. (2005).
Affirming identity in multilingual classrooms. Educational Leadership, 63(1), 38-43.
Mui, S. & Anderson, J. (2008). At home with the Johars: Another look at family literacy. The
Reading Teacher, 62(3), 234-243.
Perry, K. (2014). Mama, sign this note: Young refugee childrens brokering of literacy
practices. Language Arts, 91(5), 313-325.