Parent Information Community Meeting
Reading is Fun: A guide for parents to reading at home with young learners
Inquiry Project Template
Overview
In this inquiry project, you will understand the benefits of parent involvement in children's education as well as beneficial ways to incorporate collaborative strategies to get involved such as techniques involving reading and literacy, parent-teacher communication, and more.
Introduction
Introduction:
One of the main questions educators ask is “What will work best and be the most effective way of teaching?” Every child has a different way of learning and it is important to cater to their needs to be successful in the classroom, so what better approach than involving parents who know them best? Involving parents in their child’s education in terms of continuing learning at home is a great approach. Covered in this resource are different ways parents can be involved in their child’s education.
Main Points:
Techniques involving reading and books
Educational levels of parents
The Feasibility of Parent Involvement
Teacher-Parent Communication
References:
Becker, H. J., & Epstein, J. L. (1982). Parent Involvement: A Survey of Teacher Practices. The Elementary School Journal, 83(2), 85–102. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1001098
Techniques involving reading and literacy
Some of the most commonly used practices for parent involvement are parents reading to students, students reading to parents, or supervised reading time. Research has shown that children who read in the comfort of their own homes and with their parents have a higher success rate in learning how to read further along in their education. Reading at home can also be a fun activity between the parent and the child which will then encourage the child to want to read more. Though the time spent reading at home is not the important part, there are ways to make reading at home more effective and that is by testing the child’s understanding of the books they have read or that have been read to them. That is by asking questions. Parents can ask questions about illustrations, words, titles, and different parts of a book to check on the child’s comprehension. This is also a great way to identify if the child needs more help in a certain area of reading which could then be communicated with their teacher to work on. The video linked below is a guide on how to help parents read with their children.
Parents can also have an impact on a child’s literacy even from basic interactions at home. By following recipes, reading grocery lists, and cleaning, children are exposed to conversations with their parents that are building their literacy knowledge. This information of course can only be made if the educator is working with parents which is another reason why a parent-and-teacher relationship is important. With this knowledge, the educator is able to construct activities around their everyday interactions which could help the students feel more comfortable and capable of reading.
References:
"Early Childhood Literacy Engaging and Empowering Emergent Readers and Writers Birth Age 5" by Christine Pegorraro Schull, Leslie La Croix, Sara E. Miller, Kimberly Sanders Austin, Julie K. Kidd is licensed under CC BY 4.0
"Reading is Fun: A guide for parents to reading at home with young learners" by ABCplus Learning Connects is licensed under CC BY 4.0
The Feasibility of Parent Involvement
The opinion of many teachers on whether or not parental involvement is helpful or not in a child’s education differs between teachers and parents. In the article “Analysis of Secondary School Students’ Academic Performance and Parental Involvement in Children’s Education at Home,” research shows that with parent involvement, their children’s education at home can influence their academic performances in two distinct ways; helping with their homework and other academic discussions, as well as being involved at school with functions and meetings. With active involvement, a child’s education can counterbalance the effects of low socioeconomic status and underprivileged neighborhoods. From the article “Parent Involvement: A Survey of Teacher Practices” teachers feel parent involvement is important in solving problems faced by schools and that involvement in the classrooms is useful for increased parent learning assistance at home. On the other hand, there is concern about whether or not teachers can influence parents to participate with their children at home, or whether or not the parents have a sufficient skill base to teach their children to read and solve math problems. Or if it is fair to ask parents to spend an hour each night working with their children on a school-related activity.
References:
"Analysis of secondary school students’ academic performance and parental involvement in children education at home" by N. Ali, S. Mukhtar,Y. Khan, M. Ahmad is licensed under CC BY 4.0
"Three Roles Parents Can Play in Their Children’s Education" by RightQuestion Institute is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Educational Levels of Parents
Within the educational level of parents, there are the upper-middle class, the middle class, and the lower class. Teachers deal with each of the categories throughout their teaching career, they may or may not use parent involvement techniques according to the educational levels of their students’ parents. Teachers who do not use techniques with parents of lower educational levels find that the parents are not as able or willing to help children at home with school activities. The Bar graph below shows the different levels of education and participation of parents within a school district. The report states that parents from a lower educational background “are viewed by the teachers as “capable” of assisting their children in reading at home may depend on whether the teacher has worked out procedures and communication patterns that would enable parents with little schooling to assist.”
Teacher-Parent Communication
Teacher-parent communication is an important part of student success. Having communication with the families of your students and understanding each family’s background help you teach better and have the student be more successful in your class and school as a whole. When talking about parent involvement, it does seem smaller school districts have easier access and stronger relationships with the families of their students and communities. Focusing more on the larger school districts to help those teachers who see over 100 kids a day would be most beneficial with teacher-parent communication. I have focused my examples with a larger district/community in mind. I grew up in a very small school district and town so I wanted to get out of what I know and find ways for teachers in larger school districts to connect with the student’s families and vice versa.
When the students come for the first week of school, that’s a great time to send home papers and family involvement “homework” to get an idea of the family dynamic and gain some knowledge about them as well. Then, after the students return the papers you can email, call, or have parents download the Group Me app so you can contact them. Ask them further questions based on how they answered the questions their child filled out with them and when would be a good time to either have a parent-teacher conference in person or through Zoom. Putting a face to the name of the student’s parents is a great thing to have for a visual representation of the family.
Regarding the previous paragraph, having this higher communication set in place will make it easier to talk to the parents about how their child is doing in class. It will be a smoother transition into giving examples and extra work for the parents to help their child at home and it can translate into class as well.
Now, there can be some struggle with doing this when working in a low-income-based district but having that continuous communication with the parents will help tremendously. There will always be different cultural and language barriers when being a teacher which is present in both large districts, small districts, high income, and low-income communities. Being a teacher, you need to be aware of this and be open to learning about these cultures to help keep a high level of communication between you, the students, and their families.
References:
"Parent Information Committee Meeting - May 2019" by Midland Public Schools is licensed under CC BY 4.0