Is there evidence that supports the importance of parents' literacy for their children's education ouctomes?

Colleagues,

I was reading an article called "Advancing American Literacy" in the Washington Times by Barbara Bush's daughter Doro Bush Koch. It reminded me about this 2010 National Institutes of Health study that supports the importance of a mother's reading skills for her children's academic achievements:

"Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health concluded that programs to boost the academic achievement of children from low income neighborhoods might be more successful if they also provided adult literacy education to parents"

"The researchers based this conclusion on their finding that a mother's reading skill is the greatest determinant of her children’s future academic success, outweighing other factors, such as neighborhood and family income."

"After mother's reading level, neighborhood income level was the largest determinant of children's academic achievement."

This study is not news, but it is an important piece of evidence supporting the value of family literacy, now often called intergenerational or two-generation literacy -- for parents who have difficulty reading or who cannot read at all.

What can you do with this evidence?

  • If you teach or tutor adults to read, share the evidence with your students. Literally, take the sentences above from the article about the study and read them out loud and/or help your students to read them themselves. Then discuss them. Ask :
    • What are the implications for a family that wants to escape poverty?  If the mother learns to read, is that the solution? Is it part of the solution? What else may be needed?
    • Why does the mother's reading skills (or in other studies the mother's level of education) have this impact?
    • Why doesn't the father's level of education or literacy have this impact?
    • If a mother cannot read well, are her children doomed?
  • Share the conclusion, and the study itself, with family members, friends, neighbors, and with those who teach in K-12 education. Ask them
    • if the schools can help parents of the children they teach also learn to read.
    • If not, ask if community-based organizations and volunteer tutoring programs can help these parents.
    • Ask if these programs are being supported in your community, and if not, what support the programs need to pay teachers, or to pay volunteer coordinators who train and supervise volunteer tutors.
    • Ask if they think that support has declined in your community in recent years.
  • Share the conclusion, and the study itself, with policy makers in your community, your state, and with your Congressional representatives.

If we value evidence from research, and value making decisions based on evidence, part of our role as educators should be to share the evidence with the decision-makers in our democratic society, that is with those we elect as our representatives and with our families, friends and neighbors who elect our representatives.

Thanks to Doro Bush Koch for reminding us about this important study.

David J. Rosen.Moderator

LINCS CoP Program Management group