Family+Literacy

Why Family Literacy?
====Promoting family literacy serves the whole school community by enhancing the home and school bond, bringing parents on side for school literacy goals and creating a new advocacy base for your library. Families reading together impacts how children read. Creating family literacy is an important part of a school literacy program. ====

Some tips for promoting family literacy:
====1. **Communicate.** Find ways to communicate with your families - newsletters, library website, blog, wiki, school website, attend PAC meetings, etc. ====

====2. **Make connections.** Get to know the parents. Hold library events - story evenings, celebrations of learning, book sales, parent education speakers, movie nights, and family game nights. ====

====3. **Offer resources.** Hold family literacy events with suggestions for family literacy activities that are easily accessible and affordable. Create a parent resource section in your library. Put suggestions for literacy activities or links to family literacy websites (below) in your communications (see #1). ====

====4. **Buddy up.** Work with your local public library to present partnership programs (such as theThe Reading Link Challenge) or deliver information about public programs. Many public libraries have school liason people and can offer library cards through school events. ==== 

Resource Links:

 * [|ABC Literacy] has some great tip sheets for family literacy and promotes [|National Family Literacy Day] each January.
 * [|Family Reading Partnership] has great activities and information including [|Mem Fox's Read Aloud Commandments]
 * DEAR: National Drop Everything and Read National D.E.A.R. Day is a special reading celebration to remind and encourage families to make reading together on a daily basis a family priority.