Learning together across generations: guidelines for family literacy and learning programmes

Family literacy and family learning are approaches to learning that focus on intergenerational interactions within families and communities. This, in turn, promotes the development of literacy, numeracy, language and life skills. Family learning recognizes the vital role that parents, grandparents and other caregivers play in their children’s education. Furthermore, it values and supports all forms of learning in homes and communities. It seeks to break down artificial barriers between learning in different contexts: in formal or non-formal settings in schools or adult literacy courses, on the one hand, and in informal home and community environments, on the other. Very often, the desire to help children with schoolwork motivates parents or caregivers to re-engage in learning themselves and improve their own literacy, numeracy, language and other basic skills. For this reason, family literacy and family learning initiatives support adults, whose own education has been limited for various reasons, in helping their children with learning. The focus of family literacy and family learning is therefore on both children’s and adults’ learning.