The effects of educational values and cultural tradition on literacy instruction.

This article is based on my experiences observing a Korean family that immigrated to the United States. This two-income, middle-class family (a mother and father, a grandmother, and a son) live in the northern suburbs of Chicago, where a large Korean community is located. As in many of the neighboring homes, Korean is spoken frequently, and the family even watches the local Korean TV channel instead of American programs. Thus, the parents have not had many opportunities to use and improve their English literacy.

I lived with the family for 2 weeks, and through close observation and interviews with the parents I learned about their efforts to ensure that their son, Woo-Joo, becomes literate in English during his kindergarten year. As a native Korean, I understood the cultural orientations embedded in the literacy instruction adopted by Woo-Joo's parents.

This article summarizes several instructional approaches that Woo-Joo's parents used to help their son become literate before he began 1st grade. Parents in the Korean culture typically believe that reading and writing are readiness skills, which children can and should possess before entering elementary school; therefore, parents believe they have a responsibility to help their preschool children become literate.

Woo-Joo's room is filled with literacy materials: about 200 children's books, 30 Disney children's movies, 30 audiotapes for phonics, 20 audio books, 20 instructional software programs, and a computer. Since the age of 3, Woo-Joo has been practicing reading and writing with his mother for I hour in the evening on school days and 3 hours on the weekends. Woo-Joo is now used to his daily routine of reading and writing basic sight words repeatedly to improve his word recognition skills, At this young age, Woo Joo already understands that studying is an important task.

When Woo-Joo's mother allows him to skip his home study, his father scolds them both. Woo-Joo's father plays an authoritative role, often checking to see that the daily lessons have been completed. It is very common in Korean households for the father to be only indirectly involved in teaching his child. For example, the father's role is to purchase books, desks, and supplies. On the other hand, the mother has a major responsibility to work directly with the child. Korean mothers view themselves as their children's primary teachers. Respect and recognition from family and community members are awarded to those mothers whose children do well academically.

Woo-Joo often asks his mother to read a book aloud; she often hesitates to do so. however, because of her problems with pronunciation. When Woo-Joo's mother reads a storybook aloud she often relies on audio books, such as "Little Mouse and the Big Red Apple" (Benjamin & Williamson, 2000) and "The Lonely Scarecrow" (Preston, 2000). She points to words while the cassette is playing so that her son can match the sounds to the words. Sometimes, she reads a book by herself to locate unfamiliar words, which she later looks up in her dictionary. Then, she listens and follows along with the audio books to familiarize herself with the pronunciations of challenging words. Woo-Joo also studies phonics books and their accompanying cassette tapes in order to improve his decoding ability.

Woo-Joo's parents take time out of their schedule to assist their son's literacy development. In general, Korean parents make significant personal sacrifices to advance their children's education. Their attitude is derived from the belief that parents have a responsibility to spend considerable time engaged in formal and quasi-formal academic activities with their young children.

Woo-Joo also is expected to learn numerous Korean word meanings, concepts, phrases, syntax, and sounds, in addition to his native country's values and traditions. Woo-Joo's family speak only Korean to each other, in the hope that he will naturally learn Korean. However, Woo-Joo does not speak Korean back to them, even though he understands what his parents and grandmother are saying. The sample conversation below illustrates how Woo-Joo communicates at home with his parents:

Woo-Joo: "Where is my Transformer toy, Mom?"

Mom: "Sir rarp at" ("in the drawer")

Woo-Joo: "Which drawer, Mom?"

Mom: "Nur check sang sir rarp at" ("in your desk drawer")

In this environment, Woo-Joo's parents know that he may not acquire as much English vocabulary as American children do from home, but they are pleased that he is able to understand Korean as well as speak English. Most Korean parents want their children to retain their Korean language and heritage. Thus, Woo-Joo's parents will continue to use their native language at home.

Finally, Woo-Joo participates in a traveling audio book program, developed by the local public school to assist minority families whose home language is not English. The school offers an audiotape of a book read by the school librarian. Woo-Joo's mom gets one audiotape and its accompanying book per month, and she returns it after making a copy of the audiotape for later use. The program has been exactly what this family needs. The parents would like to see the service implemented in Woo-Joo's classroom, where his teacher could record her readings and send audiotapes home. However, the parents are not comfortable making this suggestion to the teacher because of their cultural belief that parents should respect the teacher's authority and should not interfere with the curriculum or administrational decisions. In general, Koreans revere persons who hold positions in academic institutions far more than the mainstream U.S. citizen does.

My observations here cannot be generalized to all immigrated Asian families. While some aspects of this family's approach may not be acceptable to the mainstream U.S. culture the family's educational values and cultural traditions that drive their commitment, devotion, and high expectations may be useful information for educators working with Asian children and families.

References

Benjamin. A.H., & Williamson, G. (2000). Little mouse and the big red apple. New York: Scholastic.

Preston, T. (2000). The lonely scarecrow. New York: Scholastic.

--Lea Lee, International/ Intercultural Committee