Reading: The Earlier the Better
Introduction:
As I have come to learn this past year, literacy as we know can be shaped by a multitude of things that can range from different situations in our life to people we encounter along the way. But something that has come to my attention is the impact you as parents can have on the development of our literacy, which will in turn affect the rest of our lives. To further understand these things I decided to interview my peers who I am constantly surrounded by and find out how they feel their families affected their own literacy even deep into their college years. The reason these opinions are so important is to be able to understand if parents truly influence and impact their children in their own literacy. As my own mom once told me, the best way to understand who you are teaching, is by learning from your students. Therefore, the aim of this research is to be able to learn from what could one day be your own child, which are college students, in order to further develop your skills as your child’s first teacher.
Exploring Literacy and How It Affects Your Child:
Although you may have heard of what literacy is, there is one thing that not many people know about but are greatly affected by, and that is sponsorship. Although sponsorship and literacy seem like two pieces of completely different puzzles, they seamlessly come together to form one picture and that is a sponsor of literacy. A sponsor of literacy is “a figure who turned up most in people’s memories of literacy learning” (Brandt 1998) and who plays pivotal roles in the developing these literacy skills in every person. There have also been studies done to suggest that “literacy related activities in the home may have significant effects on the language development and later reading achievement” in children(Payne, Whitehurst, Angell 1994). This is all linked together through one factor and that is you, the parent. As a parent, you will be your child’s first ever sponsor in their exposure to literacy. Studies have shown that there is a “correlation between the home literacy environment and first-grade children's language and reading skills” (Ricciuti, White, and Fraser 1993). Which leads there to be an understanding that sponsorship, parent involvement, and literacy all add up together that will yield your child a greater future.
Who I Talked To:
When looking for participants I decided to use college students of around the same age in order to have students who have lived and experienced similar amounts of education. Another important factor in choosing these participants was making sure there was a diverse pool of interviewees in order to be able to factor in not only different ethnic backgrounds but different socioeconomic backgrounds as well. Having this diversity was crucial because depending on the type of background a person has is what determines what types of sponsors they will have throughout their lives. As you will see, these factors played a huge role into how each participant grew up to not only develop their literacy, but how they view literacy as well. In total I chose 6 participants, 3 males and 3 females to be able to have a balanced set of opinions.
What I Talked to Them About:
I decided to conduct an interview through a specific set of 11 questions that would give me the adequate insight into what I as researcher wanted to find out. This was the most effective because it allowed me to carry a certain conversation with these students regarding their own personal experiences with family involvement, and how that has come to shape their literacy. The questions I asked are in the table below.
I decided to conduct an interview through a specific set of 11 questions that would give me the adequate insight into what I as researcher wanted to find out. This was the most effective because it allowed me to carry a certain conversation with these students regarding their own personal experiences with family involvement, and how that has come to shape their literacy. The questions I asked are in the table below.
The Answers You Need:
As I was interviewing the participants a clear pattern began to develop within each interview. 2 out of the 6 participants had parents who were not very involved in their education and tended to not model what they wanted in their child at their home. This led to both of these students to not fully explore their options pertaining to literacy which now affects them as college students. One of the interviewees actually tries to avoid anything having to do with English because he said, “at times it’s aggravating so I believe had they begun at a younger age and actually open the conversation then I feel like I would’ve been able to develop these skills adequately enough.” The other interviewee who also had similar parents expressed the same concern of had they begun to teach her younger and encourage her to read she would’ve been able to transfer these skills into her writing.
To contrast this, the other 4 interviewees each had parents who were very involved in their education and some who even read to them as children. This led to these students being very successful in college not only in their English classes but in other subject areas that require any form of writing. This is due to their parents encouraging them to read at a younger age and being very involved in the development of their literacy which led all of them, except for 1 student, to grow and love reading even as a hobby which they then transfer into their everyday lives. Though the question may arise in how they are transferring this into their everyday lives. And the answer to that is quite simple, when you read more and explore different genres of reading it directly reflects not only in how you write but how you speak as well. Being exposed to different words they may not see every day and different forms of thinking will lead kids to develop a higher level being able to express themselves, which will be very useful to them in school.
How You as a Parents Can Apply This Information to Your Own Child:
The point of all this research was to help the future of this very country, which are your own children, prosper and develop the proper skills to not only communicate efficiently but learn efficiently as well. As parents, this information is crucial to you because as discussed before learning begins at home as you are the first sponsor of your child’s literacy. In order to equip them with these skills they will be using for the rest of their lives I asked the students, which I interviewed, if there was any advice they would like to give or if there were things they wished their parents had done for them. Interestingly enough the answer remained the same, begin earlier. The younger you start to develop these skills into your child the better it will go on to serve them. Another thing that these students stressed was not forcing your child to do anything either but rather encourage them to do it as well, and the best way to do this is by modeling what you want your own child to do. Try to read and write around the house as you know children model everything their parents do and, rather than teaching them to use an app on your phone, teach them to pick up a book and read, whether it be picture books or novels.
Limitations:
Of course, as with any research there are limitations and flaws within the paper and in order to provide the best information to you as a parent I have decided to acknowledge what might be a setback to me as a researcher. One of the greatest setbacks was the number of interviews I conducted. Perhaps interviewing a larger pool of student, around 10 or 20 would’ve been more ideal, but seeing as how these interviews are a bit time consuming not many students were open to spending some of their already limited time in school, getting interviewed.
Tying It All Together
Just as I have come to learn about literacy through this past year, I wish for you as a parent to learn from this research in order to help your child develop their literacy. Although I will provide a timeline that begins as early as pregnancy and ranges to about high school level, please take it upon yourself to develop your own plan which will fit your own child’s needs as each child is different and unique in their own way. Please refer to the picture in the following page to see the timeline of literacy in a child’s life.
Sources
Brandt, Deborah. The Sponsors of Literacy. National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement, University at Albany, State University of New York, 1997.
Payne, Adam C., et al. “The Role of Home Literacy Environment in the Development of Language Ability in Preschool Children from Low-Income Families.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 3-4, 1994, pp. 427–440., doi:10.1016/0885-2006(94)90018-3.
Ricciuti, H.N., White, A.M., & Fraser, S.M. (1993). Maternal and family predictors of school readiness and achievement in Black, Hispanic, and White 6- and 7-year-olds. Society for Research in Child Development Abstracts, 9, 567.
