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Shared experiences through school-hosted events, such as family literacy events, can afford opportunities to support and extend academic learning while fostering positive home–school relationships. This article describes the importance of developing primary-grade students’ literacy skills through a talent development lens and explains several ways to nurture students’ literacy skills and recognize potential, gifts, and talents during family literacy events. This article features one of the activities from the family literacy events, Environmental Print Bingo, a modification of I-Spy and Bingo which uses rich and varied environmental print resources. A description of this activity, necessary resources, and implementation tips are provided. Options for differentiating this learning activity to provide more challenge for gifted learners are suggested. Throughout the article, the application of a pedagogy for early childhood gifted education and Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence as a framework are discussed; these approaches informed the design of all family literacy activities. A brief overview of nine additional family literacy event activities is also shared. Welcoming and involving families of English learners is an important consideration in many communities, and therefore, preparation tips and considerations for facilitators that will help maximize the participation of all families are included. Finally, reflections and helpful advice for implementing family literacy events in your school communities are presented, including advice for implementing online family literacy events. Ultimately, this article should help readers conceptualize, plan, and implement family literacy events in their school communities.

The tool, Elevating Instruction: A Planning Tool, was designed to aid teachers in improving literacy instruction to best meet the academic needs of all students, including advanced readers in the primary classroom. It is crucial for teachers to elevate reading practices for advanced readers during the time when young learners are developing skills to be lifelong readers. Teachers can do this by promoting authentic choice, encouraging student agency and ownership, supporting meaningful peer interactions, and collecting and using formative data. To this end, the authors address these four instructional components within the scope of a literacy block in an elementary classroom using an easy-to-access and easy-to-implement planning tool, which teachers can use to enhance instruction for all students. The use of this tool is depicted by a classroom teacher working with a gifted resource teacher (GRT), demonstrating how the tool can be used to support teachers as they work to improve and elevate literacy instruction.

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