Chapter 16

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Fami l y Li t eracy
Learning from on
Asian Immigrant Family
GUOFANG U
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More children frommanydiverselinguistic, cultural, religious, and aca-
demic backgrounds are attending North American schools (Garcia,
1999; Moll & Gonzalez, 1991). In fact, thechanging demographics in
today' s schoolsposeanunpretooented needfor literacy educators to un-
derstand children' s outside-of-school literacy experiences (Au, 1993;
V aldes, 1998). Important q uestionsarisewhen many classroomteachers
try to understand children from diversecultural and linguistic back-
grounds better to facilitate learning in their classrooms. For example,
how is the literacy learning of childrenfrom diversebackgrounds sup-
ported at home? How do homeliteracy learningexperiencesdifferfrom
school experiences? How might children' s home experiences informus
about fosteringliteracy learninginschool? To addresstheseq uestions, I .
studied a Chineseimmigrant student' s (i.e., Yang Li' s) home literacy
practices and explored ways hisfamily supported his school learningas
he made cultural and literacy transitions to North American society.
Here, I provideabrief biography of YangLi' s family.
YANG Ll AND HIS FAMILY
Six-year-oldYangLi was afirst-gradestudent. Hemovedto Canada, in
1997, withhismother tojoinhisfather, astudent at aCanadian univer-
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Family literacy
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sity. YangLi' sfather, Li-yong, aformer engineerinChina, waspursuing
hismaster' sdegreeinchemistry. Hismother, Nie-dong, also aformer en-
gineer, was a labassistant at theuniversity.
YangLi and his family livedina crowded, one-bedroom, second- (,~~ ()...
floor apartment aboveaChinesecafe. Therewerefiveapartments onthe ~~
second floor, including two one-bedroomapartments and three single V ' ,
rooms. Sevenpeople(including theLi family) livedin fiveapartments ~ f' cuA
and shared two bathrooms. All adults wereuniversity students, includ- \ . r~
ingfour Chinese, two East Indians, and oneCanadian. I visitedtheLi ~ - I
family at their apartment weekly for 8 months to explore their home
literacy practices, interactions, and routines related to literacy eventsin
their borne. I alsoaskedYang' sparents about their beliefsabout literacy
and Yang' s learningin cross-cultural contexts. Additionally, I collected
samples of Yang' swriting and drawing, and participated in someof his
gamesandactivitieswithhisparents. I describeindetail Yang' shomelit-
eracy practices.
FOUR FACETS OF HOME LITERACY PRACTICES ~ 0
To better present YangLi' shomeliteracypractices and how they differ ~ .;
fromschool practices, I used Lesemanand deJ ong' s (1998) four, inter- ~, ~
related facets of homeliteracy practices as themes to categorizeYang' s ...L...-S
experiencesat home: (1) literacy opportunity, (2) instruction, (3) coop- ~ ' 1
eration, and (4) socioemotional q uality. Literacy opportunity refers to ~ ..
children' s interactions with literacy of whatever kind, in whatever .:r 1"
form, in the homemilieu. These interactions include children' s direct ~ -? r
contact with print, chances to observeparents' reading and writing ac- .~ ~
tiviries, exposure to media, and opportunities for joint reading and 0\
writing practices. Literacy instruction refers to direct or indirect guid- II ~~
ance provided by parents to the child through literacy activities. " " " )_
Leseman and deJ ong' s concept of instruction only includes parental::::S ~ \..
guidance of a child during shared storybook reading, such as their ;; .... :>
procedural utterances, pointing, labeling, repeating and completing, 0~ ;..
explaining, evaluating, and extending. I extend the concept of instruc- e ->: s -
tion to more explicit and deliberateteaching with the useof different~ ~
texts and strategiesin literacy-relatedactivitiesat home. Literacy coop- .;~. ~
erarion involves active participation of the child in literacy-related._ E ~ " 4-
events, which is reflected in the child' s understanding and acceptance !\.l.. C)I
of the rolebeor sheplays in activities and how heor sheresponds to ~.
parental literacy instructions. Socioemocional q uality is ao affective ~!
factor that includes indicators such as the bond between the parents .~ :;-
and the child. In this study, I extended thenotion of socioemotional V \ 1\:)
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