Making curriculum links with homes and communities

3a Key Issues in Language and Learning

• Single or multiple discourses?
  ‘Literacy’ is often equated with school literacy, usually requiring the use of Standard English, at least in writing, and often privileging the use of print. Another view sees school literacy as one of many literacy practices but still the dominant one. Children (and parents) not versed in school or print based literacy can then be seen as in some way deficient, and in need of instruction from the school. Governments can sometimes take this view. But valuing school literacy as an essential part of school achievement can go along with seeing that other literacy practices and modalities in which children are competent provide a wealth of existing knowledge and skills, which can complement and support the learning of school literacy.
• How does a wealth model of literacy affect our thinking about the curriculum?
  We can think of ‘the curriculum’ in two ways: as what is transmitted to learners by schools and colleges, or as what Moll calls ‘funds of knowledge’, gradually acquired since birth and constantly being added to from all our life experiences with schools as an important, but not sole, contributor (Moll 1992).

Acknowledging that there are many different kinds of literacy practice, some in different forms and modes from those of print, expands our thinking about the nature and possibilities of the school curriculum. Schools need to continue to use their expertise in giving children access to the means of academic learning but they also need to show children they value, support and use what is learnt in homes and communities so that both in and out of school learning will remain important to them throughout their lives. This may entail some rethinking of the school curriculum and how it is taught. As Paratore says, it is not only families and communities which need to change to accommodate a multi literacy approach; schools need to change, too ( DeBruin-Parecki and Krol-Sinclair 2003 p 25).

• How can a ‘funds of knowledge’ approach support the school curriculum?
  One way of enabling existing knowledges and skills to be used in this dynamic way is to draw on concepts from third space theory (Moje 2004). This term is used in a variety of disciplines to describe ways in which disparate participants facilitate the exchange of information by setting up ‘in between’ concepts or spaces. These spaces may be physical, as in a parents’ room in a school, or symbolic, as when a teacher uses both scientific language and the language of home to explain the chemical action of baking powder on flour in cake making, or when children discuss in class the memories associated with objects collected at home. These ‘third spaces’ provide a neutral meeting place where all learning experiences are equally valued.