ABSTRACT
Literacy is one of the most important goals of child development, the success of which is rooted in the family. It is the thesis of this chapter that literacy must be valued by the family, that the role of the family in literacy development must be valued by educators and others, and that family literacy must be acknowledged as the foundation to a literate society. If family literacy is not embraced as the foundation to a literate society, then many will continue to experience a dissatisfaction with the predominant approaches to literacy despite enormous investments and painstaking efforts by individuals, local communities, and governments (Jung & Ouane, 2001). It is widely accepted that literacy development is embedded in social and cultural practice. Despite the fact that people bring local and diverse interests and concerns to literacy learning and the problems they encounter, families-regardless of whether they live in a literate or becoming-literate society (Olson & Torrance, 2001)—want their children to be able to read and write.
