Chapter 12: Family Stories: Collaborating to Promote Family Literacy

When educators and families collaborate as partners, they create important opportunities for children to develop social, emotional, and academic competencies. The reason for educators and families to cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate is to enhance learning opportunities, educational progress, and school success for students. Families are the first educators of their children, and they continue to influence their children's learning and development during the school years and long afterwards (Edwards, 2016; Edwards et al., 2019; Epstein, 2011). One way educators can cultivate collaborative family engagement is through the collection of and reflection on family stories (Edwards et al., 1999). In this chapter, we explain the rationale for family stories, connect how familystories can be used to promote learning and literacy, and provide a case study of how one of us (Leah) applied family stories to her practice.