Using Texting to Help Families Build Their Children's Vocabulary at Home

Texting is increasingly used by teachers to communicate with families about classroom logistics and to support learning at home. The authors review the research evidence supporting texting as a tool for increasing family members’ engagement and their children’s learning, including the authors’ own evidence-based texting program, Text to Talk, which targets students’ vocabulary development. Finally, the authors offer guidelines to teachers regarding effective texting practices to maximize student learning and family engagement. These guidelines might prove useful to teachers beginning to use texting to facilitate students’ word learning specifically and teachers trying to bridge the home–school gap with other content more generally. The authors’ goal is to share these factors with teachers to help support successful home–school connections. © 2020 International Literacy Association