Historical Review of Family Literacy

Figure 1 on the next page illustrates how the family literacy movement developed concurrently in the United States, Canada, England and Israel. Although the term family literacy was coined in the United States in 1981 by D. Taylor in her doctoral dissertation (D. Taylor, 1993), Skage (1995) in her comprehensive review of the history of family literacy states that initiatives to support families in their literacy development may be traced back to the 1967 Plowden Report by the Department of Education and Science in the United Kingdom. Reportedly, this document promotes home-school partnerships and the creation of programs that provide parents with reading strategies to use with their children to support school literacy.

As reported by Skage (1995), as early as 1969, a research project at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel was examining the feasibility and effect of HIPPY (Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters). This initiative for disadvantaged preschool children was operating in homes across Israel by 1975, and by 1989 it had expanded to five other countries including the United States. Meanwhile, back in England in the 1980s, the Haringey study was looking at the effect of children from working class homes reading two to four times per week to their parents. At the same time, researchers in Sheffield, England examined factors in school reading attainment among young children from poor urban areas, while Parents' Aid for Children's Education (P.A.C.E.), a literacy program for secondary students, was created in East London. Thomas (2001) added that organizations in developing countries, such as Save the Children Foundation, also began to include family interventions supporting family learning environments.