This mixed-methods study was designed to examine how different home literacy environments shape gender differences in Chinese-Canadian first graders' (N = 76) bilingual lexical attainment and literacy engagement. Quantitative analyses indicated that girls outperform boys in both Chinese (L1) and English (L2) vocabulary. Gender differences were not…

Reading identities are the ways that a person constructs the self as a reader across contexts and time. This study explores reading identities as a developmental process in multilingual children in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Participants were six children ages three to four participating in a Chinese-English family literacy program over a…

Drawing on sociocultural theories of language and literacy practice and Curdt-Christiansen's theoretical framework of family language policy (FLP), this multiple case study investigates the perceptions, practices, and challenges regarding heritage language maintenance (HLM) of Chinese immigrant families in a mid-sized Midwestern American city. The…

This is a qualitative case study that explores conversational interactions during book-reading practices in a Mandarin-speaking Chinese American family between the mother and her two young children. The study employs a sociocultural lens and the concept of translanguaging to describe the characteristics of interactional practices during book…

This experimental study explores the effects of workshops designed to increase directly the knowledge of Latinx parents, and indirectly, their children's vocabulary knowledge. Thirty-two Latinx mothers were randomly assigned to either attend six workshops in Spanish (n = 17), or to a wait-list control group (n = 15). Workshops included carefully…

A family literacy project serving Mexican immigrants taught parents how to encourage literacy development of their children aged three through five and fostered parents' critical literacy by first meeting their needs for functional literacy. Parent participants increased the time spent reading to their children, provided more reading materials at…

In a study examining situational autobiography, a learner in a family literacy classroom completed three situational autobiography chapters and then explored the same themes with her children at home. Findings indicate that knowledge of learners' backgrounds is essential to providing quality education, and situational autobiography has a healing…

A family literacy program for Salvadoran refugees and other Latinos in Arlington (Virginia) is analyzed from a sociocultural perspective as exemplifying an educational project designed and implemented by grassroots organizations in an increasingly diverse, multicultural/multilingual community. The program addresses the educational needs of poor…