How to Use This Guide

This guide is the result of the shared experiences over a two year period of four community based literacy programs which implemented and reviewed a variety of assessment procedures for family literacy evaluation. It is intended for:

• literacy practitioners who wish to integrate assessment activities more holistically into the family literacy activities of their programs

• literacy program coordinators and other professionals who want to develop practical procedures for making evaluation a routine and meaningful part of family literacy program development.

In Ontario, family literacy programs are varied and multifaceted, reflecting the diversity of many communities and cultures across the province. To reflect this diversity, the evaluation strategies presented in this guide were field tested in four distinct program types and have proven to be effective across different kinds of family literacy program.

An initial skimming of the text will reveal samples of different measures and strategies. It would be a mistake to use the guide merely as a means of collecting assessment measures. We hope that we have provided a framework by which practitioners may be more selective about the assessment strategies they adopt, in order to make the most of the time and resources available in their busy work lives.

The guide has been organized into six sections. The first three sections present the rationale for special consideration given to evaluation in family literacy, along with suggestions for getting started. Because we firmly believe that assessment must be grounded in meaningful literacy beaming activity, sections four and five contain practitioner based family literacy program activities linked to specific assessment strategies. Finally, sample techniques for practitioner recording and reporting, along with selected instruments, have been presented in the last section and in the Appendices.