For the purposes of this study, the term “family literacy” includes educational achievements, a variety of modeling behavior and social and cultural experiences.
Five interviewees grew up in predominantly English speaking areas but their parents were not fluent in English. This factor affected the parents’ abilities to read and write or do other literacy activities with their children. One person said his parents are Francophone and they learned to speak English at the same time as he did so he could not rely on them to help him with homework or teach him proper grammar. Another whose first language was Portuguese was taught English by her siblings because her parents did not speak English well.
One person said her parents were “more old school and worked all the
time. I probably taught my kids more about literacy than my parents taught me.”
Another said, “My parents had low expectations but they were a different
type of parent and weren’t as involved as parents are now.”