Family Literacy Resources

Once you've assessed interests and needs in your community, recruited parents, community volunteers, teachers, a librarian or reading specialist, and perhaps even some business partners, it's time to begin planning your event. The checklist on the following page can help:

National Center for Family Literacy
Promotes family literacy by improving parents' basic skills and attitudes toward education, parenting skills, children's pre-literacy and school readiness skills, and the overall quality of parent-child relationships. Offers free publications and previews of publications for sale. Information on the connections between family literacy and welfare reform are also available. Online at: www.famlit.org

LEARNS Tips for Working With Families
Provides guidelines to help national service tutoring programs work successfully and respectfully with families. Online at: www.nwrel.org/learns/resources/ famlit/index.html#family

Family Literacy: An Annotated Bibliography
Covers a wide array of topics, including definitions, models, and overviews of family literacy programs. Online at: www.ed.gov/pubs/Family_Lit_2000

Family Literacy Online Discussion List
Set up by the National Institute for Literacy, this list is for adult and early childhood education instructors, parent educators, family literacy practitioners, administrators, researchers, policy developers, and any other parties interested in family literacy. To subscribe, visit: www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions/nifl-family/about_nifl-family.html

The Connection Collection: School-Family-Community Partnerships Database
Contains annotations for more than 140 articles, monographs, and other literature related to school, family, and community involvement in education. Online at: www.sedl.org/connections/resources/bibsearch.html

Midwest LINCS Family Literacy Special Collection
Provides individuals working with families a means to access a variety of resources electronically. Explore parenting issues, children's activities, and classroom materials, as well as professional development topics and current event information. Online at: http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/FamilyLit

Reading Is Fundamental: Parents
Includes tips, activities, and articles for parents on topics such as motivating reluctant readers, reading aloud, and creating a literacy-rich home. Visit the Web site at: www.rif.org/parents

National Parent Information Network
Provides access to research-based information about the process of parenting and family involvement in education, based on the belief that well-informed families are likely to make good decisions about raising and educating their children. Online at: http://ericps.ed.uiuc.edu/npin/index.html

Family Literacy Foundation
Offers resources that facilitate supportive relationships for children through families and friends reading aloud with them. Online at: www.read2kids.org

Reaching Out to At-Risk Families
Presents strategies for involving families of at-risk children in education and literacy efforts. Online at: www.readingrockets.org/article.php?ID=60

Family Literacy for Language Minority Families: Issues for Program Implementation
Includes descriptions of family literacy programs and events targeted specifically for language minority families; answers key questions about establishing a program. Online at: www.ncela.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/pigs/pig17.htm

Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy
Offers the latest news, lessons learned, and free publications, all in support of family literacy. Online at: www.barbarabushfoundation.com

Effective Practices Database
Provides a way for members, volunteers, and service professionals to learn from each other and more effectively serve their communities. A search for “family literacy” brings up an array of useful ideas and project models. Online at: http://nationalserviceresources.org/epicenter

No Child Left Behind: For Parents
Part of the U.S. Department of Education's No Child Left Behind Web site, this site provides parents with useful information to assist them in helping their children learn. In particular, parents can download the Helping Your Child series in English and Spanish. Online at: www.nclb.gov/parents

Ready To Learn
Aids caregivers, parents, and teachers by integrating Ready To Learn television programs into daily care, offering workshops, providing an information-rich quarterly newsletter, and much more. Online at: www.thirteen.org/readytolearn

Learners, Language, and Technology: Making Connections That Support Literacy
Offers practical information on using the many tools of technology to support literacy and language development. Free for educational purposes, this document is available online at: www.netc.org/earlyconnections/pub

Families That Read Together (Baltimore Public Library)
Provides helpful hints for reading aloud to children, book lists, a family literacy bibliography, and online stories. Links to the Children's Book Council, which provides guidelines for choosing books for children. Remember to check with your own public library for existing resources and programs. Online at: www.bcplonline.org/info/parenting/prnt_readingtogether.html

The Reading Families Program RSVP of Montgomery County
An example of a program that brings together educators, literacy professionals, and volunteers to give literacy assistance to low-income families in Pennsylvania's Montgomery County. It provides free books and reading skills to parents, a reading-incentive program for children, and training in literacy methods for volunteers. Visit the Web site at: http://gargoyle.arcadia.edu/readingfamilies. The Proud Book memoir writing book and teachers' guide are available from New Readers Press at (800) 448-8878 or www.newreaderspress.com

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