Teachers' use of a conceptual framework for early literacy education involving parents

Changes in literacy education regarding the importance of the early years and the role of parents have implications for teacher professional development which have not yet been fully addressed. This article describes a conceptual framework intended to give early childhood educators a way of thinking about the role of parents in children's early literacy development and how teachers can work with parents. The conceptual framework was offered to a group of teachers through a professional development programme of six seminars. Four sources of data were used to evaluate the meaningfulness of the framework, its perceived usefulness to teachers, and its impact on practice. Findings indicate that the framework largely achieved its intended purposes but some issues requiring further development and investigation are identified