The purpose of this article is to examine developments in the area of family literacy over the last decade. Acknowledging the bifurcation that has occurred in the field of family literacy, as well as changing conceptions of literacy and of families, we review naturalistic studies of literacy embedded and enacted in communities and families across…

Dialogic reading is an interactive shared picture-book reading practice designed to enhance young children's language and literacy skills. During the shared reading practice, the adult and the child switch roles so that the child learns to become the storyteller with the assistance of the adult, who functions as an active listener and questioner.…

In this article, the author offers ways on how to find a voice when telling or sharing stories in print or in person. To find a voice, someone must: (1) Trust themselves; (2) Trust their audience whether they know they can trust them or not; (3) Be respectful in their inventions; (4) Listen to and read the stories of others; (5) Make mistakes; (6)…

If you're new to running a library or looking for a refresher, this book can serve as your first reference source for school library operation, providing overview information on a wealth of topics, lists of resources for more in-depth information, and coverage of current topics such as Web 2.0, fundraising, digital booktalks, and cybersafety.…

Introduction: Parents who were the primary caretakers of children in the Alphabetic and Contracted Braille Study (ABC Braille Study) revealed their perspectives about braille literacy. Methods: A 30-item questionnaire was constructed by the ABC Braille research team, and researchers conducted telephone interviews with 31 parents who were the…

This study evaluates the Better Parenting Programme (BPP) which has been implemented nationally in Jordan to enhance parents' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours related to caring for young children. The participants (N = 337, 94% female) were randomly assigned to an experimental group or a control group. The experimental group participated in…

Purpose: The aim of this investigation was to describe and compare the communication behaviors and interactive reading strategies used by Mexican American mothers of low- and middle-socioeconomic status (SES) background during shared book reading. Method: Twenty Mexican American mother-child dyads from the Southwestern United States were observed…

This article presents picture books that are considered as a sample of children's literature selections on war, terrorism, and natural disasters for pre-K to 3rd-grade children which were chosen with both young children and their teachers and parents in mind. The authors recommend these books to be used as read-alouds, so that caring adults who…

Can readers exert control (albeit unconsciously) over activation at particular loci in the reading system? The authors addressed this issue in 4 experiments in which participants read target words aloud and the factors of prime-target relation (semantic, repetition), context (related, unrelated), stimulus quality (bright, dim), and relatedness…

Reading aloud is a strategy that has been utilized by elementary and primary grade teachers for years and continues to be used today with young children. Research supports the use of such a strategy to help young potential readers develop a love for the spoken and written word. However, there is very little research to support the use of reading…

This study investigates the effects of rich explanation, baseline vocabulary, and home reading practices on English language learning (ELL) preschoolers' sophisticated vocabulary learning from storybook reading. Eighty typically developing preschoolers were pretested in L1 (Portuguese) and L2 (English) receptive vocabulary and were assigned to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of an 18-week program of direct and extended vocabulary instruction with kindergarten students on both proximal measures of target word knowledge and transfer measures of generalized language and literacy. A second purpose was to examine whether treatment effects would be moderated by…

Relatively little is known regarding preschool teachers' use of specific scaffolds, including those high support scaffolds (e.g., co-participating, eliciting, reducing choices) that may be important for children who are struggling to acquire language and literacy concepts. The goal of this study was to characterize preschool teachers' use of six…

It is well known that children's language development lays the foundation for their literacy development, though it is difficult for preschool teachers alone to consistently engage in the individual interactions necessary to boost children's language skills. Given that parents are their children's first teachers, it is imperative to consider how…

In this collective case study of caregiver behaviors with their toddlers, two-minute videotaped reading interactions were analyzed using a constant comparative method. Twenty-four caregiver-toddler dyads from a high-risk sample of children prenatally exposed to cocaine were selected from a larger sample because they represented the extremes of…