1. Family literacy project
WABE Conference 2017
Karlyn Davis-Welton, M.Ed.
University of Washington Tacoma
NOTE:
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2. PROJECT’S FIVE GOALS
Strengthen ELs’ writing skills through a meaningful and personal project.
Facilitate communication among students, parents, teachers, and community members.
Build a culturally inclusive school community by integrating heritages into school work.
Help to promote literacy in both English and ELs’ native languages.
Increase ELs’ self-esteem; help them adjust better at school.

3. TODAY’S PRESENTATION Learning Goals: Participants will...
Understand the importance of funds of knowledge and its connection to building strong family-school relationships to support students' academic success.
Develop a deeper understanding bilingual texts to promote literacy in both English and students’ native languages.
Success Criteria: Participants can ...
Build strong family-school relationships that support students' academic success.
Preserve bilingualism by showing students the value of learning in English and their home languages.
Help students strengthen their writing skills through a meaningful and personal project.

4. BILINGUAL PICTURE BOOKS BY ELs
Invites family members to share personal or cultural stories with their children. Teachers assist the children to transform these stories into keepsake picture books written in the families’ native language. Represents a rich oral language tradition of stories passed down from generation to generation, honors students’ families’ cultural heritages and identities.

5. SCHOOLS A WELCOMING PLACE
How can schools partner with EL’s families and communities to support students’ academic growth?
SCHOOL
COMMUNITY
PARTNERSHIPS
FAMILY
When parents come to school, teachers and administrators focus on building relationships with parents to better understand their lives, knowledge, and values.
- Buxton, Allexsaht-Snider, & Rivera, 2012

6. FUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE
Children’s and parents’ funds of knowledge should be incorporated into the curriculum to create a synergy propelling students to integrate their family and cultural experiences with their academic growth.
Velez-Ibanez & Greenberg, 1992

7. GOAL-ORIENTED ACTIVITIES
This project provides a non-threatening way for families to interact with the child(ren) and school.
By engaging parents and students in goal- oriented activities, it helps them invest more in their child’s academic success.

8. Project Description & Implementation

9. STORY GATHERING
Use children’s literature on family heritage to inspire students with story ideas.

10. BOOKS ON FAMILY HERITAGE

11. STORY GATHERING
Use children’s literature to inspire students with story.
Send home letters home to invite parents/families to participate in the project.
Make follow up phone calls to parents/families.
Obtain native language and/or English version families stories; recorded orally or written.

12. STORY GATHERING
English learners collaborate with their families to identify unique stories or folktales from their cultures that they wanted to turn into a picture books.
Celebrations
Holidays
Family stories
Folktales
Journey to the U.S.

13. PREWRITING Create a story board. Provide sentence frames
Sharing story boards with other
classmates.
Revising storyboards; add frames if needed

14. GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS FOR PREWRITE

15. OTHER GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

16. WRITING & ILLUSTRATING
Write and read drafts to teacher and partners.
Provide students with sentence frames or text structure organizers as needed.
Work on revisions.
Edit stories.
Meet and confer with students for feedback.
Illustrate each page.

17. VARIETY OF MEDIUMS USED FOR ILLUSTRATIONS
Photos
Drawings
Origami
Paintings
Pictures/imagines downloaded from computer or cut & pasted from magazines

18. English Proficiency Levels (Gottlieb, 2006)
Level One: Picture book with English labels Level Two: Picture book with simple sentences Level Three: Simply story with text-structure template Level Four: More complex text with more details

19. BOOK FORMAT 1.Cover for their book 2. Title page with authors’ name
3. Author’s dedication page
4. Story (Beginning, Middle, End)
Grade level CCSS and ELPs
5. About the author
Name, age, grade, family’s origins
& map

20. FINISHING Provide book making templates
Guide students to look at books for peritextual features
book cover
title page
dedication/copyright page
author’s note

21. BOOK COVER

22. DEDICATION PAGE

23. TITLE PAGE

24. AUTHOR’S PAGE

25. STORY EXAMPLES

26. STORY EXAMPLES

27. EMBEDDING TECHNOLOGY
Use an audio phone app for recording the story in English and the student’s home language.
Scan the student’s illustrations and have student create a Power Point or Prezi for their presentation.

28. PUBLISHING & PRESENTING
Students created book bindings by …
Sewing pages together & then gluing the pages to the book covers
Threading ribbon or yarn through punched holes along one side of the book.
Book covers made from …
Specialty scrapbook paper
Construction paper
Fabric or contact paper that covered pieces of lightweight cardboard.
Present books …
During a Family Literacy Night
In class, such as “author’s chair”

29. SOME CHALLENGES WERE …
Establishing trust and relationships with students’ parents. Parents of ELs vary in their English language proficiencies and their readiness for involvement in school activities. Once parents understood the rationale and had opportunities to ask questions most of them were eager to support the project.

30. NICE SURPRISES WERE …
Stories from grandparents. Many ELs did not know these stories. Because of this project,
Grandparents talked about war that they lived through, immigrant experiences when the U.S. population was less diverse than it is today. ELs were amazed by the heroic acts of their grandparents.

31. QUESTIONS

32. REFLECTIONS