Family, Culture, Literacy and the Kindergarten Classroom: Perspectives of an Immigrant Teacher.

This paper focuses on my experience as a teacher working with immigrant kindergarten-aged children and their parents on a small island in the British West Indies, seeking to understand the role of family and culture in literacy development. This is a case study of three students and their parents/guardians which uses a qualitative methodology from an ethnographic perspective to illuminate the findings. I used interviews, artifacts, and my observations of the students and families in their primary learning environment, the home, and at school. My research findings support the argument that literacy development is a social practice; additionally, literacy serves a unique purpose to the family unit. Their experiences with literacies reflect their cultural identities and the value they place on its role in as an agent of change. The findings have implications for pedagogical practices and policy formulation in early childhood classrooms across the Caribbean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]