1. Family Literacy Centers and The Adult English Language Learner Katie Smith University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

2. Thesis statement
Adult ELLs are a growing population in the United States.
Family Literacy is recognized as a way to help families of diverse populations learn together and integrate into society.
This presentation will discuss the characteristics of the adult ELL and their special needs as well as the different approaches to Family Literacy.
Conclusions will be drawn and Implications for Educators discussed.

3. Statistics
: 6.8 million considered Limited English Proficient
End of 2000: mil
: fastest growing segment of adult education programs (Buttaro, 2004)
45% enrolled adults in adult ed attend ESL classes
1.2 million according to the U.S. Dept of Ed. (Mathew-Aydinli, 2008)

4. Characteristics of the Adult ELL
Range in age from years
Educational backgrounds range from pre-literate to doctorate holders.
Literacy in their native language ranges from pre-literate to advanced levels
English language needs range from basic survival skills to transitional classes toward higher education
73% of Hispanics speak less than very well and 40% of Asian Americans fall into this same category ( Mathew-Aydinli, 2008)

5. Family plays a critical role Special Needs
Families make the difference (Constantino, 2006)
Special Needs
Child care
Transportation
Academic and work counseling
Accommodations for work schedules
Needs change each year as the population changes.
According to Sowa (2004), population rather than content defines adult education

6. Important Considerations
Families length of residence in the US
Prior educational experiences
Understanding of the variety of family structures
Parents are the primary educators of their children
Parents must be able to share power, responsibilities and ownership in the way their children are educated. (Tett, 2001)

7. Barriers to successful partnerships between Adult Ells and Educators
Misperceptions between teachers and parents
Traditional forms of parent involvement discounted efforts made by 1st generation immigrant parents (Menard-Warwick, 2007)
Language barrier
Time conflicts
Many teacher education programs are monocultural ( Winn-Tutwiler, S.J. 2005)
Schools need to know their client base (Davis, 1995)

8. Family Literacy Centers
Traditional Adult ESL “Deficit thinking” Model
Created to develop a workforce in order to compete in a global society ( Sowa, 2001)
Help those achieve status quo and fulfill expectations of society
Designed to ‘fix the non mainstream families to fit into their colonial concept
Families trained to change or improve their parenting skills and support school goals (Reyes& Torres, 2005)

9. Liberatory or Humanist Literacy
Based on Paolo Freire’s liberation philosophy
Self-transformation and self advocacy
Collective action
Students become partners in learning
Students have a say in what they learn
Community Based Organization (CBO)
Grassroots organization
Serves a particular population or constituency
Serves typically hard to reach people and the underserved ( Sowa,2001)
Family Literacy programs
will be more or less
effective to the degree
that the participants
most pressing concerns
are taken into consideration.
(Amstutz, 2000)

10. Case Studies Chang ( 2002) Family Literacy Nights provided
a “circle of supporters’ to the 1st generation of
Asian Americans. Teacher development prepared them to use the Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences in order to consider the best instructional strategies for their adult students.
Macias (2002)
Even Start program in a housing project which involved parents learning English, helping their children with their school work and learning how to advocate for themselves when they needed to.
Warwick (2002)
Adult Ed program in a neighborhood elementary school which provided variety of non-credit classes including ESL
Cook-Cottone ( 2004)
Family Literacy program that involved mentoring parents, grandparents, and extended family members in order for them to mentor their children

11. Conclusions and Implications
ESL continues to be a growing segment of the Adult education population
Family Literacy Centers within Adult Ed programs have seen a shift toward more Community Based Organizations that seek to meet the ELLs where they are and to involve them in their own learning opportunities
Communities need to take on more of the responsibility to relieve the schools from their already stretched resources.
Schools need to continue to provide professional development for their teachers in order to better serve their diverse populations.

12. References
Amstutz, D.D.(2000) Family literacy: implications for public school practice.
Education and Urban Society, 32(2)
Chang, J.M. (2004) Family literacy nights: building the circle of supporters
within a beyond school for middle school English language learners.
Research on Education, Diversity, & Excellence. University of California at Santa Cruz.
Cook-Cottone . C.P. (2004) Constructivism in family literacy practices: parents as mentors. Reading Improvement, 41(4),
Davis, B. (1995) How to involve parents in a multicultural school. ASCD.
Mathew-Aydinli, J. (2008) Overlooked and understudied? A survey of current trends in research on adult English language learners. Adult Education Quarterly, 58(3)
Menard-Warwick, J. (2007) Biliteracy and schooling in an extended family Nicaraguan immigrant household: the socio-historical construction of parental involvement. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 38(2)
Reyes, L. V., Torres, M.N.(2007) Decolonizing family literacy in a culture circle: Reinventing the family literacy educator’s role. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 7(1)
Sowa, P. A. (2001) Teacher educational beliefs and student literacy practices. A case study of a community-based ESL-adult literacy program (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Kansas, 2001).
Tett, L. (2001) Parents as problems or parents as people? Parental Involvement programs, school and adult educators. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 20(3)