This dissertation explores the intricate connections between African Americans, the Black Church, and educational outcomes, with a focus on implications for literacy development. Grounded in Critical Race Theory, the research seeks to unravel the structural complexities that contribute to the academic achievement gap faced by African American…

The purpose of this study was to identify malleable practices in the homes of Spanish-speaking toddlers prior to school enrollment. This was achieved by examining daily activities and routines and the role older siblings played in these interactions to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the home language and literacy environment and…

Learning to read is an important milestone in children's development. Factors in the home environment is been linked to the behavioral and neural correlates of reading, but further work is needed to unpack the underlying mechanisms. The home literacy environment (HLE) plays a role in children's reading and language development, while parental…

The United States has a long history of attempting to intervene or fix how families practice literacy together, with much less emphasis on honoring or understanding how families support literacy learning at home. This qualitative study employed a multiple-case design that examined teachers' and caregivers' efforts to bridge home and school…

Building upon the foundational Home Literacy Environment (HLE) model, this study developed a contemporary framework that integrates digital literacy practices and the emerging role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, such as ChatGPT, alongside traditional literacy activities. Utilizing hierarchical linear regressions, findings from 74…

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine home literacy environment (HLE) and how this environment affects the way parental responded to their children's oral miscues during shared reading. In addition, parental behavior-specifically corrective feedback as it relates to children's perceptions of reading in terms of their reading attitudes…

Providing early literacy training for children is a vital part of establishing the foundation for the learning they will do for the rest of their lives, so it is important that we do the right work from the start. Unfortunately, too many children are still reading below grade level by third grade, and instead of reading to learn new materials,…

This mixed-methods study examined caregiver engagement with literacy resources provided by the Governor's Early Literacy Foundation (GELF) in Tennessee. The research was rooted in Epstein et al.'s types of parental involvement, Hoover-Dempsey's parental involvement process model, and Gonzalez et al.'s funds of knowledge framework. The study…

Somalia has a long and rich oral literacy tradition of poetry, proverbs, and songs, while Somalia's print literacy history has been significantly disrupted by colonization and then the Somali Civil War. Many Somalis have fled the country since the start of the civil war in 1991, and an estimated 10,000 Somalis have made a new home in Maine. When…

In March of 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, drastically changing teaching and learning. Children were immediately placed in emergency remote learning, and parents became facilitators of their children's learning while children were in their virtual learning space. This study explored families' experiences with…

Culturally Relevant Pedagogical (CRP; Ladson-Billings, 1995) and textual strategic approaches to reading development are gaining acceptance and broader usage among students of all ages and walks of life. With this shift, quantitative measures of efficacy can confirm, bolster, and source new policies and strategies for implementation in new and…

Over the past two decades, U.S. states have widely adopted early literacy policies. These policies have shown short-term success in enhancing K-3 literacy skills. However, the reasons behind their widespread adoption and the factors driving their success are poorly understood. This three-paper dissertation focuses on Michigan's Read by Grade Three…

The development of emergent literacy, a precursor to formal reading, has been linked to subsequent conventional literacy skills in Chinese children. The factors important for acquiring Chinese reading skills, such as phonological and morphological awareness, have primarily been studied in primary school children rather than preschoolers. The…

This qualitative, single case study of linguistically diverse sixth-grade students to understand how these students explored and experienced their English literacy development (ELD) by using Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) and Collaborative Retrospective Miscue Analysis (CRMA). In addition, the study explored the roles that families and…

The purpose of this convergent parallel mixed method research design was to investigate family literacy activities reported by parents of Head Start children. In addition, the study explored the use of Family Literacy Book Bags by involving parents in shared reading and home-based literacy activities. Parents of Head Start children at a center in…