Motheread/Fatheread® Washington is particularly effective because it works in partnership with organizations already skilled in delivering services to parents and children. Partner agencies include school districts; Head Start, Even Start, and Title I programs; neighborhood centers; community colleges; social service agencies; literacy programs; tribal communities; libraries; and correctional facilities.

Parents join in small groups with specially trained discussion leaders to read children's books and then talk about the images, feelings, and ideas that are conveyed in these stories. After the classes, parents are prepared to take the books home, read the stories to their children, and talk with them about the themes of the books. In addition to making books important in the home, the program helps to create strong family bonds. The program is an ideal follow-up to or component of literacy or parenting classes.

At the heart of Motheread/Fatheread is the conviction that the desire to strengthen the parent-child relationship is profoundly motivating. Parents who participate in the classes want to improve their reading skills in order to help their children become better readers and thinkers and to improve family communication. Through the Motheread/Fatheread instructional approach, parents learn these skills using children's books as texts and their own personal experiences as a basis for learning. The approach is an excellent way for families whose children are considered to be educationally at risk to strengthen both academic skills and family bonds.