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Supporting
Father Involvement in Family Literacy
1. Expect fathers
will want to be involved in their child's early learning and promoting
school success.
- Invite fathers
and mothers to event and activities
- Encourage
fathers to be involved
- Design parent-child
events that encourage parents to interact with their child
2. Help fathers
to feel and understand their importance in promoting early literacy
development
- Ask fathers
to participate in specific ways: reading a favorite book, playing
an instrument, talking about their job or a hobby
- Sponsor father-child
activities such as breakfast before work, Saturday morning program
for dads and kids
3. Introduce
fathers to good literature for young children.
- Display examples
of good books at parent events
- Give away
books at father-child events
- Provide lists
of books on topics that fathers might enjoy
4. Provide information
about and models of story reading skills.
- Send information
about reading to children that uses male models
- Send home
tapes of books with male voices as models
- Invite male
story-teller to parent-child events
- Provide parenting
classes that focus on emerging literacy
5. Share information
about typical developmental sequences for literacy in young children.
- Send home
information on how children learn about reading
- Send home
information and examples of children's writing letters and attempts
at early spelling
- Give parents
ideas for supporting children's word and letter recognition in
their every day environments
6. Introduce
fathers to books for young children that focus on positive role
models of fathers.
- Create book
lists that feature fathers in positive roles
- Read stories
with fathers during parent-child events
- Create a
bulletin board that displays books with fathers
7. Support informal
and simple literacy activities that are connected to fathers' interests
or activities.
- Listening
to children's stories while driving in the car together
- Newspaper
reading as a model and time to share about letters and words,
or cartoons
- Following
sports team or players, collect sports cards
8. Make men
visible.
- Hire male
staff as teachers of young children, librarians, story-tellers
- Invite fathers
as volunteers
- Display posters,
pictures, photographs with both men and women
9. Find out
about fathers' needs and interests.
- Conduct surveys
to identify what fathers like and might want to do with children
- Find out
when fathers are available for events or meetings
- Find out
what fathers already do around early literacy and support and
build upon these activities
10. For hard
to reach fathers- make an extra effort.
- Send a personal
invitation to fathers who rarely or never visit
- Send an invitation
from the child to invite a father to attend a parent-child event
- Make a phone
call to a father to invite him to an event or ask him to do something
specific for a class
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