Family Literacy and Global Literature: Parents as Partners in the Common Core

This Teaching Tip explains an initiative, Global Book Hour (GBH), that engages families in a global literature read aloud. GBH integrates social studies, the visual and performing arts, healthy eating, and vocabulary development as children travel the world through high quality global children's literature. The program is a non-traditional, rich literacy experience, and has multiple, strong community partners that include a grocery store and a laundromat. Because many of the children who attend GBH are immigrants and refugees, an added benefit of the read aloud and discussions is helping the children identify with characters in the story. Though this program is located in the community, it can be easily replicated in a school setting. In this article, the program is described, connections to the Common Core State Standards are identified, and suggestions for starting a GBH are included.