In this final portion of the module, you'll learn about different ways to identify and build upon students' funds of knowledge in the classroom. Specifically, this section highlights connecting with families, diversifying classroom libraries, and connecting to academic content.

Classroom Practices

Educators often underestimate children's knowledge and what they are able to do, both practically and intellectually. By learning about students' family and community funds of knowledge, they can connect students' skills and knowledge to classroom content (Handsfield & Valente, 2016). Teachers should focus on meaningful activity rather than rote memorization and decontextualized facts (Campano, 2011; España & Herrera, 2020).

Connecting with families

The dominant framework for conducting home visits has, unfortunately, centered around how teachers can help parents; that is, help them support their children's academics, be involved in school, understand school expectations, etc. However, this one-way framework is grounded in deficit assumptions about families and communities. From a funds of knowledge perspective, a key purpose of a home visit is for teachers to learn from families; to understand family expectations, practices, languages, as well as their hopes and dreams for their children (González, Moll & Amanti, 2005).

In the video below, listen to how both parents and teachers talk about home visits that are conducted from a strengths-based and two-way framework.

In addition to conducting home visits, there are other ways to connect with families both at the beginning of the school year and as the school year progresses to learn about and tap into funds of knowledge. Consider the following three ideas. Click on each one to view detailed suggestions.

Create a Wall Display for Family Photos

Each student can bring in family photos or artifacts to place on their own portion of the "family wall," and write captions or descriptions of important family members or experiences.

Make Back to School Night a Family Affair

Although some family members can't attend due to work responsibilities, consider making the event more invitational to families:

Begin with informal browsing, social interaction, and food
Invite whole families, including the student and younger siblings, so that childcare is not an issue
Consider a circle of chairs and solicit parents'/ caregivers' opinions on homework, children’s responsibilities, behavioral expectations.

Language, Literacy, & Interest Surveys

Consider using interest inventories and surveys to get to know your students and families. There are many that focus not just on favorite subjects or books, but also the kinds of language and literacy practices children and families engage in at home. The following is one example, which can be sent home or used as an interview guide:

Home Literacy Survey (Span/Eng.)

Diversifying classroom libraries

In the first portion of this module, you viewed four different read alouds of children's literature. Although each book on its own foregrounds a particular culture or cultural experience, together, these four books comprise a diverse set of multicultural children's literature.

In the video below, Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, Professor Emerita from Ohio State University, presents her framework for thinking about multicultural children's literature.

Including diverse multicultural children's literature in school and classroom libraries, and using them instructionally, is one way to include, honor, and build upon students' funds of knowledge. The infographic below, however, reveals disturbing inequities with respect to the diversity of children's literature.

Note that there almost three times as many books featuring animals as there are featuring African and African-American people, and more than five times as many that feature Latinx people.

Take a moment to do a quick-write, in which you think on paper for about 5 minutes regarding the potential effects of this inequity on elementary students' developing academic and social identities.

Next, click on the button below to visit the Social Justice Books website and its guide for selecting anti-bias children's literature. This guide offers a variety of criteria for you to consider as you evaluate different texts and build your own classroom library.

Guide to Anti-Bias Children's Literature

Connecting home and community activities to academic content

Multicultural children's literature is a fantastic curricular resource across content areas (Vasquez, 2017). However, there are additional ways that you can connect students' funds of knowledge to your curriculum. Click on the image below to navigate to this interactive infographic, which connects a variety of home and community activities to academic content.

Also, consider inviting family members into your classroom to participate in the curriculum. For example, if several of your students' families have gardens or work in agriculture, invite parents or caregivers into the classroom to share their expertise in a unit on plant life. Perhaps a student's uncle is an auto mechanic, and could share what they know about how engines work and how that relates to physical forces, or how an engine's function relates to gases, solids, and liquids.

The video embedded below offers an in-depth view into a bilingual fourth/fifth grade combination classroom in which the teacher, Laura Alvarez, uses a variety of the strategies that have been presented on this final page of the module within a social studies unit on immigration. As you watch, try to document how she integrates and builds on students' funds of knowledge in the unit.

You have reached the end of this module. Thank you for your engagement.

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