Research on Parent Involvement

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(No Transcript)
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Research on Parent Involvement

• Effects of Family and Parent Engagement
• School attendance increases
• Better attitudes about school
• Discipline problems decrease
• Children go on to higher education
• Good Types of Involvement Programs
• Emphasize academics
• Monitor involvement at home
• How to Involve Parents
• Relationships are important Build trust and
  respect

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Benefits of Involving Parents

• Educating children is a tough job no one entity
  
• can do it alone!
• More can be accomplished as a team
• Both parents and teachers experience burnout
  when all pressures are placed on them
• Establish an equal partnership so everyone
  participates to help the child learn

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Tension between Parents and Teachers

• Parents are required to leave their child with a
  stranger all day
• Schools must work to overcome barriers
• Difference of cultural backgrounds
• Parents who do not speak English
• Schools can take the first step to link parents
  into education

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School Resistance to Parent Involvement

• Teachers are unsure of how to involve parents
• Few opportunities to learn how to communicate
  with parents
• Isolationist view
• Classrooms are private - only the teacher and
  students belong inside
• May need encouragement to invite parents in
• More training must be provided on parent/teacher
  communication

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Avoiding Adversarial Relationships

• Book Including Every Parent, Patrick OHearn
  Elementary School
• Set small goals
• Improvement takes time and effort
• Leadership of principal is key
• Walk the walk of collaboration, communication,
  welcoming
• Show willingness to communicate
• Employ a welcoming philosophy
• Examine school attitudes about parents
• Offer training for parents showing them how to
  help their children academically

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Implications of Laws

• No Child Left Behind and Put Reading First
  Initiative
• Reading First was established as part of NCLB
• Requires parent access to information
• Only available in certain schools, but serves as
  model for all
• Effective administrators have always involved
  parents now schools are accountable for parent
  involvement
• Tied to funding
• Adds level of accountability
• Ensures that parents in failing schools have
  access to information and services
• Encourages rich partnership between parents and
  schools

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Impact of Parent Involvement on Reading

• Read Boston Initiative
• Parents sign reading contract and read to kids
  3-4 times per week
• Result gains in reading scores
• Literacy can be the key to involvement
• Parents want to know how to help

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Parent Involvement Under NCLB

• Title I Schools must
• Inform parents of services, programs and progress
• Offer school choice program
• Policy emphasizes parental rights and
  responsibilities
• Allows parents to be better informed
• Encourages advocacy

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Building Motivation for Partnerships

• As a teacher/administrator
• Share success stories with colleagues
• Models, examples from other schools can prompt
  discussion
• Teachers and principals with vision can bring
  about change!
• As a parent
• Research your childs problem
• Be informed
• Engage in positive dialogue with school faculty

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Video

• Thomas Johnson School, Baltimore, MD
• Childrens Literacy Initiative
• Guidance and leadership from principal
• Expected parent involvement
• Early Literacy program requires involvement
• Evident when parents are/are not involved
• Parents of absentees are called/visited each
  morning
• Message to parents School matters!

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Overcoming Excuses

• Expect involvement both from parents and schools
• Reflect on practices at home and school
• Identify the factors that impact reading
  achievement (positively and negatively)
• Shared mission Make reading a priority in school
  and at home
• Set clear goals, develop a plan
• Analyze data
• Create incentives for involvement
• Partnership with public library rewards kids
  for visiting
• Self knowledge and examination of current system
  is crucial for success

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Involving Parents and the Community

• Call upon existing strengths within the community
• Use data to influence involvement
• Student surveys about reading habits at home
• Advice for principals
• Examine school culture
• Identify areas of strength and weakness
• Capitalize on strengths and work to reduce
  barriers to reading proficiency

Children are a communitys greatest resource
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Teachers

• Find what works through research and experience
• Examine practice within and across grade levels
• Standardize practices
• What works? What is based in research?
• Get the rest out of the way
• Encourage collaboration
• Create opportunities for discussion
• Set aside time during the work day to allow the
  staff to discuss methods and coordinate vision

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Encouraging Parent Involvement

• Involve community organizations
• Go where the parents are church, grocery store,
  local businesses, etc.
• Establish family room
• Supply books
• Talk to parents
• Offer workshops
• Allow classroom observation
• Share strategies both parents and teachers have
  found
• Encourage communication of ideas
• Makes parents feel involved and gives teachers
  valuable information

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Making it Work in Your School

• Importance of building relationships
• Hands-on approach effective in building trust
• Home visits, direct contact with families
• Reach out to parents
• Schools can be intimidating for parents
• Schools should take the first step in
  communication
• Welcome parent ideas
• Acknowledge parents unique knowledge about their
  child
• View as whole-school approach, not just an add-on

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Parent Views

• Make sure parents are welcome in educational
  realm, not just in school building
• Classroom observation
• True participation in learning
• Many parents want to do more than help at
  fundraisers
• Provide guidance for helping struggling readers
• Be a model for parents
• Show parents techniques to use at home
• Invite parents to be engaged in content

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Video

• Miras Family, San Jose, CA
• Foundation for reading success begins early
• Everyday opportunities to learn concepts of
  print
• Grocery Stores
• Shopping Lists
• Letter magnets at home
• Daily reading time
• Child learns how books are used, how reading
  works
• Message to child Reading is a pleasure!

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Ideas for Parents of Struggling Readers

• Look to schools first
• Talk with classroom teachers
• Become informed on the reading process
• Understand your role
• Three aspects coach, monitor, and advocate
• Set TV limits at home
• Provide good books
• Follow childs interests
• Encourage reading throughout adolescence

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Understanding the Parent Perspective

• Parents need encouragement to become partners
• Trained teachers and collaborative school
  community can help bring parents in
• Parents feel up against a system
• May not understand it feel that it doesnt
  always work in their childs best interest
• Need to learn the system and understand how to
  make it work for their child
• Engage parents in a dialogue
• Provide models for the home/school relationship
• Parents can serve as models for other parents

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Tips for Parents

• Know about your child, how things are going at
  school
• Ask for specific information
• Reading level, progress, screening information
• Explanation of data
• Ways you can help
• Available services

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Role of Parent in Early Intervention

• Contact the teacher right away to discuss
  problems
• Notice signs of struggles at home
• Child avoids reading aloud
• Child struggles to recognize common words
• Provide a reading environment at home
• Be a coach as the child learns how to read
• Model at school
• Often, parents of struggling readers had problems
  in school themselves
• Should be encouraged to take an active, positive
  role

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Bringing Parents In

• Give parents power
• Involve them as a positive change agent
• Organizations for parents
• Parent Teacher Association
• Institute for Responsive Education
• Parents for Public Schools
• Southwest Educational Development Laboratory
• Parent liaison
• Contact point between families and school
• Set up workshops, create opportunities for parent
  involvement
• Can be less intimidating for other parents

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Getting Information to Parents

• Pass along information to parents from national
  organizations
• Tools, tips, resources
• Find small instructional activities that kids can
  practice at home
• Speeds progress in school
• Offers parents area of engagement that is
  purposeful and that matters
• Share with parents
• Childs current reading level
• Childs expected reading level
• Materials that parent can use at home to
  reinforce class work

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Video

• Neiles Family, Raleigh, NC
• Phonemic Awareness
• Knowledge that words are made of individual
  sounds
• Parent involvement
• Word games
• Rhyming games
• Reading with children

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Helping Struggling Readers

• Research is providing more information on how to
  help kids
• Communicate research-based methods to teachers
  through professional development
• Shift from seeing parent involvement as an add-on
  to a whole-school improvement strategy
• Make parents aware of their important role in
  literacy development

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Involving Experienced Teachers
Overcoming Resistance to Change

• Provide professional development
• Give everyone in the school responsibility to
  communicate with parents
• Teachers, aides, counselors, administrators,
  nurses
• Administrator should set expectation, model
  strategies
• Ease tension, anxiety about parent relationships
• Provide information on how to conduct conferences
• Teachers want a positive relationship with
  parents!

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Talking to Teachers
Tips for Parents

• Use data to discuss academic progress
• Keeps focus on child improvement
• Reduces sense of personal attack, blame
• Use partnership language to build trust
• Express willingness to help
• Ask for strategies to use at home

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Helping a Struggling Reader
without a formal reading program

• Advocate for use of a formal reading program
• Programs are research-based
• Help teachers address all areas of reading
  development
• Advocate for early literacy screening
• Meanwhile
• Coach child at home, but advocate for change
• Parents should supplement, but not replace,
  school curriculum
• Become involved in the parent council at school
• Organize with other parents to address concerns

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Benefits of Student-Led Conferences

• Portfolio works are selected by the student
• Student reflects and communicates ideas
• Parents and teachers join in discussion with
  student
• Leads to self- advocacy later in life for the
  child
• Articulation of goals
• Understanding of progress

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Involving Busy Parents

• Information does not have to stay at school
• Hold events at community locations grocery
  store, nail shop
• Go where the parents are!
• Make it easy for parents to attend events
• Provide transportation, food
• Encourage parents to make school a priority

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Difficulty Communicating with a Teacher

• Remain professional
• Your child is watching the interaction and could
  suffer if it is conducted poorly
• Contact a school guidance counselor to mediate
• Improve relationship with the teacher
• Do not give up or go over the teachers head
• If necessary, involve principal

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Working with Non-Reading/Non-English Speaking
Parents

• Have child read to parents for practice
• Involve extended family
• Grandparents, siblings
• Use whatever reading material is in the home
• Comic books, cookbooks
• Provide audio-taped stories for child
• Tell stories to children
• You do not have to be a reader to encourage
  literacy
• Encourage school to provide GED/ESL classes for
  parents

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Balancing Structured Curriculum and Parent
Concerns

• Be creative
• Find ways to integrate literature across content
  areas
• Encourage reading at home
• Use the school library for independent reading
  books
• Encourage parents to take their children to
  public libraries for reading at home

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Working with Demanding Parents

• Channel parent energy
• Use parents as a resource for the school
• Ask parents questions, make them partners
• Simply asking a parent questions about their
  child can make them feel useful and involved
• Involve parents in a positive role in the school
• Encourage them to serve on the parent council
• Turn demanding parents into advocates for the
  school!

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Final Thoughts

• Parents are powerful
• Village concept engage community and families
• Parent and schools working together can lighten
  the burden and benefit students
• Parents can demonstrate the value of literacy
  without being a reading teacher themselves
• Parents Advocate for early literacy screening to
  avoid reading problems later!

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