CFL Launches a new pilot initiative: The Read, Make, & Play Bag Project

At the UIC Center for Literacy (CFL) we seek to increase educational equity, access, and opportunities for families by fostering community-based social capital through multigenerational literacy programming, research, and partnerships. The Read, Make, & Play Bag program is a pilot program set to launch in late Spring 2020 that was developed to support families to engage in Parent And Child Together Time (PACT Time) at home with their children. PACT Time is a model developed by the National Centers for Families Learning (NCFL) in which parents and/or caregivers and children spend time co-learning through play and inquiry together. Research indicates that PACT time improves family well-being, parent/caregiver self-efficacy, and children’s achievement in schools. In many contexts, PACT Time is supervised in a child care center. CFL designed the Read, Make & Play Bag project as a way to create a more mobile version of the approach.

The participants in the project pilot are adult learners in one of CFL’s General Education Diploma (GED) programs that have young children enrolled in Head Start. The Read, Make, & Play Bag, a bookbag full of reading, writing, and creative arts activities, travels home with one adult education CFL student each week to encourage family members to read, play, make, and write with each other. The materials in the bag are culturally relevant texts and activities that emphasize the integration of daily life routines, such as cooking or bedtime routines, with literacy and STEAM activities. The adult learners are asked to creatively document the activities and time they spend using the materials given in a designated notebook and/or with a disposable camera (or share digitally via their phone). At the end of their week with their bag, CFL students keep everything but the designated notebook, and bring back the bag to be refilled with new items for the next CFL student, who will take it home. CFL instructors set aside about 45 minutes a week to model literacy activities, encourage adults to share stories aloud of what they did with the bag, and support adults’ personal or collaborative inquiries into questions that arose while they engaged in PACT time.

The pilot project is led by a team of UIC scholars and CFL staff. Dr. Kira Baker-Doyle, Director of the Center for Literacy and Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education, Dr. Sarai Coba-Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology in the College of Education, and Briana Schlesinger, Director of Research at CFL, will lead up program impact and evaluation research on the pilot. Shawndra Allen, doctoral student at the UIC College of Education and CFL instructor will lead the design and implementation of the project. Marta Salas, CFL staff member, will be project assistant.

For inquiries, or more information about the project, please contact Marta Salas at
mfajardo@uic.edu