Enhancing Early Childhood Literacy in Multicultural Context of Yala Province Through Home-School Partnerships
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This research aimed to develop home-school partnership instruction model to enhance literacy for early childhood students in the context of a multicultural society in Yala Province. The research was developed through four steps of research process: 1)preparation, 2)creating the instruction model, 3) experimentation, and 4) improvement. A total of 13 schools participated in the project between 2021 and 2022. The instruction model was piloted for 8 weeks, and 308 families of the third-grade early childhood students aged 5 years old, and their parents participated in the program. Participants were divided into 2 groups: a control group of 121 families and an experimental group of 187 families. The developed instruction model fosters a collaborative learning environment, co-driven by parents at home and teachers at school. The results show that students from the experimental group had higher scores in early childhood literacy than the control group. The scores after the experiment were also significantly higher than before the experiment at the statistical significance level of .05 in 6 areas, including vocabulary, understanding of printed materials, knowledge of consonants, pronunciation of the first consonant, basic writing, and speaking. Furthermore, the research found positive changes in teachers’ instructional practices and in parents’ behaviors and attitudes toward early childhood parenting and learning support. The 5 key principles of the instruction model include the cooperation of parents and teachers in child’s learning, capacity building of both parents and teachers to facilitate multilingual education activities, teachers employ brain-based teaching methods that use the local language as a foundation for learning Thai and other languages, the languages and cultures of learners are integrated into the learning process, and learners appreciate the value of their own languages and cultures and those of others.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright Notice articles, information, images, etc. was published in this Journal of Yala Rajabhat University is a copyright of the journal Yala Rajabhat University. If any person or deparment wants to bring all or part of it for publish or take any action. Authorization is required in written form from the Journal of Yala Rajabhat University only.
References
Aphattananont, T. (2018). Multicultural schools: the Thai state’s education in multicultural society Chulalongkorn University press. (in Thai)
Assalihee, M. (2022). Parent engagement in children’s education. faculty of Islamic sciences, prince of Songkhla university, Pattani campus. (in Thai)
Buranrungroj, M. (2018). Guidelines for teaching and learning management for Thai-Malay youth in the southern border provinces. In S. Neelakup & U. Premsrirat (Eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education management in the southern border provinces (pp. 39–69). Center for the Study and Revitalization of Language and Culture in Crisis, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia, Mahidol University. (in Thai)
Cabell, S. Q., Zucker, T. A., Decoster, J., Copp, S. B. & Landry, S. (2019). Impact of a parent text messaging program on pre-kindergarteners’ literacy development. AERA Open, 5(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858419833339
De Froy, A. M., Sims, M. E., Sloan, B. M., Garjardo, S. A. & Rollins, P. R. (2021). Differential responses to child communicative behavior of parents of toddlers with ASD. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 6, 1–15.
Ghosh, L. (2021). Foundational literacy and numeracy in West Bengal. Economic and political Weekly, 56(16), 12-14.
Ghosh, S. & Steinberg, H. (2022). Parents, attitudes and unequal opportunities in early childhood development: Evidence from Eastern India. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 20(3), 413-430. http://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X221077170
Ismail, F. K. M. & Zubairi, A. M. B. (2022). Item analysis of a reading test in a Sri Lankan context using Classical Test Theory. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 21(3), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.21.3.3
Kumar, M. D. & Behera, B. (2022). Influence of home environment on children’s foundational literacy and numeracy skills: A systematic synthesis with India in focus. Asian journal of Mathematics Education, 1(3), 359-380. https://doi.org/10.1177/27527263221129366
Ladlia, K. (2023). The study on the situation of parenting education to enhance the wellbeing of young children from birth to three years in Sri Sakhon district, Narathiwat province. Journal of Inclusive and Innovation Education, 7(3), 46–60. (in Thai)
Naowarat, N. (2018). Multicultural education: Critical perspectives and practices in schools. Chiang Mai University. (in Thai)
National Statistical Office. (2023). Survey on the situation of children and women in Thailand 2022. National Statistical Office. (in Thai)
Premsrirat, S. (2018). Bilingual and multilingual education management in the southern border provinces. In S. Neelakup & U. Premasrirat (Eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education management in the southern border provinces (pp. 1–25). Center for Documentation and Revitalization of Languages and Cultures in Crisis, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia, Mahidol University. (in Thai)
Pruksapanachart, B. (2021). Parent-child quality time in preschool. Journal of the Psychiatric Association of Thailand, 66(4), 385–392. (in Thai)
Saenghong, N. (2025). Multicultural teacher education in ASEAN: from policy to practice, Chiang Mai University. (in Thai)
UNESCO. (2022). Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education. UN.
UNICEF. (2022). Gaps and inequalities among children and women in Yala Province. Bangkok: UNICEF.
Weldemariam, K. (2025). The home bilingualism environment as a venue for fostering and biliteracy: The case of an ethion – Norwegian bilingual Family in Oslo, Norway. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 25(1), 3–28.
Wevers, S. F., Steensel, R. V. & Arends, L. (2021). Effects of family literacy programs on the emergent literacy skills of children from low-SES families: a meta-analysis. Review of educational research, 91(4), 577–613.
