This paper has highlighted the importance of the home in childrendeveloping reading along with the need for children to engage with homeliteracy practices from their earliest years. Families can and do support theirchildren at home, and while literacy has changed throughout the 20th centuryand beyond, fundamental practices in families have not. In recent years, familyliteracy programmes have become better adapted to the range of needs, interestsand backgrounds of the diversity of families who participate, and this needs tobecome further embedded in educational practice so that more parents canconfidently support their children’s literacy development and enhance theirsocio cultural capital.