Assessing Emergent, Social, and Multiliteracy Practices in Urban Malaysian Homes

Abstract

This article aims to assess parents’ understanding of literacy practices, including emergent, social and multiliteracy practices. In Malaysia, literacy skills are generally only taught in the classroom. However, research shows that the home and school are overlapping ‘spheres of influence’. Children learn emergent and social literacy practices prior to school age and these are powerful factors towards future success in school. This paper stems from the findings from the Multimodal Community Literacy project, which was a day-long literacy event which used multiliteracies (arts and crafts, songs, videos, movies, and storytelling) to facilitate an understanding of and participation in social literacy practices among working class parents’. The participants comprised administrative staff with young children, aged 2 to 8, from the Institute of Teacher Education in (city), Malaysia. This case study used structured questionnaire triangulated with parent and caregiver interviews. The project assessed family’s understanding, access, frequency and types of social literacy practices applied at home. The findings revealed that parents’ belief in what constituted literacy practices differed from research defined social literacy practices. Finally, this article provides examples of parent teacher collaborations to increase social literacy practices towards student success in school.