FAMILY LITERACY PROJECT Bilingual Picture Books by English Learners

The purpose of this article is to describe a family literacy project involving a partnership of school-aged children and their families with in-service and pre-service teachers enrolled in a university course on literacy instruction for English language learners. This project consists of family members sharing their stories with their children to be later transformed into bilingual picture books. This project engaged teachers, families, EL learners, and community members to become partners in students' literacy development. Teachers engaged students from culturally- and linguistically-diverse backgrounds and their families to produce student-authored and self-illustrated bilingual picture books in the classroom setting. In this article, we present the instructional process for teachers who are interested in partnering with families to create bilingual books. © 2016 International Literacy Association.