"The Day Home's Family Learning Program will enable parents to show their children the path to success by attaining it themselves. When a child sees a parent do well, they learn the enduring lesson that they can do the same."

– Hon. Carol A. Corrigan, California Supreme Court, Saint Vincent's Day Home Board of Directors

• Raising A Reader Program Comes to the Day Home
• Family Learning Program Overview
• Healthy Families Literacy
• Family Learning Program Archives

Family Learning Program Objectives To create a comfortable, trusting, and educational environment where parents can identify and share their learning goals for their children and for themselves. To facilitate parents’ active involvement in the learning and growth of their children through programs that directly responds to the needs and desires parents have for their children’s healthy development. To provide programs that helps parents negotiate their children’s behavior more constructively and that will prepare their children for positive social and academic experiences at school.

Program Overview

It wasn’t that long ago that Saint Vincent’s Day Home Family Learning Program was a dream waiting to be fulfilled. Thanks to a grant from Chevron, our vision is now reality.

Our Family Learning Program is committed to encouraging literacy development among Day Home families through a variety of activities and workshops. These events include the  parents and their children, and are developed to directly reflect the educational goals of the families. These activities bring parents together with their children to discover the ways they can pursue their own learning goals while developing the language and learning skills of their children. Pre-literacy and literacy skills are developed, while the joy of discovery and learning are encouraged through accessible and practical applications.

We fully implemented our Family Learning Program in June 2005, and already have significant accomplishments to report:

Program Highlights

		The Family Library has a vibrant collection of fiction and non-fiction books for children and parents, including many bilingual titles in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Arabic.
		JumpStart Collaborative involves volunteers from Saint Mary’s College working with our three-year olds. JumpStart is a national organization committed to early literacy development in pre-school children. Two teams of five volunteers come to the Day Home twice a week for two hours each visit. Volunteers lead circle-time and small group activities. They also spend individual time reading and working with their paired student.  More about JumpStart
		The Read to Me Program is a 4-part, highly interactive workshop that shares a variety of ways parents can share and read books with their children. Everyone receives books to keep.
		Pequeno Grupo de Aprender is a weekly Spanish learning group for parents. The group addresses topics ranging from facilitating pre-literacy skills to encouraging positive behavior in children. All exercises and discussions integrate relevant reading and writing exercises to strengthen parents’ literacy skills. All activities encourage parent-child interactions.
		Cuentos de Familia is a 4-part workshop conducted in Spanish, which encourages families to share and record their stories, using the written word and photographs.  All participants receive two bilingual books on family stories and complete their own cuento de familia with their children.
		Family Music Workshops invite parents to learn about the language development benefits and the joy of engaging children in song. In this Spanish/English workshop for families, a story is read together, songs are learned, and everyone sings together. Families receive the story book, music song book, and CD with their new songs to take home.

		Read to Me at the bookstore! Families visit Cody’s to select books to purchase. We browsed the shelves, looked through the books, and read with the children. In some cases, they read to us or on their own! All children chose a book with their parent from the give-away table.
		Dale Vida al Lenguaje In the Dale Vida al Lenguaje workshop, parents discuss how their children respond to leading bilingual lives.
		Hablar! Hablar! Hablar! During the Hablar!Hablar!Hablar! workshop parents paired up to develop activities that can strengthen their children’s verbal skills in every day situations.

Thanks to funding assistance from The California Children & Families Commission Public Education Program (First Five California) this site contains a collection of useful links on the subjects of childcare, discipline, health, learning, reading, safety and other resources.

» Go to the Healthy Families Literacy site.

• Afghani Educators Visit the Day Home in Efforts to Bridge the Digital Divide
• Day Home Welcomes New Family Learning Program Co-Directors Amy Prevedel and Shree Ram
• First Family Learning Workshop held in August 
• Livewires Visit Barnes and Noble 
• ChevronTexaco Donates $200,000 to Our Family-Literacy Program