Children's book provisions in a family literacy program: low-income Latina mothers and their children
Book Chapter
Lynch, J, Mirabal, J. (2025). Children's book provisions in a family literacy program: low-income Latina mothers and their children
. 152-167. 10.4337/9781035326983.00014
Lynch, J, Mirabal, J. (2025). Children's book provisions in a family literacy program: low-income Latina mothers and their children
. 152-167. 10.4337/9781035326983.00014
This chapter focuses on a multilingual family literacy program in the Southeastern US. The goal is to share ways that a program, focused on children's book provisions in the first language, has implications for practices engaged in as reported by participants. The program included mostly mothers of Hispanic descent and their 4–5-year-old children. Some of the participating mothers reported not reading or writing in English and Spanish or having limited reading ability in both languages, yet signed up for the program that gave children's books to the families. All children were enrolled in Head Start, an early childhood program for low-income families. Less is known about how print shared with parents with low print literacy impacts their engagement with children outside program sessions. Specifically, this chapter reports on ways that parents and children use the books outside the family literacy session and ways that their engagement is supported by the family literacy program. The chapter shares the findings of six semi-structured interviews with Latina mothers about their practices with their children as a result of program participation.This research offers insight for literacy programs and early educators.
