This article examines the practices of home-school communication in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) phase in South Africa. The aims of this qualitative investigation were to determine the nature and effectiveness of home-school communication practices and to make recommendations on how communication can be improved to facilitate better home-school partnerships with the emphasis on the two spheres representing the family and the school. The research was conducted during a three month period in three multi-cultural public primary schools (which include Grade R classes) in an urban area in KwaZulu-Natal. Methods of data gathering included observation and in-depth interviews with the principals of the three schools, as well as three focus group interviews with educators and three with parents. In total three principals, nine educators and nine parents were interviewed. This research is designed to be exploratory and descriptive and thus no attempts were made to establish cause and effect relationships under experimental conditions. Because two of the researchers in this study are involved in the training of educators for the Reception year a decision was taken to conduct the research on home-school and school-home communication in the ECD phase within Grade R classes attached to primary schools. Good school-home communication is critical to good school-home relationships. Moreover, parents make inferences about the extent to which schools want parents to be involved by the ways in which they reach out to families and parents in the community (Scott Stein & Thorkildsen 1999:39). In addition, it promotes parent identification with the learning programme, which increases parents' satisfaction and children's success. This success should be available to all children irrespective of the racial group or socio economic grouping they belong to.