Exploration of English literacy readiness among Korean immigrant families with pre-K children

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Early Childhood, Home Language, and Refugee Family Supports in AANHPI communities

Abstract

While school readiness for kindergarten is a widely studied topic in the United States, research involving Korean immigrant families is scarce. Thus, we qualitatively explored Korean immigrant families’ perceptions of school readiness and their experiences with an English literacy program among four Korean immigrant families. The children participated in a three-month English literacy program with the researchers, and before and after the program, their parents took part in semi-structured online interviews. Each family contributed perspectives and experiences that were analyzed across four themes: (a) parents’ perceptions and experiences of school readiness, (b) parental roles in supporting school readiness, (c) experiences with the summer literacy program, and (d) cultural and ecological validity of the program and changes in parental perceptions.

Authors

• Sunyoung Kim, University of Illinois at Chicago

• So Yeon Kim, Purdue University

• Casey (Keunhee) Kim, University of Hawaii - Manoa

• Jeongae Kang, Illinois State University

• Namhee Kim, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Sung-ae Kim, Seoul National University