The main aim of this article is to explore these promising, and possibly protecting factors (such as the HLE) that may help to promote children’s early literacy development, which consequently can have a positive effect on their later reading skills at school. This paper sums up some relevant findings from two studies based on the “On Track” project (Lundetræ et al., 2017) to elaborate our understanding about the vital and long-lasting role of HLE in children’s both early and later literacy development. Study 1 investigates the relation between three domains of HLE (access to print; reading related activities at home; and parents’ own reading interest and habits), children’s code-related emergent literacy and parents’ FR statuses while accounting for parents’ education (Esmaeeli, 2022). Study 2 aims (a) to investigate the association between the HLE and children’s emergent literacy skills with second grade reading skills (Esmaeeli, 2019), and (b) and to test the role of HLE as a protective factor for later reading skills by adding the FR status in this model.