Parent-Teacher Communication About Bilingualism and Biliteracy During Home Visiting

• In Event: Parent Voices in Multilingual Contexts

Abstract

Through relationship-building with culturally and linguistically marginalized (CLM) families, teachers can support families in the development of their children’s bilingualism and biliteracy. Given the importance of mutually supportive relationships between parents and teachers, we ask 1) How are CLM families and teachers in a dual language immersion program discussing topics of language and literacy during home visits, and 2) What strategies are teachers using to facilitate these conversations? From a study of sixteen teacher home visits with CLM families, we identify three key strategies that teachers employ: recognizing student’s knowledge, asking questions, and expressing their attitudes, belief, and knowledge. Our findings highlight the importance of these strategies for relationship-building and supporting CLM families with the language/literacy development of bi/multilingual students.

Authors

• Melissa Lucas, University of Virginia

• Natalia Palacios, University of Virginia

• Alexa Miller Quinn, James Madison University

• Judy Paulick, University of Virginia

• Amanda Kibler, Oregon State University