A Community Literacy A Community Literacy Partnership: The Museum Partnership: The Museum

Without Walls Literacy ProjectWithout Walls Literacy Project

Addie Lafferty and M. Jeanne Wilcox

Infant Child Research ProgramsArizona State University

Tempe, Arizona

The Museum Without The Museum Without Walls Literacy ProjectWalls Literacy Project

Collaboration between the Phoenix Public Library, the Phoenix Family Museum, and a local early intervention service agency.

Funded by a Coca Cola Reading Is Fundamental Ingenuity Grant.

Designed to create a unique and educational learning environment for parents, children and teachers in Head Start programs.

Focused on promoting education about emergent literacy skills and community resources.

PurposePurpose

To explore: Teacher’s beliefs about and use of literacy

activities in the classroom. Parent’s beliefs about and use of literacy

activities at home. Parents’ and teachers’ use of local libraries. Areas in which parents and teachers wanted

more information. Children’s favorite activities from the bus visit.

The Bus ExhibitThe Bus Exhibit

A city bus was converted to hold a traveling museum exhibit.

4 literacy-based activities were added to the bus as part of the permanent collection.

Activities targeted print awareness, alphabet knowledge, narrative development, and vocabulary development.

Bus ActivitiesBus Activities

Pre-visit packets were distributed to teachers with literacy activity ideas and explanations of emergent literacy domains.

10 bus visits to local elementary schools were made from February-April 2004.

Participants roamed through the bus exhibit and participated in various activities over a 1 ½ hour time period.

Characteristics of Characteristics of ParticipantsParticipants

Participants:26 Head Start classrooms5 Infant & Toddler Head Start PlaygroupsApproximately 420 children and familiesApproximately 62 teachers and

paraprofessionalsDemographics: 64% Latino, 25%

Caucasian, 5% African-American, 3% Native American, and 2% Asian or Pacific Islander

Self-knowledge Assessment Self-knowledge Assessment Questionnaire For Parents and Questionnaire For Parents and

TeachersTeachers

Developed to examine parents & teachers use of literacy activities and beliefs about the importance of specific literacy activities.

Two different versions of the questionnaire were created, one for parents and one for teachers.

An English version and a Spanish translation

allowed for representation of both language users predominant among this group of participants.

Subscales of the QuestionnairesSubscales of the Questionnaires

Activities Subscale 22 questions for parents and 27 questions for teachers. Asked parents and teachers to rate their use of literacy activities on

a Likert-like scale with 1=very little to 5=very often. Examples of these activities included playing rhyming games, reading

stories aloud, and talking about new words while reading. Beliefs Subscale 11 questions for both teachers and parents Asked parents and teachers to rate their beliefs about the importance

of literacy activities on a Likert-like scale with 1=not important at all to 5=essential.

Examples of these beliefs included having a variety of books available at home/school, having opportunities to practice writing, and requesting to be read to.

Also included open-ended questions about whether or not participants had a library card, how often they visited the library, and areas in which they would like more information or training about early literacy skills.

Reliability of the QuestionnaireReliability of the Questionnaire

Reliability Analysis:

For parents, Cronbach’s alpha was .925 (n=268) on the activities subscale and .930 (n=310) on the beliefs subscale.

For teachers, Cronbach’s alpha was .923 (n=36) on activities subscale and .939 (n=33) on the beliefs subscale.

Reliability coefficients above .80 are considered to be strong, and based on this standard the questionnaire was determined to be reliable across all participants.

Parent Survey ResultsParent Survey Results

Mean of the activities subscale at was 3.54 (n=334).

This indicates that overall, parents rated their use of literacy activities with their children as between “sometimes” and “often” according to the scale.

Mean of the beliefs subscale was 4.10 (n=82) This indicates that parents rated their beliefs

about the importance of specific literacy activities as between “very important” and “essential” according to the scale.

Areas Parents Wanted More Areas Parents Wanted More Information AboutInformation About

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Parents Frequency of Library Parents Frequency of Library VisitsVisits

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Teacher Survey ResultsTeacher Survey Results

Mean of the activities subscale was 3.89 (n=36). This indicates that overall, teachers rated their use

of specific literacy activities in the classrooms as between “sometimes” and “often” according to the scale.

Mean of the beliefs subscale was 4.6 (n=9). This indicates that teachers rated their beliefs

about the importance of specific literacy activities as between “very important” and “essential” according to the scale.

Areas Teachers Wanted More Areas Teachers Wanted More Information AboutInformation About

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Areas Teachers Wanted More Information About

Teachers Frequency of Teachers Frequency of Library VisitsLibrary Visits

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5

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20

Teachers Frequency of Library Visits

Children’s Favorite Activities Children’s Favorite Activities on the Buson the Bus

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Children's Favorite Activities on the Bus

What We Learned From the What We Learned From the Children Children

Children preferred literacy activities that incorporated music, movement, and story telling props.

224 children received new public library cards as a result of this project.

What We Learned From the What We Learned From the TeachersTeachers

Although teachers reported moderate to high levels of literacy activity use in their classrooms, many reported they did not know why certain activities were important or which emergent literacy domain they fell in.

Teachers reported the pre-bus visit packet helped explain the domains of emergent literacy and gave them ideas of activities to facilitate development.

Most teachers reported they visited the library 1-3 times a month.

Teachers reported they wanted more information about all areas of literacy development, especially dual language strategies, resources for activities and phonological awareness skills.

What We Learned From the What We Learned From the ParentsParents

Parents reported they wanted more information on everything about literacy, especially reading & writing development and alphabet skills.

Most parents reported they visited the library rarely or never.

Most parents did not know the libraries had materials in Spanish.

Many parents thought there was a charge to obtain a library card or use the library.

AcknowledgementsAcknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Southwest Human Development, the Phoenix Family Museum, and

the Phoenix Public Library for allowing us to be a part of this

project.