At a summit in San Francisco in January, Ralph Smith, who leads the Campaign for Grade Level Reading, called on the early childhood field to do a better job of partnering with parents in improving outcomes for young children. “Our job,” Smith said, “is to help parents envision a bold future for their own children and then help them to attain that future.”
Yet working closely with parents can be a challenge, particularly in cities with large populations of low-income parents and recent immigrants who may face language or cultural barriers to accessing services, and whose children are not yet in the public school system. Or so people assume. A new survey of low-income, often immigrant, parents suggests otherwise.