Perspectives on parents’ contribution to their children’s early literacy development in multicultural western societies

Abstract

In this paper a review is provided of literature on early literacy programs with an emphasis on the role of parents in supporting their child’s early literacy development. Many early literacy programs emphasize the role of parents in supporting their child’s early literacy development. Suggested parent involvement activities in these programs mainly focus on reading activities (e.g. reading to children, shared reading), which are said to be very effective in promoting children’s literacy skills. Perspectives on parents’ role in supporting early literacy development, however, may vary across programs. Early literacy programs focus on parents’ supporting roles with varying levels of culture responsiveness. As current academic debates on early literacy development shift towards increased responsiveness towards minority cultures and try to link early literacy practices to strengths of existing cultural defined family practices, the current socio-political climate in western multicultural societies seems to call for less responsive practices, because culture responsiveness might endanger integration of minorities and negatively affect social cohesion. It is argued that a future challenge is to broaden intervention studies with socio-political perspective