Jannelle Curtiss

Professor Griffin
UWRT 1101
11 November 2015

How cultural background of parents affect their childs literacy

Reflecting back on my own literacy experiences, it made me ponder on

why I had such a difficult time with writing. Moreover, why I had such a hard
time correcting grammatical errors in my writing. English was my first
language, yet I managed to continuously make sentence errors over and
over again. After completing my essay on how I learned to read and write, it
occurred to me that reading and writing was not a problem. I knew how to
read and write because it was a part of my culture. Reading and writing is
recognized as being very important in The Bahamas. It is so important that
it is illegal to keep a child from going to school under the age of sixteen.
Nevertheless, it hit me that maybe it wasnt the fact that reading and writing
wasnt taken seriously enough in The Bahamas, because it is. Instead, I
believe that our cultural took a toll on our literacy, especially mine. Really
looking back, the mistakes I made where how I talked on a regular basis. Our
Bahamian slang that had been marinated into my thoughts never caused
any problems in primary school of course. As I got into high school, the
grading got more critical, and those Bahamian slang that I thought was
proper English would not be accepted into High school. Since this was

something that I did for many years, it was hard to understand why my
sentence was wrong. It was such a custom, it was hard to break out of the
bad habits that have been developed all my life. I never realized the big role
my culture played on my literacy. It was such a custom and a norm to
society, I never realized the impact it had. This experience made me
question if I was the only one who faced such a problem.
Imagine how each culture has difficulties attempting to adjust to the
social norm, which is to learn how to speak English. Since majority of schools
in the world only speaks English, a child growing up in a different culture
must adjust to their school environment. As we can see, culture do in fact
play a huge role on literacy. A childs literacy development is based on how
their parents influence them. Therefore, if a child's parent first language
isnt English then that means there will be a lack of involvement in the childs
academic life. By not being involved in the childs school life this can indeed
take a toll on how the child will learn. Furthermore, the parents might not be
able to assist the child with assignments from school because of the lack of
ability to speak English. All of this problem can be developed due to cultures
where English is not the first language or spoken at all. However, culture
does not only mean the language you speak but also how you were raised,
the culture of your parents and so on. Your language can have effect your
literacy but the culture of your parents has the biggest impact. Since, literacy
is firstly taught at home, parent(s) play the most important role in the

literacy of their child (ren). Growing up as a child, the traditions of your

family will affect your literacy. Hence, this can be passed down from
generation to generation. If a mother was never read to as a young child, or
if her parents were not active in her school life, then this mother will tend to
do the same for her child. Both positive and negative literacy habits will be
passed down through families. Therefore, the home environment is vital for
literacy development in children at a young age.
Teachers of these students must recognize the difference of cultures
and how to cope with it in the classroom. Workshops can also be beneficial to
both parents and teachers which can help promote the literacy of the child.
By reaching out to the parents, this can gradually allow the parents to be
more active in the child's life. From a teacher's point of view, you can see
when a childs parents does not promote literacy at home.1 Amy Sawyer talks
about her years as a teacher and how the lack of involvement of a childs
parent caused their literacy development to slow down. Due to their culture
these parents would not red books to their children or help them with
homework on a daily basis. This is due to how they were raised as a child. In
contrast, those parent who promote literacy and was actively involved in
their child's school life, helps to increase their literacy skills. These parents
believed in routines of reading to their child and helping them with
homework. In other words, these parents promoted literacy based on their

1 http://reflectivepractitioner.pbworks.com/f/SawyerFinalCapstone.pdf

culture and how they were raised. In Tam and Chan study (2009) it was
proven that those among junior primary student who had a higher parental
involvement in school had a higher reading and writing level than those who
did not(pg.81). Similarly, in another study (Schluz & Kantor, 2005) found that
parents whose cultural and language background differ from their child's
cultural background did not do well in school and was poor in areas of
literacy. Also, Cooper, Crosnose, Suizzo and Pituch (2009) found that
involvement of parents differ based on their race, White parents reported
the highest levels on each of the four measures. Hispanic parents were the
least likely to provide cognitively stimulating materials, involve their children
in organized activities, or home-learning activities. Black parents had the
lowest levels of school-based involvement (Cooper, Crosnose, Suizzo, &
Pituch, 2009, p. 872). This shows clearly, how the culture of parents indeed
affect their childs literacy. Lack of involvement in your child's life will result
in poor literacy skills. Moreover, since there are so many cultures that exist
with different beliefs about literacy, teachers must recognize and build on
the skills of their students based on their particular culture. The more
familiar teacher become with the variety of cultures in their classroom the
more they can communicate and help their student to become better in
literacy. Regardless of the fact that literacy do start from the home
environment, teachers must be prepared to deal with a class that is diverse. 2
Teachers who are more compatible with the different culture will tend to have
2 https://journal.naeyc.org/btj/200511/ColomboBTJ1105.pdf

a more responsive learning environment. Teachers lack of awareness of

cultures in the classroom can lead to the undermining of children's abilities.
Michaela Colombo talks about the four misconceptions made by teachers in
the classroom which affects children of a different culture's literacy indirectly.
The first misconception is assuming that everyone is the same. Teachers
who treat all student the same can affect the rate of how they learn to read
and write. Some cultures are better at learning than others, therefore
teachers must take the time out to make sure all students are learning at the
same rate. The second misconception is said to be, Culturally diverse
parents should know and conform to the expectations of mainstream
schools A teacher from a survey stated, , We were surprised to learn that
for some parents there is a huge separation between schools and home.
Some parents believe the teacher is responsible for the childs learning and
have no idea of the role we expect them to play in reinforcing reading and
classroom learning at home. Once you meet with parents and explain your
expectations, they do try to help their children at home. As you can see it is
also important that teachers reach out to students parents to help promote
literacy. The third misconception is, Families who do not participate in school
activities do not value education. Some families, especially who are new to
a country, can be working hard to provide for their child. Therefore it's hard
to attend and teacher-parent meeting and so on. Due to this teachers might
underestimate the child's ability to learn, which should not be the case.
Lastly, If you want the child to learn English, just speak English. Children

who become balanced bilinguals (develop equal competence in both

languages) can differentiate between languages and accurately switch
languages when appropriate. In a study of Puerto Rican children in the United
States, the children developed complex linguistic abilities at a young age,
accurately switching between English and Spanish depending upon their
perceptions of their audience (Zentella 1997). Some teachers might think
that because the child speaks English that the parent does as well. Parents
who do not speak English tend to not be so active in their child's school work.
Teachers should be aware of this and help the child as much as they can. A
kindergarten teacher read a big book in Spanish and was trying to figure out
by picture alone what was going on. She found this task to be very difficult.
Before this she assumed that big books with pictures were easy to
comprehend. By doing this she understood how hard it could be for a child to
learn English. Can you imagine how many other teachers thought this way?
Essentially, Shirley Heath observed a community of blacks and whites.
She wrote about her experience in her novel, Ways with Words. In the
white community, they promoted discipline in school from a young age. In
contrast, the black community did not do this however. The black community
was not as involved or demanding on their kids to behave and do well in
school. In other words, they did not promote literacy like the white
community. Students of the black community was said to be, disrespectful
and verbally aggressive. They would respond poorly and cant grasp basic

decoding skills. Overall, the black children struggled trying to learn in the
school environment because they lacked the necessary home skills to help
them flourish in school. In contrast, the white community had enforced
education from a young age. They promoted good behaviour and good
grades. The white children were said to be, quiet and respectful. They were
also attentive and responsive to what was going on in the school
environment. Since their parents trained them with the necessary skills; they
were more successful in the school environment than the black children.
(Ways with Word pg268) Therefore, cultural background do play a role on
how strong a child literacy is.
At the end of the day, a child's regular environment growing up
strongly affect their literacy. The most important roles to a child being
successful in literacy if a good home and school environment. These two
environment must be positive in order to help a child strongly develop their
literacy skills. Literacy skills are never fully developed. These are skills that
improve through your entire life based on your environment. It is important
that the foundation of literacy is strong so that the child can explore the
world of literacy for the rest of their lives.

Work Cited

Colombo, Michaela. "Reflections from Teachers of Culturally Diverse Children."

Beyond the Journal Young Children on the Web, 1 Nov. 2005. Web. 20 Oct.
2015.<https://journal.naeyc.org/btj/200511/ColomboBTJ1105.pdf>.
Heath, Shirley Brice. Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and
Classrooms. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge UP, 1983. Print.
Sawyer, Amy. "The Home Environment and Its Impact on Literacy Development." School of
Arts and Sciences St. John Fisher College, 1 Aug. 2010. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
<http://reflectivepractitioner.pbworks.com/f/SawyerFinalCapstone.pdf>.