Literacy Assistance for Foreign Mothers as Empowerment

Towards Self-Reliant Child-Rearing in Concert with Nursery Schools and Kindergartens

Abstract

This paper clarifies literacy needs and issues based on an interview survey with foreign mothers of nursery school and kindergarten children, and makes suggestions regarding literacy assistance. The use of Japanese is essential for child-rearing in concert with nursery schools and kindergartens, and literacy is important for dealing with school notices and correspondence notebooks, yet our survey found that all of the mothers had difficulty writing in the correspondence notebooks. We found as well that the foreign mothers did not use the correspondence notebooks as Japanese mothers do: to build relations of trust with the staff and get advice about child-rearing problems. Whether or not the mothers write in the correspondence notebooks was found to depend greatly on their study of Japanese and their ability to write hiragana and katakana prior to when their children began to attend the schools. In order to support written correspondence between the mothers and the schools, it is necessary to produce self-study materials with which the mothers can learn the characteristic linguistic forms and flow of discourse found in correspondence notebooks. There also needs to be guidance in deciding what to write, and whether to write or try oral communication.