Human Services News

Chapin Hall

Children's motivation to write is fueled when they feel they've written something that gets a positive response from important adults, another characteristic of the exemplary programs in our study.

After-school programs are particularly well suited to fostering the social dimensions of literacy, with children sharing ideas, collaborating, helping each other, responding to and critiquing each other, and solving reading and writing problems together.

While coloring, he began telling us that he was reading Romeo and Juliette; that he enjoyed reading the parts of the different characters; and that sometimes he read to his father.

Most children want to share their experiences and internal worlds with others, and most love to experiment with writing in the same way they love to experiment with drawing -- as forms of self-expression, ways of representing experience, their culture, feelings, even questions.

Beyond necessary instruction and guidance in basic skills, that role includes motivating children to include literacy activity in their daily lives by making it enjoyable and a part of their identities.

Adults impact children's learning in a variety of family, school and community settings.

Most after-school programs provide display areas for children's art work, and many also display children's writing, although our observations indicate that the quantity and quality of these display areas vary enormously from one program to another.

Most of the programs we surveyed or observed provide separate areas for reading books.

Journal writing can foster an interest in writing because it gives children an opportunity to express their ideas, concerns, and experiences in their own way, without worrying about criticism by an adult.

In one program we observed, staff insert activities to strengthen areas they perceived a child needing help in, for example, multiplication.

At the same time, they recognized that although parents should spend more time helping their children with homework, they often do not have time and, sometimes skills, to assist their children.

A majority of directors and staff complained that there was not enough time during program hours to interact and talk with individual children.

The survey, along with our observations and interviews, clearly indicated that there is activity going on in the area of literacy in after-school programs.

Nearly all programs provide basic resources like books, writing supplies, and board games for literacy activities and make time for children to do homework after school.

Despite the transient nature of the school-age population, the director has envisioned and implemented a number of large-scale projects to foster children's interest in literacy.

She believes that children realize the fun of literacy when they use reading to read a map, use computers, make their own books, and find items in a scavenger hunt.

Although the programs we studied varied in their specific approaches to literacy and in their overall program quality, fostering literacy was an important objective.

Exemplary practices embodied the view that literacy is not simply about the ability to read and write; it is also the interest in and practice of reading and writing for a variety of personally meaningful and socially valued purposes.

In addition to these challenges, many after-school programs in our study were struggling to find an appropriate stance in relation to schools, and to respond to pressure---from funders, parents and other stakeholders---to become more school-like and help address schoolrelated agendas.

Time constraints on literacy activity are directly related to children's needs after a day at school.

Given the range of other constraints facing after-school programs, lack of an internally generated framework for literacy activity was particularly constraining.