This report from the field shares information describing a pilot program that addressed the literacy needs of middle school culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. One of the authors played a key role in designing and implementing the Building Bonds family literacy program. This program was made to engage these students and their…

Language and learning norms constitute the biggest constraint for refugee learners attempting to access education in Uganda because they struggle to demonstrate competencies in English despite acquiring them in their local language (Arabic, French, or Swahili). Learners are assigned to lower levels, contributing to misalignment between their…

The use of shared book reading is regarded as valuable to support young children to build their oral language and emergent literacy skills in preschool classrooms. Quantitative and qualitative features of early childhood teachers' (ECTs') shared book reading practices are important contributors to quality shared book reading experiences. The aim…

In this article, we review the literature on the impact of family literacy programmes on young children's language and literacy learning. After defining family literacy, we present a brief historical overview of family literacy programmes, including persistent questions regarding their effectiveness with respect to young children's language and…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and document the complexity of elementary level teacher candidates' (TC) visions of linguistically responsive literacy instruction while reflecting on and discussing exemplary teachers' video cases in a semester-long video club. The following questions guided this study: What do TC notice…

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) conducted a landscape evaluation of early childhood programs in Indiana (IN) between the spring of 2021 and the summer of 2022. Commissioned by Early Learning Indiana (ELI), this study provides Indiana programs and policymakers with research-based information on the quality of a sample of…

The quality of early care and education affects a wide range of children's experiences and developmental outcomes. Family Child Care (FCC) is no exception, and attention to increasing the quality of Family Child Care is needed. The purpose of the current study was to examine an experimental case of intensive Professional Development (PD) in FCC…

Technology has been viewed as a means to improve the quality of education for children globally, particularly in remote and marginal communities. This study examines the comparative advantages of the use of appropriate technology (off-line servers with digital libraries connected to a classroom set of laptops) in ten intervention schools in…

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of a family literacy program on Latino parents' language practices at home and their children's oral language skills. The study examined the extent to which (a) the program called "Family Reading Intervention for Language and Literacy in Spanish" was effective at teaching low-income,…

This essay describes the process of reassessing our BW program at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in order to cultivate a more deliberate, transparent negotiation among stakeholders toward a "transcultural ethos." Informed by Bruce Horner's argument that leading-edge work on language and language difference can take place in BW, we…

The purpose of this six-month qualitative microethnographic case study was to determine what influence a family literacy program based on positive mother-child verbal interactions would have on the participating adolescent mothers' literacy skills. The design of the program was founded on the Hart and Risley study (1995) and their findings…

"Open Court Reading©" is a reading program for grades K-6 published by McGraw-Hill Education that is designed to teach decoding, comprehension, inquiry, and writing in a three-part logical progression. Part One of each unit, Preparing to Read, focuses on phonemic awareness, sounds and letters, phonics, fluency, and word knowledge. Part…

This study reports on the effects of the Pathway Project, a professional development intervention aimed at supporting the academic language development of English Learners (ELs). Using a subset of data collected during a multi-site cluster randomized controlled trial involving nine middle and six high schools in an urban, low-income school…

This multi-sited ethnographic study examines the ways in which Latino and Asian immigrant parents' English learning through two church-based ESL programs in a Southeastern U.S. city affects their family literacy and home language practices. It demonstrates that the parents' participation in the programs is an empowering experience promoting ESL…

The Family Backpack Project provided 249 low-income, prekindergarten children and their families with opportunities to read and listen to audio recordings of 3 sets of books in their homes. Families received English or dual-language texts (English plus Spanish, Arabic, Kurdish, or Somali) matched to their home languages. Children and their…