This book was published to mark the tenth anniversary of Hamburg's award-winning Family Literacy project (FLY). It includes contributions from key stakeholders--academics, teachers, parents and children--participating in the conceptualization and implementation of FLY in the city of Hamburg. FLY mainly targets people from socially disadvantaged…

Increasingly, governments are seeking ways to integrate early childhood education and care services as a social policy strategy to maximize child and family outcomes. This study examines the role of a school-based parenting and family literacy program to a system of services in one community in Ontario, Canada. Using an appreciative inquiry…

The home literacy environment (HLE) predicts language and reading development in typically developing children; relatively little is known about its association with literacy development in children at family-risk of dyslexia. We assessed the HLE at age 4 years, precursor literacy skills at age 5, and literacy outcomes at age 6, in a sample of…

In Australia, students from Chinese and Arabic language backgrounds form the largest minority language groups in the New South Wales (NSW) public school system. Yet the mainstream academic performance of students from these two communities show marked differences in their levels of attainment. This article explores the home literacy practices of…

Background: Little is known about the nature, range and prevalence of different subgroups in language trajectories extant in a population from 4 to 11 years. This hinders strategic targeting and design of interventions, particularly targeting those whose difficulties will likely persist. Methods: Children's language abilities from 4 to 11 years…

Research Findings: This study investigated the long-term interrelations among children's language competencies, their home literacy environment (HLE), and 3 aspects of socioemotional development from ages 3 to 8, controlling for characteristics of the child and family. For this sample of 547 typically developing German children, parents and…

This study examined how parents' own learning affected their support for their children in a school-based Family Literacy Programme. Seventy-two children in junior kindergarten (4-year-olds) and senior kindergarten (5-year-olds) and their parents participated in the programme; complete data were available for 52 parents. Comparisons of pre- and…

This handbook identifies principles and policy mechanisms to advance community-based learning for sustainable development based on the commitments endorsed by the participants of the "Kominkan-CLC International Conference on Education for Sustainable Development," which took place in Okayama City, Japan, in October 2014. To inform…

This column features two prominent literacy scholars, Catherine Compton-Lilly and Eve Gregory. They discuss their recent research studies in various contexts and describe the reciprocal relationships between school, home, and community literacy practices.

This compilation includes programmes which promote language and culture as resources and see them as an added value rather than a challenge for literacy teaching and learning. It also includes programmes designed to support migrants and refugees by equipping them for integration into mainstream society while strengthening their literacy skills in…

In this paper, we analyse one aspect of home-school book sharing, namely the activity of borrowing a book. We describe how the borrowing activity is accomplished in daily practice in two Dutch preschools and which emergent literacy practices can be embedded in this routine. We followed fifteen children, aged from two years to four years, and…

In this article we describe the ways that academic opportunity is distributed within the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Canada's largest and most demographically diverse public education system. By putting a range of recent outcome data into historical, organizational, and policy contexts, we provide a snapshot of how one of North America's…

This report highlights the critical role family literacy and learning play in breaking down barriers between different learning contexts and engaging hard-to-reach adults and children in education. This report was developed as part of a family learning project initiated by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in 2016. Based on the…

In Australia, emphasis in early childhood education policy is placed on the importance of the role of the family as a child's first educator, and finding effective ways to raise the effectiveness of parents in supporting children's learning, development and well-being. International studies demonstrate that the home learning environment (HLE)…

Major sociocultural contexts of learning such as families, communities and schools are imbued with power, and power favours some more than others. Given that schools are important sites of social and cultural reproduction, one of their major tasks is to teach learners to be literate. However, literacy is often viewed only as schooled literacy in…