Abstract
Purpose
To describe the development and pilot testing of a bilingual family literacy program (FLP) for dual language learners entering kindergarten implemented in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC).
Description
The Ready and Healthy for Kindergarten program is an English–Spanish bilingual FLP that uses four parent and pediatrician-prioritized health topics to introduce early English literacy skills to families and promote health behaviors that are important for school readiness while encouraging maintenance of Spanish. We developed an FLP manual, conducted a 16-week single-arm pilot study, and modified the FLP based on family feedback and observation.
Assessment
We recruited 14 parent–child dyads for the pilot through clinician referral. All participating parents identified as Hispanic/Latino and 86% reported limited English proficiency. Two-thirds had less than a high school education. Seventy-one percent of families attended more than half of the sessions. Parents rated the FLP as highly acceptable. During implementation, we made substantive changes to the FLP including increasing the focus on promoting bilingualism, encouraging all participants to share their experiences with the health topics, helping parents identify literacy activities embedded in their daily health routines (e.g., lullabies), and distributing information on health resources.
Conclusion
We developed and implemented an innovative bilingual FLP in an FQHC that was well-attended and acceptable to families. The FLP has the potential to be replicated in other primary care sites and our findings lay the groundwork for future studies on how to best leverage healthcare settings to promote equity in school readiness.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the participants, our collaborators at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education for their help in developing materials for the FLP and the staff and community board at Eric B. Chandler Health Center for their support of this project. We would also like to thank Haneen Bahader, Daniela Ceballos, Lawrence Liu, Jessica Pelaez, Mariam Tayiebi, Bridget Yako, and Nila Uthirasamy for their work making the take-home activity kits used in this study. Dr. Jimenez was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program (grant 73308). Research reported in this publication was supported in part by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, a component of the National Institutes of Health under award number UL1TR003017, as well as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its support of the Child Health Institute of New Jersey (Grant 74260). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.
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Shelton, P.A., Morrow, L.M., Lima, D. et al. Ready and Healthy for Kindergarten: A Bilingual Family Literacy Program in Primary Care. Matern Child Health J 25, 521–527 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-020-03115-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-020-03115-x