Parental Literacy Support in Monolingual and Bilingual Contexts

This chapter focuses on early literacy acquisition as embedded in specific social contexts such as the child's home environment. During the last three decades, the role of parental support, or family support when those other than parents are involved in promoting children's literacy at home was broadly examined within a monolingual context. Concerning a bilingual context, numerous studies have shown that literacy acquisition in minority languages in a home or community setting might serve as a springboard for literacy acquisition in the second language. However, less is known on parental support of biliteracy among language-minority children. Thus, together with home support in the monolingual context, this chapter addresses research evidence on literacy practices in different languages provided by family members to children growing up in bilingual or multilingual homes. A brief overview of prominent theoretical frameworks is provided that outlines parental support and literacy development among children. In addition, drawing mainly on examples from North America, Israel, and other high-income-country contexts, research on parental support in a monolingual context is explored.