Early Literacy at Home
The program La Fuerza de Familias Latinas seeks to build the capacity of Spanish-speaking parents, caregivers and childcare providers to promote young children’s early learning, social emotional growth, and school readiness.
For Whom
- Parent Coordinators
- Educators
- Counselors
- Librarians
- Family Advocates
- Program Managers
- Others
Language
- English
Mode of instruction
- Hybrid
Course Summary
The team of La Fuerza de Familias Latinas has created a series of digital resources and standard-aligned online workshops for Head Start programs, pre-K, libraries, and other community-based organizations to use with caregivers. . The power of storytelling and digital tools for learning help caregivers recognize their vital role as their child’s first teacher and inspire actions that can positively impact their child’s brain development.
Our program reinforces the importance of bilingualism and other important themes about child development with specific calls to action (i.e. caregivers are encouraged to play, read, sing, and tell stories with their children).
Objectives
- Support caregivers identify realistic strategies to promote children’s early learning, social-emotional growth, and school readiness – strategies that are appropriate for their families.
- Build a supportive community of caregivers and earn their trust by listening to their stories and perspectives- connect participants to resources.
- Engage Spanish-speaking caregivers in using their home language and culture in order to address a key equity issue in diverse educational settings.
- Support caregivers to become familiar with resources to further assist with their children’s early learning.
Benefits
- The curriculum aligns with national standards for early literacy, social-emotional learning, and family engagement through reading, playing, and informal STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math) exploration.
- The program's family-friendly activities align with English Language Arts Standards for Kindergarten including Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language strands.
- Caregivers workshop strategies to support their child's early literacy skills through digital storytelling activities with their families.
- Provides accessible educational media created with Univision to help parents to promote at home what children are learning in school.
- Builds social capital through a supportive community of practice.
