Families Read Every Day

Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Spring 2004 by Seymour, Ruth

Many studies indicate that parental involvement in a child's education accelerates the child's progress. Purcell-Gates (1996) states that children begin to learn about reading and writing in their own homes. Judi Lesiak (1997) cites in her research that reading is a very important activity for building schema useful for successful reading strategies. Children's exposure to reading will affect their progress when they go to school. Our purpose in applying for the Phi Kappa Phi Literacy Initiative Grant was to encourage parents' involvement in their child's literacy at home.

The teachers at Briarwood Elementary in Charlotte, North Carolina, know that parental involvement in a child's education is crucial. To encourage parents' reading to children, the kindergarten teachers at Briarwood have implemented a program called Families Read Every Day (F.R.E.D.). For this program, teachers send home books each day with each student. On the day that the book is sent home, a family member reads the book to the child and records the book title in the child's reading record. The book is then sent back to school for another child to receive and read.

This program is particularly valuable at Briarwood because it is an Equity Plus School, serving a low socioeconomic community. At this school, 79.44 percent of the students are on free and reduced lunch. Many of the kindergarten students do not have books in their homes, so the books that are sent home are usually the only ones that are read to them by family members.

Many of the books in the F.R.E.D. program in past years have become old and torn from being sent to and from homes. Funding from the Phi Kappa Phi Literacy grant provided money to purchase new, interesting books to replace the old, worn ones. Money from this grant gave four kindergarten classrooms more than four hundred new books to send home, which was more than one hundred books per classroom. The classes that took part had twenty-five to twenty-six students in each classroom.

As project director, I purchased and distributed the books to the teachers. While distributing the books, I also discussed with the teachers how the project would be evaluated. To evaluate the effectiveness of the project, after two weeks of sending home the new books, I asked teachers to complete a survey. The parents of the students were also sent a survey to see how the books had affected the children's reading.

Teacher-feedback forms were given to the four teachers, and parent-feedback forms were given to the teachers to send home for the parents to complete. All teacher surveys were returned, and twenty-two parent surveys were returned. Three of the four teachers saw an increase in parents' reading with their children, and one teacher saw no change. All four teachers noticed that the students saw a difference when the new books were sent home.

The students have become more excited about reading each day. One teacher wrote, "I've heard them say 'I want that one, I want that one!'" - showing how excited the students are to read the new books. This teacher also commented, "Parents love the excitement that the kids are showing with them. Several want the stories read to them as soon as they arrive home each day." The director of the project also noticed the excitement over the new books as she was at the bus-lot one afternoon. She saw a student get out one of the books; three other students who were around were excited to see the book, and they all began to look through it while waiting for the late bus.

The teachers have enjoyed being able to give the students new books to read each night. Some of the comments were, "We really love the new books," "I have enjoyed seeing the children getting all these new books," "I love them," and "The children love the new books." One teacher reads a book during class after the students have read the book at home, so they get to hear a familiar book again.

The parental feedback was a little more mixed. One classroom returned no forms, two other classes returned five forms, and one class returned twelve forms. In one of the classes that returned five forms, four of the five parents saw an increase in their child's interest in reading. One parent saw no change. In the other classroom that returned five forms, four of the five parents saw no increase in their child's interest in reading because of the books. One parent did write that the child noticed a difference and that the child's interest in books increased. In this classroom with the more neutral responses, the teacher decided that the students should receive the books for more than a month before sending the feedback forms home. I had asked for the feedback forms to be sent after two weeks while the newer books were still a new experience. In the classroom that returned twelve forms, nine parents saw an increase in their child's interest in reading, and three parents saw no change.

Some of the comments from parents who saw an increase in their child's interest were, "We have enjoyed the new books. Each night that we read one my son says, 'That was a great book'"; "She is bringing books home that she wants to read herself. They keep her interested longer, and they are a little more advanced and a big challenge. I'm very happy with them"; and "Brandon likes being read to." Some of the comments of the parents who did not see any change in their child's interest were "The books are more interesting," "Keep sending books home," and "To be honest, I did not notice if the books were new."