Family Literacy Programs as Part of an Adult's Learning Journey

A family literacy program may be one of the first steps an adult learner takes in their own learning journey or it may help them to confidently pursue further literacy and foundational learning.

Sometimes learners might not be as comfortable attending other literacy and foundational learning programs, but are open to attending a family literacy program as it may seem less threatening.

For example, ELL learners will often first come to a family literacy program to build a social support network and learn some conversational English. What a great opportunity to support these learners in the safe and welcoming learning environment that family literacy programs provide. Your CALP can meet their learning needs by offering English Language Learning programming with the primary intended learning objective/outcome of improving oral communication in English, using family literacy programming as a mode of delivery.

Those same learners may then continue their learning journey in other areas of your CALP programming, such as signing up for English classes or one-on-one tutoring.

Thanks to the Children Anne chose to bring her daughter Mary to a family literacy program offered near their Mennonite community. Anne saw clearly how much Mary enjoyed the program. Anne also enjoyed the program, as long as she was observing, since her English skills were not strong. Anne and Mary rarely left home due to the many community and household responsibilities. After attending a session of the local family literacy program, Anne and Mary made great effort to attend as many as possible! Since Mary enjoyed the program so much, she begged each week to attend. Anne came as many times as possible, and if she had to miss, one of her sisters took Mary along with their children. By the end of the program, not only had Mary had fun, but Anne had rekindled her interest in improving her English skills and talked with the facilitator about meeting privately with an English tutor. Family literacy programs benefit the entire family’s learning…and sometimes it takes the child(ren) to motivate the adult learners to continue their learning journey.

Helping learners move closer to or accomplishing their learning goals is one of the highlights of CALP programming! In a family literacy program context, there are many ways a facilitator can have conversations with learners in order to find out what their learning goals are, in order to measure progress towards them.

One tool that could be used to communicate about a learners goals is the following Goal Setting Chart. This chart could be used as an activity within a family literacy program, or it could be used in one-on-one conversations with learners. It provides an opportunity for learners to put into written words what skills they hope to develop and how they would determine if those skills have been learned. The chart could be used to facilitate conversation before a learning opportunity starts, within one of the first sessions of the learning opportunity, throughout the learning opportunity, and at the end of the learning opportunity as a way of assessing and evaluating learner progress. As discussed more in the Assessment for Learning e-learning, conversations about learning goals have multiple purposes such as encouraging the learner, ensuring that the learning opportunity is relevant to the learner’s goals, and celebrating success along the way. Tools like the Goal Setting Chart are simply that – tools – that may help guide intentional conversations with learners.

To download a customizable version of this chart click here: /_uploads/617841b30e0ca.docx