Section Four: Making Connections

Family Literacy Instructional-Assessment Links in ABE Programs

Adult Basic Education programs, including programs for ESL learners, have found that introducing a family literacy focus offers adult learners opportunities to practice and share literacy skills with their families and bring real family issues into the classroom. For many adult literacy practitioners, the family literacy curriculum for ABE is an emerging one, as practitioners and learners explore how to make family concerns a basis for literacy beaming. Once curriculum topics have been clarified and family literacy activities have been specified, assessment strategies can be more easily implemented.

Collaborative Curriculum Planning

In our project the ABE instructors identified several family topics which adult learners were interested pursuing with their families. In these ABE classes most learners were identified as new Canadians, at a basic level of English literacy. While the classes had a mixed age range from young adult to senior citizens, all were involved in caring for children of various ages, although several students in each class had no children of their own.

At the outset of the project, ABE practitioners identified as a major concern the fact that learners who are new Canadians come into programs with expectations that literacy learning should consist mainly of traditional grammar and spelling exercises. Because many of these students have had little experience with sharing or collaboration with other learners in the classroom, they initially find the family literacy approach unfamiliar and are reluctant to participate in informal activities which make literacy connections to daily living. Thus, learners initially may identify literacy tasks such as worksheet based writing, reading, or speaking activities the real coursework. On the other hand, activities such as informal discussions, planning for social events, or preparing to conduct an activity which would be shared by the class were incidental, low priority learning activities.