Comprehensive Family Literacy programs generally integrate the following components:

1.        Interactive literacy activities between parents and their children.

2.        Age-appropriate education  to prepare children for success in school and life experience

3.        Training for parents regarding how to be the primary teachers of their children and full partners in their education

4.        Parent literacy training that leads to self sufficiency

(Definition taken from the State of Michigan family literacy program)

At RIFLI, we are increasingly addressing all  four of these areas, however our focus is probably more weighted towards the last element than most family literacy programs. Our student goal focus and the enrollment of parents and non-parents as adult learners adds another layer of  complexity to our unique version of family literacy. Other factors which make our program’s family learning challenges unique include computer/technology enhanced instruction, our limited class hours, and our desire to incorporate the library (developing patrons, teaching about library use) into our instruction.

If we look at the four elements of family literacy defined above, one potential approach  would be to look at ways to enhance or expand our work in each of the elements, rather than deciding that any one component needs to be de-emphasized in order for the others to thrive.  Would it be fruitful to move our discussions towards how to expand and improve on our family activities, our children’s program, and our ability to offer parents resources and skills for positive engagement in their children’s learning—even as we maintain our dedication to excellent instruction for our adult learners?  This approach could lead us towards new funding opportunities, as funders who support children’s programming, services for parents, and supports for school involvement could find reasons to back RIFLI, and result in an improved ability to support our students learning and life goals in the most comprehensive manner possible.

When we had an initial discussion of what our goals were for family literacy this year and also what we saw as effective approaches, RIFLI staff listed the following:

·          Sharing RI state early learning standards with adult learners and incorporating these standards into children’s instruction. (These standards are available at www.ride.ri.gov/els/)

·          Having family activities at every class.

·          Having kids come to join adult goup, rather than the reverse.

·          Role plays as a family activity (for example: having kids staff a “store” and having adults act out the role of customers.)

·          Making goals of family activities transparent to both adults and children.

·          Reading children’s books as a family activity.

Questions raised at this same discussion were:

·          Who makes sure that family activities happen? Is it the job of the lead teacher, the children’s teacher, both?

·          How do we define “family”? Is it just the parent-child model or could it include cousins, uncles, grandmothers, siblings? One person brought up the idea of an “adopt a kid” approach where an adult could be matched with a child who was not their own.

These ideas and questions can be great first steps in an effort to build on our base of solid adult literacy programming by challenging ourselves to give equal time and weight to the remaining three components of a comprehensive family literacy program.