The Home-School Connection: Lessons Learned in a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Community

"In this unique contribution to the literature on parental involvement in culturally and linguistically diverse communities, Flora Rodríguez-Brown offers a critique of family literacy programs that lack a clear design for literacy activities relevant to community goals, offering an alternative model that is grounded within an abiding respect for the parents’ role as the child’s first, and ultimately, most important teacher."

Robert D. Milk, University of Texas, San Antonio

The Project FLAME program used as context for this book is a comprehensive family literacy model, supported by a strong sociocultural framework based on current research on cultural ways of learning and theories of multiliteracies and discourse. The model highlights the relevance of parents’ knowledge, cultural ways, and discourses in sharing literacy knowledge with their children.

A pressing need exists for models and programs that effectively serve the educational needs of the steadily increasing numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse students in U.S. public schools today. Addressing issues related to development, implementation, and effectiveness of a program model that fulfills this need, this book is an essential resource for educators, community workers, and researchers interested in the relevance of the home-school connection in relation to children’s school success.

Flora V. Rodríguez-Brown is a Professor in Curriculum and Instruction, and in the Literacy, Language and Culture Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.