Devin G. Thornburg
Intergenerational Literacy Learning with Bilingual Families: A Context for the Analysis of Social Mediation of Thought
Adelphi University
research initiative undertaken examine effects intergenerational literacy program held weekly 2 hours 6month period measured english proficiency nine bilingual families 9 parents 15 children research also conducted explore relationships among changes participants use identified categories discourse literacy activities changes secondlanguage competency tests literacy program goals encourage parents read storybooks children home well provide literacybased activities family members including storybook reading handson projects related stories read formal english instruction parents free play children sixteen observations 24 hours participants discourse conducted researcher assistant using format adapted research familybased literacy learning classroom discourse semistructured interviews parents teachers also held results prepost comparisons childrens scores pls parents scores ctbs revealed significant improvements frequencies identified categories parentandchild discourse third fifteenth observations also compared revealed several significant differences significant correlations also found participant test scores differences use identified categories discourse empirical results well descriptive findings interpreted using vygotskys 1978 1987 sociocultural theory learning proposed teacher scaffolding strategies well parents childrens efforts linguistically mediate others learning integral gains families secondlanguage proficiency