Bedtime Stories and Book Reports

This book brings together the newest research on parent involvement and family literacy—two fields that rarely exist in conversation with one another—and asks this question: How do race, class, gender, and history serve as potent factors that shape children’s school experiences? Each chapter offers portraits of real families and schools that illustrate parents’ awareness of their children’s school progress, their perceptions of teachers, and their involvement in teaching their children life lessons that extend beyond school achievement. Translating theory into action, this resource:

• Extends conversations about parent involvement and family literacy across time and multiple spaces—home, school, church, and community.
• Challenges accepted “deficit” notions of families by listening to parents’ counterstories of how they are involved with their children both in and out of school.
• Highlights the significance of race, class, gender, religion, sexual preference, and history in literacy learning and schooling.

Catherine Compton-Lilly is an assistant professor in curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of Re-Reading Families:

The Literate Lives of Urban Children, Four Years Later. Stuart Greene is associate professor of English with a joint appointment in Africana Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His books include the coedited volume with Dawn Abt-Perkins, Making Race Visible: Literacy Research for Racial Understanding, for which he won the National Council of Teachers of English Richard A. Meade Award in 2005.

“This is the right book at the right time. . . . Happy reading!”
—From the Foreword by Patricia A. Edwards, President, IRA, 2010–2011

“Children can't reach their full potential for literacy development without the participation of parents. This is a must-read.”
—Lesley M. Morrow, Rutgers University

“The fundamental ideological orientation of the volume’s authors is to set right the prevailing parents-as-problem orientation sometimes put forward by school administrators, teachers, and policymakers.”
—From the Afterword by Shirley Brice Heath, professor emerita, Stanford University

“The content of the book is a call for schools and teachers to recognize and value the diverse knowledge that culturally and linguistically different children bring from home as a stepping-stone to new learning. This will support all students’ transition into schooling, and will enhance the learning opportunities and success for all children.”
—Flora V. Rodríguez-Brown, University of Illinois at Chicago