Parent vs. Teacher: Do Perspectives on Reading in Elementary School Align or Differ?

• In Event: AERA Research-in-Progress Roundtable Session 1
  In Invited Roundtable: Student-Teacher Experience, Digital Citizenship, and Parent Reading Perspectives in Elementary Schools (Table 12)

Abstract

Spanish speaking students and parents remain in the margins of school wide communication and are left wondering how their children are taught to read. In this study, the author used Funds of Knowledge methodology to examine how five Spanish speaking parents from three elementary schools support their child with reading at home and learns of the parents' experiences with learning to read when they were young students. Using discourse analysis the author analyzes what silences are present in the interviews held with parents and teachers. The data presented demonstrates how teachers can leverage two categories of information to support students’ reading development: parent perspectives about reading support at home and parents’ personal experiences of learning to read.

Author

• Somer Ayala Levine, University of California - Santa Barbara