What do parents and teachers hear, share, do, and need when engaging in literacy partnerships?
Messages about Reading focuses on the strategies three schools adopted to strengthen their literacy partnerships with the parents in their communities and identifies some principles of effective partnerships. It reports on interviews with 54 New Entrant, Year 2, and Year 4 students, their parents, teachers, and school literacy leaders.
The study describes the approaches school staff and parents considered most successful for sharing literacy information, and further possibilities for improving home-school partnerships. It describes the school literacy information parents found particularly useful and the impact this information had on their home literacy practices. It also identifies further information these parents needed.
Messages About Reading will be a valuable resource and important reference for schools that are developing programmes to improve home-school communication and partnerships.