The Effect of Family Literacy Interventions on Children's Acquisition of Reading - From Kindergarten to Grade 3

4 This publication was developed by the National Center for Family Literacy under a cooperative agreement with the Partnership for Reading at the National Institute for Literacy. It was designed and edited under a contract with RMC Research Corporation. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the policies of the National Institute for Literacy. No official endorsement by the National Institute for Literacy of any product, commodity, or enterprise in this publication is intended or should be inferred. The National Institute for Literacy, an agency in the Federal government, is authorized to help strengthen literacy across the lifespan. The Institute works to provide national leadership on literacy issues, including the improvement of reading instruction for children, youth, and adults by sharing information on scientifically based research. Human Services to make scientifically based reading research available to educators, parents, policy makers, and others with an interest in helping all people learn to read well. This Partnership for Reading publication describes strategies proven to work by the most rigorous scientific research available on the teaching of reading. The research that confirmed the effectiveness of these strategies used systematic, empirical methods drawn from observation or experiment; involved rigorous data analyses to test its hypotheses and justify its conclusions; produced valid data across multiple evaluators and observations; and was accepted by a peer-reviewed journal or approved by a panel of independent experts. The application of these research-based strategies will increase the likelihood of success in reading instruction. Adherence to scientifically based research in this publication was ensured by a review process that included representatives of each Partnership for Reading organization and external expert reviewers. For detailed information on this review process, The author expresses her gratitude to Laura Westberg, Tim Shanahan, and Akeel Zaheer for their invaluable support and help on this project. The report was enhanced by the thoughtful reviews provided by Chris Schatschneider and the Institute of Education Sciences. The author extends her thanks as well to Jaime Palmer and Laura Young for conducting the searches and coding the studies with great care. 2006 i Summary Goal. Educators believe that parents can help their children learn to read. But what evidence supports this belief? And if parent involvement does matter, what kinds of parent involvement are most efficient? The goal of this report was to review the scientific literature on parent involvement in the acquisition of reading from kindergarten to grade …