Chapter 6: Engaging Children in the Appropriation of Literacy: The Importance of Parental Beliefs and Practices

Becoming literate is a process of appropriation. The young child must acquire both a set of skills and knowledge of when and how to utilize these skills. Becoming a reader requires the development of phonological analysis skills, letter knowledge, sound-letter correspondence, and comprehension skills (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Although formal schooling plays an important role in a child’s acquisition of these skills, children begin the process of literacy appropriation before ever setting foot through a school door (Adams, 1990; Baker, Serpell, & Sonnenschein, 1995). The experiences that a child has at home, such as being read stories, learning about the world through outings, having dinnertime conversations, help the child acquire early literacy skills such as learning about story structure, analyzing sound patterns in words, learning letters, even before formal school-based instruction starts (Baker et al., 1995). These early literacy-related skills, in turn, foster later literacy development. The process of learning to read goes fairly smoothly for many children in our society, particularly middle income children; however, it does not work quite as well for many low income children (Snow et al., 1998).