Research has consistently shown that children in residential care fall behind at school. This proves a great challenge for educators who have to cater to the students' needs to ensure no one is left behind. Studies investigating family literacy practices of different social classes show a positive implication if the home literacy practices are similar to the school's literacy practices. In order to discover if there is a disconnect between formal schooling and outside of school, this paper describes the out-of-school literacy practices of children living under the Malaysian residential care system.