In this fascinating book, you'll travel into the homes and schools of over 70 young children from diverse backgrounds and observe parent-child and teacher-child interactions. Through research gathered in the Home School Study of Language and Literacy Development, the authors share with you the relationship they've found between these critical, early interactions and children's kindergarten language and literacy skills.

You'll explore both the home and school environments of children at ages 3, 4, and 5 and see how families talk to their young children during everyday activities like book reading, toy play, and mealtimes. You'll also examine children's conversations throughout the classroom day and consider how teachers strive to support children's development. In each chapter, you'll:

see how the data was collected
read actual transcripts of parent-child and teacher-child interactions
recognize how these interactions relate to later development
get suggestions for supporting children's language and literacy development
learn how these findings play out in the lives of four of the children in the study


Find out how young children's home and classroom experiences during the preschool years are related to their kindergarten language and literacy skills, and discover the kinds of conversations that make a difference.