Learning through everyday activities: Improving preschool language and literacy outcomes via family workshops

Abstract

Family literacy programmes can take many shapes, and are often focused on training adult caregivers to engage in particular literacy activities with their young children. In this study, through a series of five, two-hour workshops, we instead worked to help families take advantage of opportunities to infuse literacy learning into their daily routines with their preschool-aged children. Effects of the workshop include parent reports of increased literacy interactions in the home, particularly in the areas of read-alouds and writing opportunities. In addition, students whose families participated in the workshops showed statistically significantly greater literacy growth in print and word awareness and comprehension than peers whose families did not participate in the workshops.