[NIFL-FAMILY:500] Re: Barriers to Family Literacy

From: Sylvan Rainwater (sylvan@cccchs.org)
Date: Tue Dec 11 2001 - 14:58:59 EST


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From: Sylvan Rainwater <sylvan@cccchs.org>
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Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:500] Re: Barriers to Family Literacy
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At 11:29 AM 12/08/2001 -0500, Vanessa Vaile wrote:

>Could you expand on this one? What kind of problems did you have? The recent
>training session our team members recently attended put a lot of emphasis 
>on PACT
><SNIP>


When I attended NCFL's beginning training on implementing family literacy, 
several years ago, I got the first clear idea of what PACT was, how it 
works, and why it's important. I have come to feel that it is the heart of 
the program, though all the components are important. But the bond between 
parent and child, and finding ways to use that bond to increase literacy, 
and ways to use literacy to improve that bond, is in fact at the heart of 
what we do, I believe.

In terms of barriers, several have been listed, and addressed. In our 
program, we figured out early that you have to have food, childcare and 
transportation, or you will have trouble reaching the population you want. 
We've added bilingual staff as another necessity (we serve Hispanic 
immigrants).

Another barrier I haven't seen addressed is the one of learning 
disabilities on the part of the adult learner. This often is related to bad 
experiences in school when the adult was a child. Of course, people can 
also have bad experiences in school even without a learning disability, but 
LD increases the chances of such difficulties. I have few ways to address 
this, other than just basic patience and trying to find ways to present 
material in multiple ways, and maybe to give more one-on-one attention to 
certain students, but it is a real issue in many cases.


------------------------------
Sylvan Rainwater  .  sylvan@cccchs.org
Adult Education Teacher and Family Literacy Program Manager
Clackamas County Children's Commission  .  Oregon City, OR USA



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