This brief explores some of the evidence supporting approaches to family engagement that are effective methods of improving academic achievement. It also includes an overview of different types of family engagement, including case study examples of promising practices and recommendations for parents, school personnel, program officials, and…

The next wave of educational reform proposals is targeting the persistent dropout rate and the declining level of adult literacy. Evidence of an intergenerational link between these two issues suggests the need for new models of education, holistic analysis of educational disadvantage, and family and community interventions. (SK)

Community-based family support and educational programs provide services to families during pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood that are intended to improve family conditions, parental competence and behavior, and maternal and child health and development. Networks of social service agencies emphasize prevention and maintenance in reaching and…

The Youth Services Director of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, NC, has involved the community in encouraging children to read with summer reading programs, story-telling festivals, author and illustrator visits to schools, family reading programs for babies through kindergartners, and a year-round middle school reading…

This digest examines barriers to parent participation in the education of Mexican American students, and successful programs and strategies for overcoming those barriers. Research has found family participation in education to be twice as predictive of academic achievement as family socioeconomic status. Mexican American parents care about their…

Efforts to solve intergenerational literacy must focus on the family as a unit. However, schools traditionally have a poor track record in dealing with minority/disadvantaged students and involving their parents. Studies have demonstrated the importance of family/community influence on children as well as the cultural and linguistic insensitivity…