November 13, 2007

Needed: A "Before You Start Families" Program:
A Multiple Life Cycles Approach to Improving Family Literacy

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

In 1983, Denny Taylor published her book with the term "Family Literacy" in
its title. To my knowledge, that is the first time the term was used in a
published publication. Taylor was interested in ways in which children and
their parents interacted that lead to the development of the children's
literacy. This was mostly about literacy practices that took place within
the family such as parents telling children the words in environmental
print, or reading books to children, etc. Taylor's research was not
concerned with what adults did to improve their own literacy, though some
of their activities with their children may, in fact, have helped the
adults develop better literacy abilities.

Now, almost a quarter century after Taylor's influential book, Barton &
Coley (2007) have once again focussed on the family and its influence on
children's literacy development.  In the preface to the report, Marc H.
Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League, states that the authors
"
 examine many facets  of children’s home environment and experiences that
foster cognitive development and school achievement, from birth throughout
the period of formal schooling." This perspective, however, fails to note
that the cognitive development of children actually BEGINS BEFORE BIRTH as
the fertilized ovum develops in the mother's womb, and of course cognitive
development continues throughout the lifespan, not just during the period
of formal schooling.

The report by Barton & Coley  presents a lot of data showing how many
factors operating in the context of families affect the literacy
development of children, including the amount of language spoken to
children by parents, relationships of parent's educational achievement to
children's literacy achievement, parent's socio-economic status and amount
of reading to their children, and so forth. Yet, despite all these
relationships which are dependent upon parent's language and literacy
achievement, most of the conclusions and recommendations focus upon the
development of more involvement of parents with schools and improving
educational opportunities for early childhood education. Regarding adult
education, the authors take just 26 words to provide three recommendations,
"
providing instruction in parenting skills to those who need them, teaching
non-reading parents how to read, and helping families obtain suitable
reading materials for their homes."

Following this cursory treatment of adult education, Barton & Coley then
move on to argue for early education interventions for children and cite
research calling for a major expansion and intensification of Head Start
and Early Head Start. This moves the call for educational investments away
from meeting the educational needs of adults, back to making major
investments in education starting with the birth of children in Early Head
Start.

That idea that literacy development starts at birth is implicitly challenged
in the report of the Director of the National Institute of Literacy (NIFL)
to the NIFL Advisory Board in October 2007 (Baxter, 2007). In her report,
Baxter mentions one role of the NIFL as "
promoting and supporting
scientifically-based and other rigorous research on how adults, youth, and
children learn to read—literacy across the lifespan." If ones lifespan is
considered to begin with conception, then this lifespan perspective on
literacy development does recognize the importance of education from
conception through birth and on into and across adulthood. However,
thinking in terms of a single lifespan, even from conception to death, does
not directly address the effects of the behavior of adults in the fostering
of literacy BEFORE CHILDREN ARE CONCEIVED.

Interestingly, Barton & Coley review research on the pre-conception
behaviors of adults which are correlated with children's literacy
acquisition. This includes factors such as out-of-wedlock births, meaning
that the adults did not engage in marriage behavior before conceiving a
child, and the consequential effect of raising children with a single
parent rather than two, failure to complete secondary or post-secondary
education, and failure of adults to be employed and earning self-sufficient
incomes prior to having children. All of these factors that happen even
before adults conceive and give birth to children have an effect on the
next generation's literacy development.

The fact of this intergenerational transfer of literacy from one generation
to the next indicates that an education policy which focuses on a single
lifespan, or education from birth to death, is a necessary but insufficient
policy for making sustainable improvements in the literacy abilities of
America's families. What is needed is a Multiple Life Cycles education
policy that explicitly takes into account the intergenerational transfer
from parents to their progeny of literacy and other cognitive and
non-cognitive factors that also influence educational achievement across
generations.

Presently, several research studies on early childhood intervention programs
have shown that such programs have produced considerable benefits in return
to costs. What has not been emphasized however, is that most of the
important early childhood education studies have also reported major
changes in the behaviors of parents, especially mothers, of the children
(Sticht, 2006). There is reason to believe that a goodly share of the
effects of such preschool programs results from the educational effects of
the programs on the parents.

Current family literacy programs that emphasize early childhood education,
parent education, adult education, and parent and child together education
provide a valuable approach to fostering the literacy levels of families.
They may also have multiplier effects in that the adult education,
including parenting, may affect the educational achievements of any future
children born to the parents whose parenting and literacy skills are
improved in the programs.

Needed: A "Before You Start Families" Program

Family literacy programs that require parents and children to be educated
together are already behind in affecting the behavior of the parents before
they conceive children for the first time. For this there is needed a major
emphasis upon those teenagers and young adults who have struggled in school
and who will become parents later on. Before Early Head Start, which starts
at birth, we need a Before You  Start Families program that will affect
pre-conception behaviors. We also need to make certain that more of the
resources for Early Head Start, Head Start, and Family Literacy programs
are focused on the education of the parents. This way, there should be less
need for special interventions for the future children of these parents, and
the parents should be able to achieve more in their own lives, provide
better for their children, and improve their own health and lives after
their children are grown-up.

 The Multiple Life Cycles Education policy explicitly recognizes that
literacy and other cognitive skills are not developed simply from birth to
death, or across the lifespan from "from womb to tomb". Instead, there is
an intergenerational transfer of literacy and other cognitive skills  from
parents to their children. From this perspective, skills development starts
in the next life cycle even before the child is conceived. Today, with a one
life cycle focus,  there is a serious lack of efforts to promote a positive
transfer of skills across generations  A Before You Start Families idea is
one approach to acting on the basis of a Multiple Life Cycles program. No
doubt, others can come up with additional approaches to improving family
literacy through a Multiple Life Cycles approach.

References

Barton, P.  & Coley, R. (2007). The Family: America's Smallest School.
Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. (Retrieved November 1, 2007
from www.ets.org/research/pic)

Baxter, S. (2007, October). Director's Report: FY 2006-2007: Reflecting on
Our Achievements. (Online at: www.nifl.gov)

Sticht, T. (2006, December). Toward a Multiple Life Cycles Education Policy:
Investing in the Education of Adults to Improve the Educability of Children.
(Online at:
http://www.nald.ca/library/research/sticht/06dec/06dec.pdf

Taylor, D. (1983). Family Literacy: Young Children Learning to Read and to
Write. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net