ABSTRACT
Family literacy programs are intergenerational interventions that aim to improve family functioning and family prospects by enhancing child and adult literacy. Interventions include teaching of literacy-related skills to parents and to children independently, as well as efforts to enhance children’s literacy through involving parents as partners in their children’s literacy development. An example of independent teaching of literacy-related skills would be enrollment of the parent in a high school equivalency degree program with simultaneous enrollment of the child in a center-based preschool program that included literacy-related curriculum components. An example of a literacy partnership between parents and children would be encouragement of a home-based program of family reading aloud of books and other print materials. Family literacy programs usually include both independent and family partnership approaches to enhancing family literacy. In addition, family literacy programs typically include a variety of components that aim to enhance the background functioning of the family in which literacy development might occur. For example, a family literacy program might try to help a family obtain food stamps or medical assistance, and it might deliver instruction on ways to discipline children, or methods of handling stress, and so forth.
