CONNECTING HOME AND

SCHOOL
LITERACY PRACTICES
IN CLASSROOMS
WITH DIVERS POPULATION
Sarah J.McCarthey
Many studies have documented the gap between students’ home lives and school
practices, and several programs are focusing on family literacy to enhance connections
between home and school by helping parents share books with their children (eg.,
McCaleb, 1994; Morrow, 1995; Shanahan, Mulhern, &Rodriguez-brown, 1995).

Although most schools have not considered the homes of working-class students as
sources of rich experiences, literacy practices are embedded within the social fabric of
family life of many communities.

Currently, educators integrated the ways of thinking, talking, interacting, and valuing
as well as reading and writing within a particular social setting.
 RESEARCH PURPOSES

To examine how teachers and students connected home and school literacy
practices. Also to explore the classroom curriculum and participation structures
that were intended to support connections between home and school
 METHODS

This article focuses on five students who represent a range of language,

cultural, and economic backgrounds. Drawing from interviews with
teachers, parents, and the students, this paper describes home and school
literacy practices of each student. This study used ethnographic methods
to document links between home and school literacy practices.
 CASES OF FIVE STUDENTS
Mandy: A Perfect Fit Between Home and School

European-American Daughter of one of the teachers in the school and a

third grader cabinetmaker

Both her parents read frequently;

novels, picture books, kids'
magazines, and etc.

For Mandy, home and school She engaged in many school-like literacy practices at home - being
experiences seemed to be almost read to or reading aloud to her parents, writing to a pen pal, and
extensions of one another. entering writing contests.

"at home it's usually the same because my mom acts like a
teacher everywhere so it's kind of like school there too.“

The tight connections between home and school were supported by her mother's active
role in the school and her extensive knowledge of Mandy's classroom
 Andy: Technology as a Home-School Link

European-American
fourth grader
His mother who did accounting work in
the zoology department. His father had
completed his Ph.D. in economics
recently and had to take a job in another
state.
Andy used technology such as
television and computers as a means
to link home and school.
“I watch TV when I do my homework; when I eat, I eat watching the
TV. I always have a drink in the same room with me and the TV. I'm
like almost never separated from a TV.”

Sometimes, he and his mother read together and enjoyed

sending E-mail messages to Andy's father on their home
Andy also experienced home and computer.
school as closely intertwined
Knowledge obtained from television, expertise in computers, and
literacy habits congruent with school expectations provided Andy with
the “cultural capital” to be successful in school.

School and home life were tightly connected for Andy because his middleclass home literacy
experiences. The cultural capital he brought with him from home served him well at school.
 Matthew: Negotiating Learning Disabilities at Home and School
Lived with his mother, his mother's 10-year old sister, and his
Hispanic third grader mother's boyfriend in a small rental home.

Literacy practices in the home as described by Matthew included his

aunt reading books. Matthew would ask her mother to read to him,
Books, magazines, or written
but that she did not use reading and writing in her daily life at home.
materials were not evident in the
home Matthew's mother found that she was not "real involved with
school activities," because most of them occurred during hours in
which she had to work.

He got individual help in reading and writing; he had

Matthew's school literacy experiences particular difficulties in decoding text and in writing words
were quite disconnected from his and sentences.
home life
His love of drawing and hatred for writing were apparent in his
insightful comments about Egypt: "Egypt was the best culture.
Like they knew the most and they didn't have an alphabet.“

The only link between home and school for Matthew seemed to be his passion for drawing. His peers,
teachers, and family were aware of and supportive of his interest.
 Sheila: Poverty as a Deterrent to Home-School Connection

She had the responsibility of helping her

African-American third
grader
Sheila lived in an apartment. She did not
know what her stepfather did for work,
but her mother worked for a day-care
center
younger siblings
In fact, She performed quite well in school, completing all
assignments. However, she rarely participated in classroom
discussions.
The teachers found her to be so quiet that The
teachers thought she had a difficult home life

Sheila requested that the researcher not interview her mother or

Sheila seemed to be on the periphery
of classroom activities, but not
because of any learning disabilities.
come to her home.
The teachers did not have any information about Sheila's literacy
experiences outside of school, but Sheila reported that she read her
brother's school books. Reading the Bible was also an important
activity that Sheila did. She reported that her mother did not read
with her or help her, but ensured that she learned her passages.

Sheila's home literacy experiences were quite separate from school.

 Eduardo: Negotiating Parent, Teacher, and Peer Expectations as a Bilingual
Student
Spanish dominant, third- He lived with his mother. His mother reported that they came to
grader the United States from El Salvador for a better life for her son.

He had the additional challenge of knowing very little English when

he entered the school and found school tasks to be difficult.

Eduardo had learned some English from his uncle.

Eduardo seemed to be outside the
mainstream of classroom activities
His mother was unable to read or write in either English or
Spanish; she indicated that she had grown up in a very
small village where it was unsafe for her to travel to
school.
his home literacy experiences, which were not extensive because
of lack of resources, did not match school expectations that
revolve around reading children's novels and self-expression in
writing.

Home and school seemed to be very different places for Eduardo

 BOOK SELECTION AND RELATED TASKS

These classrooms were active environments designed to engage students in a

multitude of literacy activities throughout the day. The teachers worked
together to find solutions to problems such as how to involve more students
in reading their work aloud during book response. The novels were carefully
selected by the teachers to promote students' appreciation of language, to
provide divergent responses, and to build rich vocabulary. The other literacy
activities such as journal writing, writing workshop, and research projects
might have provided opportunities for students to make home-school
connections.
 CONCLUSION

The cases of the five students illustrate the differences in the nature of the
homeschool connections for various students. For some students such as
Mandy and Andy, home and school were tightly connected. In contrast,
Matthew, Sheila, and Eduardo, who were all from diverse cultural or
linguistic backgrounds, were more reticent in classroom activities than
their peers. The teachers' choices regarding the books read aloud and the
accompanying tasks as well as their talk about books may have
contributed to greater connections between home and school.
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