ED414566 CS013004

Title: Cooperative Communication among Parents and Teachers about Children's Emergent Literacy. Final Project Report to the National Reading Research Center.
Author(s): Serpell, Robert; Baker, Linda; Sonnenschein, Susan; Gorham, Linda; Hill, Susan
Author Affiliation: Upper Kobuk Eskimo Language Program, Shungnak, AK.(BBB13916)
Pages: 71
Publication Date: 1996
Notes: Best available copy. Print on some pages is blurred.
Sponsoring Agency: National Reading Research Center, Athens, GA. (BBB30638)@National Reading Research Center, College Park, MD. (BBB30639)
Available from: EDRS Price MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.
Language: English
Document Type: Reports--Research (143)
Geographic Source: U.S.; Maryland
Journal Announcement: RIEMAY1998

A study described and evaluated the Cooperative Communication Project, which was designed to improve communication between inner-city families and schools about young children's literacy development. A total of four pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teachers from two schools in the Baltimore City Public Schools completed an inservice course (a series of six seminar-format discussion sessions) out of which developed plans for individual action research projects to be carried out in the teachers' classrooms. Frequent on-site support visits were conducted while the teachers were implementing their research projects. Teachers presented oral reports and prepared a final written version of their project reports. Because of the small number of teachers and schools that eventually participated in the project, preliminary plans to investigate systematically the impact of the inservice course on the organizational climate of the schools and the relation of the schools with their communities were dropped. Evaluation of the four completed projects is cautiously optimistic on the grounds that the process succeeded in connecting research findings and issues with the lived experience of the participating teachers and in inspiring them to undertake independent inquiry projects in the specified fields of cooperative communication among parents and teachers about children's emergent literacy. (Contains 43 references, the four final written projects, and five figures representing material presented in seminars and excerpts of transcripts of seminar discussions. An appendix contains a list of the concrete products associated with each of the four projects. (RS)

Descriptors: *Action Research; *Emergent Literacy; Inservice Teacher Education; Kindergarten; *Parent School Relationship; *Parent Teacher Cooperation; Preschool Education; Primary Education; Program Effectiveness; School Community Relationship
Identifiers: Baltimore City Public Schools MD; *Communication Strategies