Family Literacy Workshops

The Lehigh Valley WritingProject offers a series of Family Literacy Workshops toincreaseparent involvement at local elementary schools by explicitly educating parents on current literacy issues that directly impact their children. Additionally, the program seeks to create meaningful interactions as well as to promote active engagement among all participants. The writing project is available to offer the workshops for area schools or districts that want to sponsor them. Each workshop is two hours long.

Workshop 1
Reading and Writing Within the Home

This engaging workshop was originally designed for the parents of students in the Allentown School District. The workshop will highlight the development of reading ingrades 1 to 5 (according to the State of Pennsylvania Standards). The topics of writing, speaking, and listening will also be discussed in relation to the overall development of reading skills. It is a goal of this workshop that participants will learn how their child's reading performance can be reinforced within the home and the substantial impact this will have on their child's journey as a life-time reader. Participants will also create instructional materials (e.g., retelling cards, memory box, magnetic sight words, etc.) that they can utilize at home with their children (in order to immediately reinforce the skills/strategies that were emphasized throughout the workshop).

Workshop 2
Rigby Workshop

This informative workshop will explicitly address the components of a Balanced Literacy program: Shared Reading, Read Alouds, Guided Reading, Shared Writing, Interactive Writing, and Phonics. Participants will become thoroughly familiarized with the terminology often utilized in a reading program (i.e., retellings, running records, decoding context clues, reading strategy, etc.). Parents will also learn practical ways in which they can engage their children in daily tasks that will directly support the balanced literacy program.

Workshop 3
Writing Workshop

Participants will be explicitly instructed on the steps of the writing process (i.e., prewriting, first draft, revising, editing, and publishing). Participants will learn how to employ innovative approaches and fun activities that will facilitate the reinforcement of writing skills within the home. On the night of the workshops, there will also be a celebration of student writings. Students will be introduced to the audience as “authors.” Each student will then read (aloud) his or her writing piece.

Workshop Information

• Workshops can be offered in English or Spanish.
• An additional facilitator will accompany the presenter for the Reading and Writing Within the Home workshop.
• 1-week prior to the scheduled date for the Rigby/Writing workshops, the presenter will need to know the exact number of people that will attend so the appropriate number of materials can be prepared. The presenter will need to be notified 2 weeks prior to the Reading and Writing Within the Home workshop.

The Lehigh Valley Writing Project will not coordinate daycare services for the workshops. All arrangements for daycare services must be made through the school district.   

Scheduling

Please contact us to discuss pricing and scheduling. We'll be happy to discuss adapting the programs to the specific needs of your school.

Andrea O'Brien, Presenter and Family Literacy Coordinator
Email: obriena@allentownsd.org

Kristy Weidner-Gonzalez, Lehigh Valley Writing Project Co-Director
Phone: 610-285-5231
Email: kmw14@psu.edu

This information is available in a one page flyer by clicking here.