There are many benefits to developing strategies and practices that build collaborative relationships between families/communities and educators that are mutually beneficial. The knowledge each brings to constructing literacy experiences for students (in and out of school) is viewed as a resource essential to fully developing students’ literate lives. We will examine Community Mapping as a practice designed to uncover a rich array of resources in households and communities that hold the potential to enhance literacy learning for children while developing reciprocal relationship with families.
Participants in this session will:
- Analyze and discuss how teachers can build the skills, attitudes, knowledge needed to engage parents as full-parents in designing curriculum and creating literacy practices that support students’ learning
- Develop an understanding of how to use the ethnographic tools of Community Mapping to identify local literacy assets and practices
- Evaluate inclusive pedagogical practices that capitalizes on students’ own familiar knowledge to build academic knowledge