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About REAL
Peter Hannon and Cathy Nutbrown, University of Sheffield (Paper
presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual
Conference, 2001).
Background
The REAL Project is a Sheffield University/LEA/Schools partnership
programme which has developed ways in which early literacy
educators can collaborate with parents to improve the literacy
outcomes for children. This paper reports on the preliminary
outcomes for the programme, which consisted of home visits
by teachers, provision of books and other resources, centre-based
activities and a library visit.
All the schools were in city wards above the median on the
government's index of multiple deprivation and five were in
the most deprived 2% in the country. At each school eight
children between three and three-and-a-half were chosen at
random. All of the 88 families selected and invited to join
the programme accepted, i.e. a 100% take-up. A control group
was also identified.
Findings
Research showed that 72% of parents regularly participated
in the programme and appeared to be engaged in literacy activities
with their children in the home. (More often this was the
mother but fathers' involvement was also apparent.) Parents
mentioned specific benefits around literacy (e.g. a greater
appreciation of books, recognition of rhymes) as well as school
readiness, greater confidence and being able to relate to
teachers. Children who participated in the programme were
more likely to mention their parents when asked 'who they
read with' and identified reading with home (despite the daily
literacy hour). Teachers felt that home visiting was a positive
feature of the programme.
Quantitative analysis showed that, at five years old, programme
children were ahead on literacy measures despite the fact
that the programme did not set out to teach children directly.
By providing parents with ways of thinking about their roles
to help them to help their children's literacy development,
children's literacy levels did improve.
Anne Kirkpatrick, 2002. In C. Nutbrown (ed.) Research studies
in early childhood education (pp. 97-114), Stoke-on-Trent:
Trentham Books.
Background
This small study, undertaken as part of the REAL project,
looked at the home writing experiences of eight preschool
children over an 18-month period. It aimed to discover whether
there was evidence of their writing development, what kind
of development occurred, how much variation in development
there was within the sample and whether parental involvement
had an impact.
The children were observed in their homes, writing and drawing
samples were collected by their families and by the researcher,
and they were assessed at the beginning and end of the project
using the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (1) and the Sheffield
Early Literacy Development Profile (2).
Findings
The study found that parental involvement strongly influenced
the children's progress. Almost all of the parents were encouraging
their children to write only by copying text from an adult's
writing, book or other source, and some of the children were
reluctant to write independently. The researcher held a writing
development workshop in order to raise parents' awareness
of the subject, and after this, more parents began to collect
samples of their children's writing, including play-writing.
However, as time went on parents once again began stressing
the importance of correct letter-formation and copied words,
which appeared to have a negative effect on some of the children's
confidence: they feared 'getting it wrong' if they had nothing
to copy from. Meanwhile, the two children who seemed more
prepared to take risks were making good progress with their
writing.
References:
(1) L. Dunn, C. Whetton and J. Burley (1997) The British
Picture Vocabulary Scale - second edition, Slough: NFER-Nelson.
(2) C. Nutbrown (1997) Recognising Early Literacy Development:
assessing children's achievements, London: Paul Chapman
Publishing
Cathy Nutbrown and Peter Hannon, University of Sheffield
Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. Vol 3 (2), August
2003, 115-145
Background to the study
This study demonstrates that young children can give their
perspectives on family literacy, and that this could have
implications for how family literacy programmes are developed.
The researchers interviewed a group of 77 children who had
been taking part in a family literacy programme based on the
ORIM framework, and a
control group of 71 who had not, about who they wrote, read
and sang nursery rhymes with at home, their favourite books
and rhymes, and where they saw words apart from in books.
The children were in the reception class of schools in very
deprived areas.
Methodological issues
The authors point out that most other research methods to
understand children's learning have relied on observation,
rather than listening to children and soliciting their views
on matters of daily life and learning. It was decided to find
out what the children said about literacy at home by having
teachers and nursery nurses conduct short one-to-one interviews
(around ten minutes) with them. The concerns of the interviewing
team relating to interviewing young children were considered,
and an appropriate approach was devised. This included ensuring
that both parents and children gave their informed consent
to the interview, that the children understood what was happening
and that they were at no time uncomfortable or unhappy. A
pilot was conducted, to which children responded positively;
some of the team commented that the children seemed to enjoy
the attention from someone who was interested in them.
Six questions, with prompts, were chosen for the full interview,
focusing on four strands of literacy (reading, writing, nursery
rhymes and environmental print). It was not expected that
children would give an exhaustive list of everybody involved
in literacy practices with them and what they did, but rather
that it would be possible to infer from their responses which
individuals and interactions were salient.
Findings
The study found that all of the children were involved in
some literacy activity at home. The researchers suggest that
this kind of literacy might not be as visible, or as valued
by some educators, as the literacy that goes on in schools.
The researchers also found that, according to the children,
39% of fathers were involved in reading with their children
in the home, and 25% in writing; they call for more research
into fathers' role in family literacy practice. Boys were
also found to be active in literacy at home.
Participation in the family literacy programme was found
to have an effect on children's perspectives of family literacy
activities. Children in the programme group were slightly
more likely than those in the control group to mention literacy
involvement at home, and less likely to mention school literacy;
they were also more likely to mention the kinds of literacy
activities promoted by the programme. These include reading,
writing and saying rhymes with various family members, naming
a rhyme book or a non-fiction book and spotting print in the
community and on clothes.
Implications
The researchers suggest three implications from this study
for the future development of family literacy programmes:
- Programmes should start from a position that they are
building on families' existing knowledge and skills, and
should extend the literacy activities that are already going
on in the home
- Programmes should be reviewed in order to maximise the
involvement of fathers
- There may be a need to review the content and delivery
of programmes in order to maximise their benefits, perhaps
focusing on particular strands of literacy and including
flexible home visiting, group sessions and optional adult
learning opportunities
- C. Nutbrown and P. Hannon (eds.) (1997) Early literacy
education with parents: a professional development manual,
Nottingham: NES-Arnold.
- P. Hannon, C. Nutbrown and E. Fawcett (1997) Taking parent
learning seriously. Adults Learning, no 3, pp. 19-21.
- P. Hannon and C. Nutbrown (1997) Teachers' use of a conceptual
framework for early literacy education with parents. Teacher
Development, vol. 1 (3), pp. 405-420.
- C. Nutbrown, P. Hannon and S. Collier (1996) Early
Literacy Education with Parents : A Framework for Practice
(Video), Sheffield: Sheffield University Television. ISBN
0-902831-34-8
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