This project, “First Teachers,” studied urban African-American families’ perceptions of an after school involvement program which incorporates family storytelling and writing using computers. The project also examined the development and maintenance of university partnerships with inner-city school families, families’ interaction and teaching strategies using computers, and the training of preservice and inservice teachers in a sociocultural-based family-school involvement model. Participating were two elementary schools in partnership arrangements with a university education department. One school is public and the other parochial with 90 to 100 percent of the students being African-American. Students in kindergarten through third grade and their families were invited to participate in the 1-hour, 1 day-a-week, after school program. The program is being implemented in 1996-97 through workshops conducted with school faculty and university education students. Children and families explore computersand co-author family stories and create family albums through telling, writing, and illustrating stories on computers. Data on family perceptions were collected through audiotaped semi-structured interviews. Preliminary findings indicated that: (1) there is a large variation in family-child interaction and teaching styles that support children’s learning and families’ knowledge about children’s learning; (2) families are able to observe other families who care deeply about their children’s education in a housing project community; and (3) families note a sense of reciprocal helping interactions. (Contains 41 references.) (KDFB)
