This study explored the feedback provided by sixty African American mothers as they listened to their first grade children read aloud from a grade level text. Maternal feedback fell into two distinct groups. Children with higher oral reading accuracy levels on the text had mothers who more frequently waited and permitted opportunities for the children to work through one or more word identification attempts before they intervened with difficult words. Conversely, children with lower accuracy levels on the text had mothers who provided more immediate and explicit support for difficult words, particularly providing words with few to no opportunities for children to try out reading strategies on their own. These findings suggest that the mothers were able to effectively determine the amount of assistance their children needed based on how well they were reading the text. The findings are aligned with the type of support teachers typically provide for children during oral reading in schools. Implications are provided for developing a curriculum connecting school literacy learning with at-home reading practice to capitalize on the positive strategies parents and caregivers seem to intuitively offer. This connection may be a critical factor as educators continue their efforts to close the literacy achievement gap between African American children and their non-minority peers.