Discussion

Table 8 on the following two pages offer a summary of perceived factors in the physical environment impacting on literacy of low-income children. The organization of the physical environment may have an impact on literacy experiences at home. The neighbourhood and housing offer much more than physical shelter. The parents express an uneasiness about the violence and aggression in their overcrowded neighborhood. Despite the chaos surrounding them, the parents manage to arrange a quiet place in their homes for the children to work on their homework.

Transience in the lives of low-income families due to housing problems, the demeaning process of home inspections in the low-rental homes and limitations in resources to support education affect the social environment of the participants. As presented previously, many of the families lack basic household resources to support literacy like scrap paper, crayons, markers or a variety of reading material.

The families use books as tools for learning, and some of the parents purchase books for future gifts for their children including educational series on specific topics. To some of the participants, reading is seen as a support and a pleasurable escape to another world. Although the parents are interested in computers as an educational tool, their cost is beyond the families' limited means. None had computers which would, as mentioned, also have allowed them to open doors to explore other worlds.