This book offers a strengths-based, family-focused approach to improving the educational performance and school experience of struggling Black and Latino students. The book discusses educational challenges faced by low-income families of color and the different strengths within Black and Latino family life that can affect these challenges. It focuses building on these strengths within the children's home environments that can serve as a foundation for subsequent learning. The chapters describe a wide range of family practices and beliefs, including development of interventions to support families that promote early language and literacy, early mathematics, and social skills. The chapters also present quantitative and/or qualitative studies using a strengths-based approach to parents' socialization of their children's early academic skills. Topics featured in this book include: Latino and Black parental resources, investments, and beliefs Academic socialization in the homes of Black and Latino preschool children Development of culturally-informed interventions to promote children's school readiness skills Family-school partnerships as a tool for improving educational opportunities. Directions for future research Academic Socialization of Young Black and Latino Children is a must-have resource for researchers, educators, clinicians and related professionals, and graduate students in diverse fields including education, developmental and school psychology, family studies, counseling psychology and social work, and sociology of culture.

Literacy is one of the most highly valued cultural resources of contemporary American society, yet far too many children in the nation's cities leave school without becoming sufficiently literate. This book reports the results of a five-year longitudinal study in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, tracing literacy development from pre-kindergarten through third-grade for a sample of children from low and middle income families of European and African heritage. The authors examined the intimate culture of each child's home, defined by a confluence of parental beliefs, recurrent activities, and interactive processes, in relation to children's literacy competencies. Also examined were teacher beliefs and practices, and connections between home and school. With its broad-based consideration of the contexts of early literacy development, the book makes an important contribution to understanding how best to facilitate attainment of literacy for children from diverse backgrounds.