Continuity and change in home literacy practices of Hispanic families with preschool children

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine how Latino immigrant families incorporate school-based interactive literacy activities into their existing home literacy practices. Findings revealed that Hispanic parents appropriate school-related literacy activities into their existing repertoire when they believed it would best help their children to succeed academically. At the same time, parents modified school-related literacy activities to reflect their existing cultural beliefs and practices. These complex patterns of adapting school literacy practices into home literacy interactions revealed that Hispanic parents: (a) emphasise pleasure and interactivity in literacy activities; (b) merge supportive and direct instruction scaffolding strategies into home literacy instruction; (c) impart moral messages while engaging in interactive literacy activities with their children; and (d) activate linguistic resources by creating opportunities for bilingual literacy events to occur during school-designed interactive literacy activities.