November is Family Literacy Month — a chance to focus on how families, schools and communities support reading. Here in Louisville, Felicia C. Smith, president and CEO of the National Center for Families Learning, leads two-generation literacy work that connects adults and children.
I spoke with Smith about the state of literacy in Kentucky, what family literacy looks like in practice, and where families and educators can make the biggest difference.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Ayisha Jaffer: Can you describe what family literacy means and how programs that include both adults and children differ for those serving just children?
Felicia Smith: At the National Center for Families Learning, we believe in multigenerational learning, and that means bringing together parenting adults or caregivers and children so that they're learning side by side and experiencing and gaining those skills together.
The model focuses on children's education, adult education, as well as time where parents and children come together and reinforce the skills that they've learned and practice those skills so that literacy begins to increase.
AJ: So it's like looking at the whole picture?
FS: That's exactly right. We believe that the whole family should be learning together in order for those skills to develop and then break down cycles of poverty, which we know literacy and learning has a direct link for breaking down.
AJ: You started your career in the classroom. What signs did you find show up early on when reading is going well for a child, and conversely, when learning to read is not going so well?
FS: Children who had a lot of exposure to language and literacy experiences, they usually began to read earlier, and that's because their parents likely read with them and helped them develop those early literacy skills. We cannot underestimate the power of parents being their children's first teacher and exposing them to lots of experiences, books and plays and songs. All of those early literacy skills are so critical.
However, if children were coming to school struggling in reading, we saw a lot of times that those children had not had the same level exposure. Oftentimes, when I would meet with those parents, they would reveal that they also struggled to read. And what we know from the data is that many children who have parents who struggle to read, 72% of those children also have struggles in learning to read and literacy. A lot of that is also coming from children who live in poverty.
So those teachers early on need to know what's happening with children, what's happening in their home, so that when they're in the classroom, they know that they need to double down on some of those early literacy skills for children.
AJ: The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress reading results put Kentucky about in line with the national average, with only partial recovery since the pandemic. What do you think that tells us about where we're at right now?
FS: We're going to need to see the state of Kentucky double down on literacy opportunities for districts and schools and resources for schools. But professional development, curriculum materials, intervention materials, those are all still in great need.
AJ: If a parent or caregiver needs literacy support for themselves or their child, where should they start?
FS: Start and build a deeper partnership with your child's teacher. That's why we believe at the National Center for Families Learning that parents are partners in their child's education. You can also come to our website at familieslearning.org, and we have some resources there on different programs that are offered across the state.
