Family Literacy for Language Minority Families

Family Literacy for Language Minority Families

Margaret Mulhern, Flora V. Rodriguez-Brown, Timothy Shanahan

Faced with the challenge of educating an increasingly diverse student population, educators are looking beyond the school walls toward families and communities as resources for fostering academic success for all. Although families have always played an important role in promoting the academic success of their children (Swap 1993), changing demographics have forced schools to rethink the ways in which they reach out to families. Parents play many roles in their children's education. They provide for their children's physical and emotional needs and assure their attendance at school. Through communication with the school, they act as liaisons for their children as they cross home-school boundaries.