Over de drempels van geletterdheid: Laaggeletterde ouders helpen hun jonge kind te ondersteunen

Family literacy programs aim at supporting parents in stimulating their young children’s emergent literacy development. Reviews of effect studies in general show positive outcomes, while the effects on children from low socioeconomic families are mixed. The literacy level of parents, however, is mostly not taken into account in effect studies and therefore it is unclear what types of activities might work in families where parents have limited reading skills. For non-literate or low-literate parents traditional family literacy programs might create several barriers, due to the fact that these programs often assume a certain level of reading skill in parents and require them to initiate cognitively challenging interactions around sometimes difficult texts. In this contribution, we analyse the main barriers such programs might create for these parents and we offer suggestions how to overcome these barriers. Promising approaches can be found in empowering parents by personalizing and tailoring the program activities, by offering interesting materials that are not dependent on advanced reading skills and trigger children and parents to interact, and by making use of the technological innovations in new media, such as digital, animated picture books.