When it comes to reading, all the promotional campaigns in the world can't measure up to the power of the family.

This was the word from American reading expert Patricia Edwards, president of the International Reading Association, who was on the Island to speak at the annual Bermuda Reading Association Conference at the Hamilton Princess Hotel.

"Some kids come in the schoolroom door and what they bring in, in terms of literacy, matches right up with the school," Dr. Edwards said. "Most schools want kids to come in marinated in the literature.

"They want them to come in soaking and dripping with print. What happens to those who don't come in this way?

"Some students do not come from reading environments. Some parents do not talk to their children."

Dr. Edwards wrote a book on this theme called 'A Path to Follow: Listening to Parents'. The book is partly about how teachers need to understand a student's culture and cultural attitudes towards learning in order to teach more effectively.

The book suggests that teachers can learn a lot about the parents' attitudes by asking the right questions and listening to the parents' stories.

As an educator, Dr. Edwards developed two acclaimed family literacy programmes, 'Parents as Partners in Reading' and 'Talking Your Way to Literacy'.

She last spoke in Bermuda in 2000, and said since then there had been an increasing emphasis on what is termed 'multiple literacies'.

"Different people come from different households and therefore bring different literacy traditions," she said. "The whole term of literacy practices came from Brian Street who is from Great Britain.

"Mr. Street theorised that educators need to begin to look at the different literacy practices that students bring into the classroom."

She said educators also had to look at the literacy skills of the parents, which can be very important. And she said because of pride, parental illiteracy is often kept hidden.

"I don't think parents are deliberately not helping their kids, but some parents may be hindered by their own illiteracy," she said. "If the parent doesn't have the literacy skills, and teachers are telling parents what to do but not showing, then that can be a break down."

And she said it was also important for parents to understand their child's abilities.

"So many parents don't know their child's strengths," she said. "I believe every child has strengths even though they might have some weaknesses. I have worked with some low income families who love their children, but don't realise that there are things you need to do for a child even from when you are pregnant in terms of not smoking and eating properly."

She said half of a child's ability to function in the lower grades was about attitude.

"As long as a child has a positive attitude, 'I can do it', they are blessed," she said. "If the child says, 'I can't do it', then they are struggling."

Dr. Edwards currently lives in Michigan where she is a professor in the college of education at Michigan State University. She grew up in Albany, Georgia.

"School was a top priority," she said. "My grandfather created a school called 'The Plumber Colored School' in the 1920s. My uncle was the first teacher at that school." Her great uncle was singer Ray Charles' father.

"In the movie, 'Ray', there was a very powerful part where his mother advocated for his education," said Dr. Edwards. "In my family, education was the way out of any situation."

As a teenager, in the 1960s she was part of a second wave of African-Americans to enter a previously all-white high school in Georgia. She quickly excelled, despite racist attitudes at the school and in her community.

While there, she took part in a prestigious debate competition at a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, but she had to enter the debate locale through the kitchen, because the hotel was whites-only.

That day, as she passed through the kitchen, the black kitchen staff cheered her on. Unfortunately, her parents couldn't do the same, as they were forced to wait in the car, because they weren't allowed inside.

Ironically, the topic that day was 'Should black students be allowed in white schools?'. Her school won the championship.

"Neither of my parents went to college," she said. "At the time they were growing up there was no financial aid. They grew up on farms. They moved to town. Their goal was to have a middle class life. They didn't grow up poor, but they wanted a better life for us.

"My mother always said you need to be ready when opportunity comes your way."

The Bermuda Reading Association Conference marked the organisation's 25th anniversary, making it one of the oldest professional groups in Bermuda.

Dr. Edwards said that at a panel discussion held at the Hamilton Princess, one consensus was a need for greater emphasis on pre-school education in Bermuda.

"We need to make sure that every child has an even start," she said. "We shouldn't go from programme to programme to programme. It should be something that is sustainable."

Dr. Edwards said there is no one reading programme to solve all literacy problems.

"You have to say, 'what do we want to be like in Bermuda?'. That was a theme of the conference. We looked at this whole notion of can children from Bermuda go world wide and compete?

"The consensus was yes."

She said that Bermudians need to have global skills, because you never know where life will take you.

"Premier Ewart Brown was on the news saying that President Obama is willing to do some collaborative work with Bermuda. That is great. We are a world market. If you say I just live over here, and you are over there, you are not going to make it."

As president of the International Reading Association, Dr. Edwards said one of her goals was to make the organisation more 'international' in keeping with its name.

"One of our themes is we teach the world to read," she said. "I think teaching the world to read is a complete Westernised approach. People from all over the world come to America. We don't necessarily know what literacy traditions they come with. We tend to sometimes not do well with teaching literacy when kids come from other cultures into America.

"One of the things I would like to do is look at some of the westernised practices we have play out or don't play out in a world setting.

"If you have an international organisation, then you have to be looking at literacy from an international perspective."

She said despite the name of her group, they are 90 percent European-American, and only seven percent 'other'.

"I would like to see a path to leadership in the International Reading Association for others," she said. "I want to give other people in other cultures a chance. The only other international president we had was Dr. Marie Clay from New Zealand. She developed the Reading Recovery programme that took the western world by storm.

"If we want to be international we have to be serious about it. We need to listen to the views and perspectives of other people."

To hear the presidential address that Dr. Edwards gave in 2007 at the annual meeting of the National Reading Conference in Austin, Texas, entitled 'The Education of African American Students: Voicing the Debates, Controversies, and Solutions' go to http://www.msularc.org/html/prin_edwards.html