How Homework Shapes Family Literacy Practices

Abstract

AbstractThe authors explore the possibility that school literacy practices sent home as homework are changing family reading interactions by adding to the tasks that teachers expect parents to undertake. The authors consider how reading, formerly an elective leisure practice between parents and their children, has been reorganized and how this positions parents differently. The authors also examine teachers’ views on the importance of parents reading to their children and teachers’ expectations of parents to support school literacy practices in the form of homework. Evidence that teachers now depend on parents to support school‐based literacy practices and how this serves to change the nature of literacy practices in the home is discussed.