| When the home and community literacies of students are not seen as resources in the school setting, children may experience difficulties in the classroom. The rejection of students' out of school literacies makes it difficult for children to acquire school literacies as they struggle to become literacy learners in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to (a) document the home and community literacies of three children and (b) collaborate with teachers to explore ways of linking home and community literacies with school literacy practices. This study was grounded in a theoretical framework that conceptualized literacies as socially situated and culturally constructed.;Data collection for this qualitative case study was conducted over a period of eight months using multiple case studies framed in action research. Research methods included participant observations in the homes of the children, informal interviews with children and parents, and teacher study groups. Artifacts were collected for documentation.;Exploring the children's social practices in their homes expanded the picture of their literacies. It showed how the children used the cultural and material practices in their homes to interpret and produce texts using multiple symbol systems. Their literacies included drawing, singing, dancing, dramatic play, basketball, scrapbooking, and gaming as well as reading, writing and speaking. In the study groups the teachers examined the data from the homes and recognized the literacies that the children used to communicate and make meaning. The dialogue with the teachers revealed that many of the discussions focused on assessments, benchmarks, and standards; however the teachers were attempting to make changes in their teaching and ways of thinking, disrupting some of the Discourses of school, which had become a part of their professional lives. As the teachers named the literacies that the children were using to make sense of their worlds they began to employ their own literacies to critique the institution of school. |
