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Vietnamese-born Ha Nguyen moved to Canada over 17 years ago and immediately experienced the value of learning English as a second language. Now with the ability to read and speak English, Nguyen is turning her focus to teaching her young children the same skills.

Two years ago, Nguyen started taking PALS classes with her three-year-old son, Sivutha. Offered by 2010 Legacies now in conjunction with 21 school districts across the province, PALS (Parent as Literacy Supporters) provides parents with skills and techniques to support literacy and numeracy skills in their pre-school and kindergarten-aged children. The Langley-area program Nguyen participated in was a pilot for immigrant families, where the instruction materials and children's books were available in both English and Vietnamese.

The program started with basic learning techniques, but expanded to include English as a second language and computer lessons for the parents. Having experienced the benefits of PALS for both her son and herself, Nguyen set out to convince other Vietnamese parents to take part in the sessions.

"At first they were worried, but now they are not afraid to say something in English. It's really good for them," said Nguyen. Nguyen is such a believer in the program, she is now returning with her two-year-old daughter, Samantha.

Tim Everson, principal of Aldergrove's Parkside Elementary School, says that the Vietnamese parents, almost all of whom are Fraser Valley farm workers, were previously reluctant to set foot in their children's schools or kindergartens. Now they are attending Meet the Teacher Night and have become directly involved in supporting their children's early education.

"The Vietnamese families in this area didn't ever see the school as a place for them," says Everson. "Their participation in PALS built a connection between them and the school."

Developed by UBC researcher Jim Anderson and 2010 Legacies Now Director of Family Literacy Fiona Morrison, PALS typically consists of 10 monthly sessions that feature playful learning exercises for the children, as well as hands-on instruction for the parents on how to utilize a range of materials, such as puzzles, games, riddles, rhymes, story books, common road signs and product labels to help reinforce early learning at home.

"We need to be working more in multi-lingual communities to help parents from different cultures to connect with the BC school system, which is usually very different from their own school systems," says Morrison. "But we must do it in ways that build on the families' existing strengths and are respectful of their first language and cultural practices."

Morrison explains that the bulk of parent participants in PALS, including the Vietnamese parents in Langley, tend to experience positive outcomes of their own, including enhancement of their own literacy skills, as well as a corresponding boost in self-esteem.

Everson agrees, saying that not only have the parents taken enthusiastically to understanding the structured approach to introducing their children to written words and numbers, they took just as eagerly to the chance to further their own English skills and use computers for the first time.

"It started from basics, and then they learned how to send e-mail, how to find Vietnamese newspapers and websites that translated English and Vietnamese," says Everson, who volunteered use of the school's computer lab for the lessons. "The ability to speak a bit of English and use computers has enabled them to function much more effectively and independently on a day-to-day basis."

Nguyen, says that it wasn't easy at first to convince other parents, who typically go to work in the pre-dawn hours, to take time out to attend sessions they felt would amount to little more than play-time.

"I tell them you can't think like that," she says with wide-eyed conviction. "The kids are young, but they can learn a lot of things."

Shortly after arriving with her family in 1990 from Ho Chi Minh City, Ha's parents enrolled their daughter in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, which she says ultimately enabled her to get year-round indoor work at a specialty meat processing plant. The advantage she has over other parents in the Vietnamese community in the Langley area is painfully obvious to her.

"They work so hard. It's difficult for them to go to ESL," she explains. "They leave work to come to PALS, and then they go back to work."

One of the best things about being in PALS she says is watching her co-participants' confidence grow the more they spoke English during the PALS sessions, adding that she has friends as far away as Burnaby who hope to have an opportunity to enroll.

Morrison is optimistic that immigrant families throughout the province will soon have that opportunity. With the highly successful pilot completed, along with another conducted for Punjabi families in Vancouver and Abbotsford, she hopes to soon secure additional funding to pay for translating lesson materials into a number of languages, effectively enabling 2010 Legacies Now to complement its many literacy initiatives with a province-wide immigrant PALS training program.

In the meantime, the Langley School District has agreed to utilize the already translated materials to continue offering PALS training to accommodate the local Vietnamese community's growing interest. As a result, many of the same parents recently brought another cohort of pre-schoolers to participate in a third year of PALS sessions at Parkside Elementary.

Joining them was a handful of newcomers, who no doubt heard the news that by providing a jump-start to their children's education, they can also begin resuming their own.