Family literacy programs can be effective for supporting the literacy learning of both parents and children. Educators and community members can be constructive in establishing family literacy programs in their school and in the community. Having knowledge of successful family literacy programs is important for both initiating and continuing with…

In all, 15 Latina mothers participated in a 10-week bilingual family reading project implemented at a public elementary school in rural Texas. Convivencia and pláticas were critical components for the implementation of the family reading project. Thus, the research question guiding the present article is as follows: How can pláticas with Latina…

It is hypothesized that variability found in the effects of family literacy programs results from differences in implementation by parents. In this study, the implementation and effects of a Dutch program were examined in a sample of 207 kindergarteners (mean age at pre-test: 64 months). No main intervention effects on children's literacy…

Background: Research has suggested that one of the most important variables for the development of reading comprehension is the home literacy environment, composed of the literacy interface and what is known as the limiting environment. The current study investigated Spanish children's reading comprehension in relation to these two dimensions.…

This Kindergarten Teacher's Guide provides information for kindergarten teachers on how to support families as they practice foundational reading skills at home. It serves as a companion to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade. Both guides present four…

The Reading Apprenticeship is an intervention that has been shown in previous studies to increase struggling readers, tested reading achievement by 8 to 9 months during a 12 week, in-school program. This article reports on the first study of the Reading Apprenticeship method conducted in the summer using parents, rather than supervised volunteers,…

Programs that promote family literacy, as defined by Hannon (2003), are "programs to teach literacy that acknowledge and make use of learners' family relationships and engagement in family literacy practices." Why are such programs important for young learners? According to Livingston and Wirt (2003), children who have homes with books,…

Many English language learners (ELLs) and children living in poverty begin school with substantially less English vocabulary knowledge than their monolingual, economically advantaged peers. Without effective intervention, these vocabulary gaps are likely to contribute to long-term reading failure. This quasi-experimental study examined the extent…

A Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) framework was used in this study to gather and analyze the perceptions of mothers involved in a critical family literacy program designed to foster social and emotional development. Through narrative inquiry, participants discussed perceptions of their children's social-emotional development and the…

The purpose of this study was to examine how the social practices of African American families--with children in grades K-2--changed as a result of participating in a family literacy program utilizing African American children's literature. The families were exposed, through a series of workshops, to an abundance of children's literature…

This qualitative case study examines an after-school, bilingual family literacy programme that brought together several groups to form a community of practice (CoP) that worked to support the literacy development of English language learners and their families. We explored the following question: How do parents, teachers, students, and other…

This article reports on a family literacy program that began with the creation and implementation of a Welcome Center in an elementary school in the Southwest United States. This center was intended to be a place where recent immigrant students and their families, teachers, as well as other community members, came together to participate in…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday, February 17, 2009. It is the broadest and largest funding package in American history. The intent of the statute is to stimulate the economy both through direct spending on a range of programs and to create tax relief. The package makes investments…