Mark has a 6 year old son.
Mark’s parents expected him to complete university. Mark’s mother
has a high school diploma and his father had a degree in Chemistry. He also
did some post-graduate work although he did not get a post-graduate degree.
Mark’s father modeled reading a lot; “I saw him every day reading
the news, books and magazines.”
His mother read magazines, the newspaper
and wrote in a diary every day. His mother also did the bookkeeping, tracking
household expenses in a ledger. Mark attended church weekly until he was 12
or 13 years old and heard singing there. He did not remember his parents helping
with homework. Mark’s father did not read to him although he made up stories
until Mark was six years old. Mark did not have a library card when he was a
child. He went to the TELUS World of Science two or three times.
Mark is a Statistician and has a Master’s degree in Statistics. He has
completed “some on the job training but it was self taught. I do lots
of reading to be familiar with other areas.”
He has completed two courses
to learn new elements of statistical software. He has also taken one hour webinars
on the software’s new features to decide if his company should purchase
it. Mark watches television for one and a half hours a day, preferring to watch
the news, reality television and drama. He uses the internet for half an hour
a day, mostly for banking and email.
Mark’s son is autistic, “so I’ll be really happy if he finishes
high school.”
Mark plays guitar with his son every two weeks. Mark models
reading for his son, reading the newspaper daily as well as magazines and books.
Mark’s son sees him paying bills regularly.
Mark helps his son with homework. His son is in a reading program at school where he has to read a book to his parents every night. Mark and his wife read to him five times a week; they have lots of books and try to read to him every night. They take out books from the library once a month. Mark didn’t think his son has a library card but he and his wife have library cards and they take out books for him. Mark’s son watches two hours of youth cartoons a day and then watches preschool programming. He does not use the internet but he used to play computer games for half an hour a day.
The family goes to the museum one to three times a month and the TELUS World
of Science once a year. Mark’s son is verbal and currently functions at
the level of language of a three year old. Mark said, “We’ve focused
a lot of family attention on getting him there. His occupational therapists
have been amazed at his progress. Speech and language are still problematic;
we have to prompt and correct everything he says.”
Mark’s wife has
“read ten books on how to develop literacy for him and I’ve read
two.”