DeVries Chapter 14-Teachers, Caregivers, and the community Working in Collaboration Please follow the blog criteria for this course and don't forget to reply to a peer for the full points!
This is a refresher for me. I have seen most of this information previously but it is good to be reminded. There does need to be a connection between home, school, and the community. Students who have a parents who are involved in school and at home, are students who have better grades and are achievers.
Schools need to influence parental involvement. I have wondered how schools and teachers can do this with out making the parents feel like they are being attacked. On page 366, there are general suggestions to help with this. I like that this says that administrators should take care of this. so that there is no confrontation between the teachers and parents. At the beginning of every school year, the parents will be sent a letter about "good parenting tips" so to help the student in school. I think this is a great idea but there needs to be things to keep this going throughout the year instead of just at the beginning. I do like the reading together idea listed on page 367. Parents are busy, however this is a short activity that will still allow time for students and parents to read together and show the parent is a part of the student's academic life.
I love the part about the importance of teachers understanding the parents and the students' home life. This will help so much with understanding and more cooperation and ways on how to help the students. When we understand what is going on, we know how to help, or how to teach to the student. My last semester of interning really relates to this. The students' home lives were chaotic and totally run by the child, the parents were not influential at all. So this helped the teacher understand what needed to be done in her classroom. She said it was a complete change from her previous years of teaching.
To add on to the topic of what was discussed, the chapter does talk about difficult parents. I think this is my weakness. I hate confrontations. I worked at Toys-R-Us during holiday season and was yelled at by a mom my first day. Took everything in my not to cry! ha! So I take parents very seriously. The book states we will have to remember the child at all times when working with difficult parents.
Volunteers could even help with the students who have difficult parents (all students, even), by pairing the students with the volunteers to use as a model for education. In my hometown high school, we have big brothers, big sisters within the school. So I think this would be a way to involve the high school students even by showing these kids that education is important and using the high school volunteers as role models. My mom was also a volunteer when I was going to country school. She would spend a couple days a week at school as a para, reading to students, working in the library, helping with homework, etc. There were only 2 teachers for grades K-5 (I think it was 5th grade). So by her volunteering, we got to see a role model, got to practice with a mom figure who valued education, and enjoyed participating which made the students enjoy the task at hand.
Good point on your paragraph about understanding students home lives. This is very important as a teacher. The school I intern has vast differences in students home lives, from more middle class to extreme poverty. It is very important for the teacher to know about each and every child and what their life is like outside of school, because they are all different. The head of the program in the school I tutor at talked about volunteers coming in and helping students, as your last paragraph talks about. It is great to see people out their that look forward to help children in school, especially students who need a positive role model in terms of their education. Good post.
I think that you make so many good points throughout your blog. I know in the the school where I work there are many community volunteers that come into the school and help our students. We also have Big Brother/Big Sisters. The high school students, or a community member is paired with one of the students to act as a Big Brother/Sister. We also have volunteers that come in and read with the students, bring animals to educate the students, and even a guidance dog that a woman beings in for the students to read to. It is really neat to know that there are members of the community that volunteer their time to come in and make a difference in the student's lives. There are more students than we could imagine that do not get that positive role modeling within their home lives. I also think it is important to have that communication between the parents and educators. Everyone should work as a team to do whatever it takes to help the student. I have seen first hand some of those difficult parents that the chapter discusses and like you, I can see that as being one of my biggest obsticles in the education field. I do not like confrontation either, but the most important factor in the situation is the student. We as educators must be advocates for our students and their education. I enjoyed reading you thought on this chapter. Great blog :)
This chapter is mainly about parents and their importance to their child's education. The book told of research that shows students perform better in school when they come from a caring home in terms of education. When parents are involved in their child's education they help their child succeed in school. Unfortunately not all parents are like this. The book states different types of parents: Engaged, Ones who don't seem to care, Highly Critical, and Ones that don't believe their child is struggling. The book gave great suggestions on how to become involved and work with all these different types of parents.
It is a teacher's duty to help parents get involved in their child's education. The beginning gave an example of a great way to get parents involved in their child's reading. The book also gave other great ideas, from the traveling bag to having a technology night. The main thing is to make sure you, as a teacher are trying to get all parents involved in their child's education, even if they at first are difficult to work with.
I have seen my mentor teacher have her students call their parents. This is done for positive and negative things. When students have a great day they are allowed to call their parents to tell them at the end of the day. I think this is a great, simple way to show that you care about their children and want them to know about it. I also have seen her call for negative things, but every time she calls it is the student that does the talking to their parent, not her. I think that it is also good to do this, so that it doesn't make the parent seem like you are just calling to complain about their child.
In my tutoring group I got to see different sides of parents. One student has a very caring, engaging family when it comes to their child and reading. This student reads at least a half hour a night and enjoys reading at home. On the other end I have one parent who said that their child needs to have their homework done at school because they are not able to help them at home. It is understandable that upper elementary stuff can be confusing to adults because it isn't used as often as adults, but I did feel like these parents were not so engaged with their child at home. The chapter showed me just how many different types of parents we will get in the future. It also added some great advice on what to do with parents that I'm sure I will look back on in the future when I'm working with parents as a teacher.
Ryan, My mentor teacher, too calls some parents almost on a daily basis. She does a great job of letting the parent know if their child had a good or difficult day. She often says to me, “I’m going to call his mom to find out if he didn’t take his medication today.” She is very observant on every child’s personal life as some maybe going through a more difficult time, like a death in the family. She also reminds her students to visit the blog and work on the links she posted for extra homework with math. She mentions to me as well that not all parents are as involved as others. It is frustrating for her especially when she is trying so hard to improve scores but gets no support from parents. I sure don’t want to be one of those parents!!
This chapter focused on the importance of getting families involved with their child’s education. This chapter also discussed the importance of community support. It was mostly review to me but I always think something like this, particularly, is worth repeating. I personally get very excited and even upset when it comes to this topic. I believe so strongly about how parents are their child’s first and most important educator…it is NOT their classroom teacher. It is the parent’s job to teach their child from early on in life, and just because they begin school doesn’t mean the “teaching or educating” part is over! This chapter gave a variety of ways to keep families involved with their students. I believe it is not just the teacher’s job to keep the families involved, as it is a community effort. Some parents just do not know any different, because of how they were raised. And when you have a teacher trying to lead a parent to get involved it doesn’t always work. However, when the support of the entire school board, community, PTO and local business are giving their time and effort into the importance of education, it can influence more than one could imagine. One of the greatest things today that seem to be keeping parents involved is, technology. The school I am interning has a page for their school on Facebook. They have reminders posted daily, pictures of school activities, and most recently pictures of the Veterans Day Assembly. This is a great tool to keep families informed, involved, and knowledgeable about what their school is doing and participating in. The teachers at this school each have an active blog that they post weekly assignments on, websites for more studying, current activities and goals from the classroom, pictures of students and highlights of each student. I have also seen where schools have a website that parents can go to see a student’s current scores and grades and account information. No matter what there, in my opinion, I think it is sad that there are parents out there who believe it is the teacher’s job to educate not the parents. I have seen it both ways. When tutoring I had one parent say to me, “reading just isn’t her thing, she has always been behind.” While another parent worked every night with her daughter reading the sight words. In the end there was a big difference with the students who did their work, compared to students who didn’t. However, as a parent and educator I try so hard to help my kids go above and beyond. But, each child of mine does in fact accept my help and tutoring differently. One of my girls wants to learn while the other, doesn’t. But, I never give up…in fact I find it a challenge. As of right now I have no questions.
I also believe that education starts at home. I think we have to assume that parents want to help as much as possible, even though this isn't always true. I think that counting on help is the safest and smartest attitude to have. If we give our students extension activities to take home and they do get done, then the child benefits. If the activities don't get done, then the child is no worse off. I think we need to make it as easy as possible for parents to help in many ways. I think giving parents a choice of activities, from little tasks to big activities, will be effective. Even little things, like showing a parent where they can put their purse or coat when they come into the room, can go a long way to helping parents feel welcome.
Jennifer- I enjoyed reading your post. It was interesting that you mention that the parent is the child's most important teacher and how the parents are in fact the first teacher and continues to be their child's teacher through the years. One of my tutoring student's parents ask me how I got her student to do work for me and what strategies I did to get her child to be interested in the work. I told her that I used ideas from the interest inventory, took into consideration what the parents said about their student, and tried to find interactive, fun, hands-on learning activities. She made the comment that she couldn't get her daughter to do anything for her and that her daughter doesn't see her as a "teacher". I think the home-school connection is so important for the student. The child needs to see that they are a team and are working together to help them succeed.
This chapter was quite interesting to me because I can read it through the eyes of both an educator and a parent. I do like how this chapter encourages teachers to team up with parents as much as possible. Many parents want to help but don’t really know what to do at home. How can they really enforce what kids are learning if they don’t know what is being taught? Although my own kids’ teachers give a weekly newsletter describing what they are learning in reading, math, and social studies, I’m still not quite sure how I can reinforce important concepts at home. For example, the newsletter I got today talked about how they are practicing questions while reading. That was pretty much it. But imagine how much more effective it would be if my kid came home with a book to read and with 3 or 4 specific instructions on how to practice asking questions? There could be a series of books, one for each student, with directions like this. Some could focus on certain skills or all of them could focus on a different skill. Kids could take them home at night (maybe once a week) to have a specific activity to do with their families, sort of like the poetry activity described at the beginning of the chapter and on p. 367.
I loved the ten effective principles to encourage a positive home-school connection, especially “share a student’s success with her parents.” My aunt, who teaches kindergarten, does a reward system where students can earn a “good phone call home.” That call is to only be positive and encouraging, even though there may be ongoing issues with behavior or academics. I wish my kids’ teachers would do this or send something positive and personal home once in a while.
I think newsletters are one-way communication and I don’t particularly think they are effective. I always skim the ones that come home from school and toss them out almost immediately. I think I would be more interested in them if they had samples of student work and/or a feedback section. I would like to see something more interactive. I would like to have a class blog where parents could see more about what students do during the day. I understand that not every family would have access to this, so the printed newsletter would be a great supplement.
Was anyone else saddened to see that one of the ways to be an involved parent is to give your kid breakfast?
Amy- I too liked the tips to help with a positive home-school connection. I think more parents need to be made aware of how this directly affects their student's performance and the more the two work together, the higher the student will perform. I like asking parents what they observe about their child's skills, such as literacy skills. Although during the school year the teacher spends more time with the child than the parents, the parents still know their child best and it's great to ask for their input on their child rather than just sit and tell your side of what you see. I thought this was a great chapter.
Our Chapter 14 reading this week covers teachers, caregivers, and the community working in collaboration. There are specific responsibilities of the school and parents. Schools are responsible for scheduling regular communication between home and school, supporting parenting skills, and involve the parents in major decisions. The parents are responsible in assisting their child’s learning, volunteering at the school, and collaborating with the community to provide resources for the school. Parental involvement both at home and at school is so important for the child. The student benefits academically, physically, socially, and emotionally. Schools have many ways to communicate to parents through bulletin boards at the school, conferences, newsletters, an introductory letter for a new teacher, e-mails, telephone calls, happy grams sent home as well as personal notes. For some parents who are unable to give more of their time than others, these communications are important so the parent who cannot be as involved at school will still feel included. Teachers also need to take into consideration that not all parents have the same values, beliefs, and involvement with their child’s school as others. Teachers must find ways to work with those parents who may be difficult. Unfortunately there are some parents out there that feel that their child is the teacher’s responsibility Monday-Friday from 8 AM- 4 PM 180 days out of the year. I've not only heard this, but have seen it with my own eyes. As a pre-service teacher I know there are many different strategies that I can use to try to involve the parents and to get the help, reinforcement, and encouragement that their student needs. Without the schools and parents working together in a team effort, it is the student that ends up suffering.
I like what you discussed in your post. We do have many other committments in life, kids have activities, parents work, etc. So parents being involved is very hard. Although I still believe having a parent who comes and helps out in the class helps all students in the classroom. My last internship, there was a mom who came to school often and helped with all the kids. She was like the classroom mom! My mom also did this and everyone at school looked at her as their mom. Plus I attended a small 18 student country school so we all knew each other anyways, but the students still saw parent/community involvement even if it wasn't their mom or dad. This also makes me think of the parents that hated school as children and still have that feeling now! How can teachers help? Be their friend, show that they are part of a team, its all about people skills. So there is so much for teachers to remember, rather than just how to educate students during school.
LeAnn, you pointed out some great attributes from the chapter reading to help teachers and that we all need to keep in mind when we ourselves are educators. I've never thought about the fact of working with hostile parents simply because I've never been in a positition of really having a parent mad at me but reading this chapter has me a little on the nervous side for when I do have to deal with this fact. You said that teachers need to remember that not all parents have the same values, beliefs and involvement with their child's school as others. I agree with this completely. We need to find common ground and remember what we are all here for, the students learning and we all need to work together in the best interest of the child.
Chapter 14 starts off by discussing parent involvement and how to handle different types of personalities with parents. I think as a future educator this is something that I will struggle with in the first few years of teaching. I feel this way because this is something we really haven’t encountered during our education through FHSU. The chapter goes on to discuss the importance as well as benefits offered when parents are involved in student learning. The text listed 5 beliefs for parents when they become engaged that I felt were important: 1) they can affect their child’s education, 2) they are important in their child’s education, 3) their school wants to help, 4) they feel comfortable helping at school, and 5) they can be successful in helping with their child’s learning. I was intrigued when reading the different ways to communicate with parents via introductory letters, introductory parent/teacher conferences, newsletters, bulletin boards, telephone calls, portfolios with personal notes and so on. I feel like this is something that is very “do” able in every classroom and I will keep in mind. The chapter also went into great depth on working with difficult parents offering great useful tips. I found all of this information to be very helpful because this is the one area especially that I am concerned with as I edge ever so closely to completing my degree. Although we are given the opportunity to complete student teaching I feel as though hostile parents are something our mentor teachers will still have to deal with.
I also appreciated the section on working with difficult parents. I hope that we have wonderful parents to work with, but what if we don't? It is good to have a plan and some pointers to help us out. If there are any negative comments from teachers it has usually been about dealing with difficult parents and not the students. I think this is a skill that we should definitely develop. It will benefit our students and that is the ultimate goal. We all want to see our students succeed and be the best they can possibly be.
I have enjoyed getting to know everyone this semester. I wish you all luck in your future classrooms.
Chapter 14 has so many great ideas to make reading fun for the entire family. This chapter tied in our knowledge of multiculturalism and the classroom. If we don’t understand the different cultures of our students, then we may offend both the student and their family. The text also mentions the benefits of parental involvement in their child’s education. DeVries gives some really great ideas to communicate with parents. It is important to share positive things about each student with their parents and have goals so that both school and home are helping the student work towards reaching that goal. On page 367, the importance of parent and child reading together is mentioned. On page 369 there are tips on working with difficult parents. There are several ideas on how to involve parents with technology to make the home-school connection.
I do not have any questions from reading this chapter.
I really appreciated the list of ten things to consider when helping to make a positive connection between home and school on page 360. The section on ways to communicate with parents had some really creative ways that I had not thought of but could be really fun. I personally like to communicate with my childrens' teachers through e-mails. This chapter gave me some new ideas that I can use when I have my own classroom.
When I was a Para, one of the classroom teachers would send home a Friday Folder that contained the work completed throughout the week as well as a classroom newsletter that kept the parents informed about what went on in the classroom each week and a section that parents could cut off and return for questions or feedback. Every Monday the teacher would go through the folders and address the notes from parents during her planning time. When the student returned the folder, they received a stamp on the front of their folder that said, “Way to Go” or something encouraging on it. Sometimes the teacher would put notes that needed to be signed and returned in the folder. It was an effective way to communicate with the parents. She also made phone calls when necessary as well as sent e-mails when appropriate. I really liked her system because it was very organized and easy to maintain each week.
Patti, I also really appreciated the list of considerations to help make a positive connection between home and school. I think its important to remember and use positive and professional practices because it will benefit everyone involved. It is also important to get to know each and every student, parent/ caregiver, and home life, as no one family is alike and shouldn't be treated so. I think e-mail would be a great way to communicate especially because then you don't have to worry about something getting lost or misplaced.
I like the idea of doing a Friday Folder. Having a routine like this established is a great way to keep students and parents involved. I like this. In something like this, I wonder if you could do a "get to know you" activity for the parents at the beginning of the semester. I think it would be a great way to establish a connection with the parents. In return, you could send a little bio or answers to the same questionnaire home with the parents. I like this way of being organized and using positive reinforcement.
Chapter 14 was a great refresher and reminder over a teacher’s duty that sometimes gets pushed aside . So much focus goes into our students, content, and lessons that I think parent and community involvement sometimes is an after-thought, even though it is a very important part of a teacher’s job. I appreciated all the detail about ways to encourage parent involvement in the classroom and at home. I really liked all the lists of considerations in regards to the students’ home lives and various situations. The benefit of parental involvement was also discussed and can help the student academically, physically, socially, and emotionally. The different types of parents that we may encounter were also discussed as well as ways to communicate and work with each type. Communication with parents is the key to success and this chapter listed the various ways to keep the lines of communication open. Introductory letters, parent or family/ teacher conferences, newsletters, bulletin boards, happy grams, and telephone calls or emails are just a few of the ways teachers can communicate with parents. I have seen some teachers use classroom blogs and facebook pages for communication as well. Some of them are so cute and well organized, and as a parent I think I would love that. I had one question in this area and it has to do with giving out cell and home phone numbers. Is that something that teachers typically do? I know it is probably up to each individual teacher, but in the example letter the teacher didn’t list a phone number and said to call her at the school only during certain times. So, I was just curious as to what the “typical” practice is. I thought there was a great list of technology resources at the end of this chapter and I love the idea of being able to share them with parents to use at home.
Parents are such an important part of a child’s education. In my experience in the educational system so far, I have seen the impact they make over and over again. Students who lack parent support do not respond well to directions. Some of the students I have worked with did not have both parents at home or parents that took an interest in their education. These students would not listen to the classroom rules, the teacher, or even the administrator. At one point, I told (at the time I was a paraeducator) a student to put away her cell phone. She promptly told me no. The teacher then told her to put the cell phone away or give her the phone. The student then told the teacher that it was her mother on the phone and she would like to talk to the teacher. The parent scolded the teacher for not letting her talk to her daughter. I was so astonished that a parent would have such blatant disrespect for her child’s education, teacher, and the classroom. This student did not respond well in the classroom ever and as many of you can guess, did not do well in school. Not having a child in school yet, I did not realize the standards for parent involvement with schools. I knew that classrooms often ask for volunteers but seeing this as a standard puts this request in a whole different light. I see the positive implications for this and hope that many parents take this seriously. For the parents out there with school age children, are these standards clearly addressed when you enroll your student in kindergarten or in the school district? Engaging parents is something I really hope to do. I like the ideas in the book such as introductory letters, introductory parent-teacher conferences, letters, etc. I would like to have a Wetpaint or other similar page set up with assignments, upcoming events, and even homework help so if the parent can’t help them, the student can still receive a guide while completing homework. I think in this day and age, technology will be vary beneficial to parents. Both of the parents of the students I tutored preferred to communicate through text. I wonder how parents would feel about this as another form of communication. A Skype group could be another way to help everyone be in contact and create a community for each class. I think technology has made communication with parents much easier. The part of this I struggle with though, is ESOL students. I wonder if many of their families have access to these resources or if parents would be able to understand through these modes of communication?
I think that is a great idea to have a Wetpaint page for assignments! This will help parents be able to see what their child's homework is and what grades they have. This is a great way to keep parents informed
I think that having a classroom page where the parents can get on and look at what is going on in the classroom on a daily basis would be a great idea. Another way would be to have a weekly newsletter that you could even have students help to createwould be fun and indormational for the caregivers.
Chapter 14 is about teachers, caregivers and the community all working in collaboration to benefit students. Parent involvement is very important in a students life. Teachers need to understand a students home life so that they can better relate and educate their students. As an educator it is important to communicate with parents. The text listed several ways to do this that included; introductory letters, newsletters, bulletin boards, and emails. I did not have any questions concerning the reading. I feel that this chapter went over parent involvement very well. I liked that it also had a section on parents who don't accept their child's academic problems. As an educator we must know that sometimes parents are hard to work with. This section gave a list of ways to work with an aggressive parent. I wish it would have had a little more information and suggestions. One way this reading affected my view was that I learned there are several ways to communicate with parents. One way that I learned was with a happy gram. The text gave an example of a happy face gram for parents. I really liked this idea. My own experience with parent involvement is that I am a parents who likes to be involved in my child's academic needs. I try to email and keep in touch as much as I can with my son's teacher. My son is ADHD and so I check in to see how he is doing.
Rashawna, It was unfortunate that there wasn't more information about certain situations with parents in the chapter. I think that is sometimes just part of being a new teachers acclamation to the job. Learning the best way to handle some parents. Ricky
I think that chapter is truly one of the important ones as they most are. Yet, I think that this one might have a case to have been one of the earlier chapters. Obviously this entire books is made with the purpose of reading strategies and corrections. This chapter though is what typically might need to happen prior to the assessment phase of deciding if students need other types of assistance. Collaboration between teachers and other adults to let be known that a student might have some sort of reading issue. Then the work is done to see if the student actually does have a need to correct their reading. Then adults and the team will collaborate again to decide what the best course of actions is to correct the issue. All in all I think that the idea relayed within this chapter is to have a team effort between, schools, teachers, and parents. The chapter discussed some of the best ways to go about keeping parents engaged by way of bulletin boards, newsletters, and other common modes of correspondence. I found one of the most important parts of this chapter dealing with how to handle difficult parents. I have found within my own current career that there are many difficult parents. Many of the parents put up a good front that they care but rarely have follow through in their words. It is very discouraging and frustrating to basically be lied to. The most comforting thing that I have learned to tell myself is that my approach and way that I handle the student is the most important for that time. Making my time with the student(s) the most valuable for the current time. My hope is that from putting forth that normal additive and consistent behavior the student will see that there are people who do as they say and show that they care. Ricky
I feel that there are few parents who truly care about what their child is doing in school or feel that they have no control over what they do in school. But I also feel that schools are intimidated by parents who do care and who are willing to do whatever to help their child with their academic studies.
This chapter discusses the important roles that the teachers, caregivers, and community play in a student’s education. The teacher must recognize and understand each child individually and their home lives. Because we live in such a diverse culture with so many different cultural environments, educators must approach each student for their different cultures, values, and communication skills. However, the chapter also points out that educators should never base their assumptions in regards to the neighborhood a student lives, or their socioeconomic status. The chapter reiterates that a positive home, parental involvement, and school connections all play their part in the students’ performance. There are great benefits to parental involvement and parents that are engaged in their child’s education. I liked reading the sample letter of introduction that was presented on pg. 363 of our chapter reading. I think it is a great idea for every teacher to take the time to share information and open up the lines of communication with parents. I also like the idea of newsletters and bulletins that not only present upcoming events, and activities, but also discuss different teaching strategies that are being used in the classroom, some home activities for children and parents, and educational technology websites/TV programs. In our school every grade from k-5 has some form of a home-literacy connection. In my opinion this is an extremely important strategy that is used in order to help create success for the students. I learned a lot by reading the guidelines that were discussed in the chapter reading. I also liked the strategies that were provided to the parents during the reading sessions. I can look at those guidelines as both a parent and an educator. Another topic that enjoyed learning more about was the involvement of caregivers and technology. The book gave some great suggestions for parents/child activities and involvement in technology within the home for learning purposes. I think that it is great when teachers send home different learning websites for their children to engage in at home. Many parents would never know about such learning tools for their children otherwise. One last topic that I wanted to discuss that was in our reading was the importance of volunteers and community involvement in a school system. As a Para educator I know that there are many students that need this type of positive role modeling in their lives because they are not getting it in their home life. I really enjoy seeing different community members take the time out of their schedules to come into our school and make a difference in a student’s life. There are many students who look forward to this time and really enjoy the fact that someone cares enough to be a part of their life. I would agree that parents and volunteers can help teachers and provide many ideas and resources to build on. The most important thing to always remember is that we all want success for a child, both in school and in life.
There were some items in this chapter that really had my full attention. For us this far into our own education we know that parent and school partnership is very important to the student’s academic success. I found it interesting that each, parent and school, had their own responsibilities. The school is responsible for scheduling regular communication between home and school, supporting parenting skills, and involving parents in major decisions. The parents are responsible for assisting in their child’s learning, volunteering at school, and collaborating with the community to provide resources to the schools. There are studies that show the impact of a student’s learning with the involvement of parents at school. Having a positive home-school connection often results to higher performance from the student. There are many benefits of parental involvement. Students can benefit socially, emotionally, physically, and academically. Being an engaged parent is important to a child’s life. A parent will become engaged when they feel that they can make a difference in their child’s education, when they feel that the school wants their help, and when they feel that they can be successful helping their child with their learning. Keeping an open line of positive communication is important between teacher and parent. Such items are phone calls, emails, happy grams, newsletters and bulletin boards. My only question is when dealing with a parent who does not seem to accept their child’s academic difficulties is that when does the teacher give up on the student because they feel they can no longer teach them? Why do teachers I see use this as an out for students who do not learn like the mainstream class but don’t do any teaching that would relate to how the student learns? I feel that this chapter was a good overview of what we have been taught all throughout our schooling. I see so much from this book that does not happen, I feel that I don’t know what to believe. I see what we are told to do from our text and from our instructors but when asking the same questions in school districts now they either do not have the answers or does not know what I am talking about. This scares me some to take my education to places that do not acknowledge what I have learned.
Hanna, I agree with you that having positive connections between the adults in the student life can have a lasting positive affect. I HATE when a teacher gives up on a student that has parents that are not involved in there kids academics. I feel that this is when the teachers should be the most involved in making these connections.
Hanna; I think your question is a reminder to us as pre-ervice teachers to NOT give up on students and to use different activities to involve and include all the learning styles and interests. Some times we learn more about how we DO NOT want to be from others than how we want to be.
Chapter 14 is about teachers, caregivers, and the community working in collaboration. As a teacher it is super important to really get to know your students and their families. This is something that is constantly being reiterated. You need to be able to understand where the student comes from and their culture. Getting to know the parents is also important because their involvement in their child’s academics can help to determine how successful their child will be. When parents are academically involved, the student is more likely to be successful at school but also have a better physical well being, be socially well adjusted, and more emotionally stable. This chapter discusses ways to communicate with parents such as starting out with an introductory letter so that the parents can learn about you , and you can ask them to become involved in school and classroom activities. You could also have an informal conference to collaborate with parents, send out newsletters, use a bulletin board to put up information, and sending emails or calling parents with positive remarks about their child instead of getting in contact to give the parents bad news. I think that by taking the time to say good things about the student to the parents would really be regarded highly by the parents. I know that if I were a parent I would love to be contacted about good things rather than behavior problems. I like that this chapter also discusses ways to work with parents that may be difficult to work with. This chapter also gives several suggestions to help parents with helping their child with reading at home. I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I think that it offered many great suggestions to help build relationships with caregivers so that they can help their child be more successful.
I get a weekly email from my kids school and a weekly printed version of a classroom newsletter. I love the little tidbits that they tell me because they help me to (in the words of this class) activate prior knowledge and help my son to not only tell me what he has done that day but to teach him words when his vocabulary fails him. Because of his speech disorder I also get weekly updates, both verbal and written, about his progress. I have started to notice that his teachers will often tell me 1 or two positive things with the negative. His teachers also do a lot of other things suggested in the text: bulletin boards and portfolios, conferences, personal emails, etc.. . These are all things I will try to do when I am a teacher.
Devries chapter 14 looks at the whole picture in regards to education. It is not a single person that changes how a student learns it is collaboration between all of the adults that interact with that student. We are often unaware of how big of an influence we are over the kids that we interact with. Parents, teacher, administrators, caregivers, grandparents, family and friends all affect how successful students are in their education. Often this is through such an informal manor that we don’t even realize it is affecting our students. I had a conversation with a student two weeks ago, that has a very hard time staying on task, because he loves to draw and does not like just listing. I explained that he was much like my son and how we helped him was by having him draw his own illustrations for the chapters in his reading assignments for school. This helped him stay on task because he had to read the chapter’s carful to create illustrations that made sense. The next week when I went in Jiel was working on a drawing and his teacher said that he had read his whole reading assignment and passed the test so she was giving him free time to draw. I went to high five him and he told me he was illustrating the chapter he had read. I was so excited that something so small had affected a student that I did not even knows I was helping. As the text explains we must be able to get all parties on board with the student’s success for the benefit of each of our students. It is amazing how much a little collaboration can do for a struggling student. Even the smallest task such as reading a story to a pre-reader can have a huge impact of helping them see your love of reading.
I completely agree that it takes an army of people to make a child's education successful. I enjoyed reading the chapter and thinking about how I would use the information in my future classroom.
Cathryn- I really like how you stated there is not one single person who is responsible for the success one the student. It truly does take a village to raise a child. I finally know what this means in both my professional and personal life. I also love how you highlighted something as easy as reading to a child can build their love for reading. My 3 year old loves books. We read bedtime stories nearly every night. I enjoyed reading your thoughts.
Chapter 14 discussed the Teacher, Caregivers and the Community working in Collaboration. The chapter begins by talking about Parental Involvement and how important that is to a child’s success in education. It also talked about how important it is for the teacher to understand and learn about each child’s home life. Every student is not going to have the same background, nor are they going to have the same background as their teacher so to fully understand how to teach each student you first need to know where they come from and go from there. The next section talks about the benefits of parental involvement which I personally think is lacking in our schools today. Most parents do not even know what their child does at school except for what comes home in an agenda that says so and so had a good day. I think that students would excel in school if they had the support of their parents or guardians and had the opportunity to work on things at home. As a future teacher I really enjoyed reading this chapter because it gave such great examples on how to connect with the parents at the beginning of the year and at different times in the school year. I think that it is important to keep them informed and it was nice to have some ideas on how to do that. I personally liked the Newsletter idea. I worked at a school where the teacher put out a newsletter every two weeks informing the parents of what the class was working on. With the advanced technology that we have these days, blogs and email are also a great way to stay connected and informed. Overall I took a lot of great information from this chapter on how to connect with engaged parents, as well as, parents that are not so willing to help. I think that I will most definitely use this information in my future classroom Since this is our last blog I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed reading posts from the other students and commenting with my thoughts on each of the chapters.
I must say that I agree with you about parental involvement being low in schools today. We have a couple students who never come back with their homework completed, and I feel that it is partially by fault of the parents not being responsible for what their child is doing at home. I would take helicopter parents any day over those who could care less about their child's education! :) Carissa
Chapter 14 makes me think of the popular phrase "it takes a village to raise a child". Chapter 14 is about how teachers, care givers, and the community work together in collaboration to help children. I have heard much of the this information before and I have personal experience with connecting with community, parents, and teachers together through my past occupations. I think one of the biggest issues I will face is getting "all" parents involved in their child's education. On page 360 DeVries stated "it is imperative that teachers understand the homes from which their students come". With the growing diversity in our country and in my current location I know this is something I need to remember. I also found the information on engaged parents to be very insightful. The other issue I know I will face is parents accepting their child's difficulties. I am personally dealing with this issue in my Pre K classroom. The tips DeVires provided were helpful and very beneficial. The last thing I took with me from this chapter was in the concluding thoughts section on page 372. DeVires summed up the importance of parental involvement and also stated, "parents can be very helpful to teachers by offering ideas and resources". This is something I had no fully considered or reflected on until now. And like I have recited in nearly every post of mine this book is one I will be keeping for my professional library.
Yes Jade, I agree that statement is perfect for this chapter. It is so important that the whole community come together and help raise the children. It is so important that we as teachers know where are students are coming from. I think it will help us to be empathetic to the child's needs. It is also helpful when assessing children. It is sad to see children that have no parental involvement, that is why the community should play a part in their education. I have never worked in an inner city school, but I always think of those kids when I read about parent and community involvement. Many of those kids rely on the community for support. I am so glad we have this book to refer back to as well. It is amazing and has great resources!
I do not think you are the only one who will be keeping this book! It has so many helpful tips and information, and I think I will be using it for many years to come. I like the phrase you mentioned in your post. I had not ever heard that phrase before, but it is so true! It basically ties straight in to what this chapter talked about. When you talked about getting all parents involved, I think this is something that all teacher strive to do. However, sadly enough, we know that all parents are involved all the time. The book offered a lot of helpful information and tips on how to deal with such parents. I really like the idea of pairing these students with an older, caring adult.
Chapter 14 of the textbook is all about teacher/parent collaboration. The chapter discusses how the bridge between parents and teachers is a vital component in the education of their child. The book states that the school is responsible for reaching out to the parents regularly and keeping the parents involved, while the parents are expected to assist in their child's learning and get involved with school activities. The book also discusses the importance of getting to know the parents and home life of the students in order to fully understand how to work with each child. There may be factors at home that need taken in to consideration when establishing curriculum and instruction for your class. Lastly the chapter discusses techniques that can be used to help parents work with their students at home such as reading together or having a literacy night. The chapter briefly discusses how to cope with difficult parents who are either too involved or not involved at all.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue.
I did not have any real contradictions to this week's chapter. One thing the chapter mentioned was that the parents are responsible for becoming involved at school by volunteering for events, PTO, etc. While I feel this is very important, I think it is also important to understand that not all parents can provide this level of involvement with jobs, other children, sports, etc. I see a lot of students in our school that have parents who work at nights and don't have time to volunteer or even help their child with homework.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
I have always felt very passionately about keeping parents involved and being an involved parent. I know that when my kids get in to school I will want to be keep up to date on their progress and I will expect regular updates from the teacher. As an educator, I see the importance of doing this and look forward to collaborating with parents.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience.
I actually dealt with this first-hand this past week. One of the parents of a student I tutored for this class called me to get an update on her son's progress. I felt honored that she valued my opinion and pleased that she has taken such an interest in her son's education. Although I did not share any of the scores with her, I discussed how her son progressed and what he still needed to work on. I also volunteered to tutor him after school if she desired, as I think he would benefit from further intervention. It was fun to talk to my first parent and get that line of communication open.
Chapter 14 is about collaboration between teachers, caregivers and the community. The National PTA developed standards parental involvement with specific responsibilities for schools and parents. The school is responsible for scheduling regular communication between home and school; supporting parenting skills; and involving parents in major decisions. The parents are responsible for assisting in their child’s learning; volunteering at school; and collaborating with the community to provide resources to the schools. Teachers need to understand their students’ home lives, cultures, value systems and ways of communicating. Students are benefited academically, physically, socially and emotionally if their parents/caregivers are actively involved in their education. This benefit is seen across socioeconomic levels and from both majority and minority groups. Some ways to communicate with parents are through letters, parent-teacher conferences, newsletters, bulletin boards, parents’ nook, phone calls, happy grams, portfolios, and family-teacher conferences. There are three basic types of parents: parents who do not seem to value education; parents who seem highly critical of everything the teacher does; and parents who seem not to accept that their child is struggling in reading or writing. For the first type of parents, use happy grams and family-teacher conferences to help give these parents a positive attitude about education. For the second type of parents, schedule a conference for an appropriate visit. For the third type of parents, remember to share things that the student does well and set short-term goals so parents can see the successes and regularly send parents progress reports. I am one of those parents who participate in class events whenever possible. I live in a small community and also work as a substitute teacher in the schools. It seems that it is always the same parents helping in the schools. In visiting with teachers at conferences, especially middle school and high school, the teachers have indicated that the parents who attend the somewhat “optional” conferences are generally the ones that do not need to attend. The parents of the students who the teachers would like to visit with are the ones that do not come to the conferences. Being a smaller, rural school district, a majority of parents are involved or interested in their students’ education. It is frustrating to see students struggling or not caring about their education. Unfortunately, these students are often the ones that have parents who are not actively involved or interested in their education.
Chapter 14 was a great way to end this book. Getting parents and the community involved with learning and reading is so important. Just like the text book stated there are so many ways parents can get involved and teachers can allow them to, which will encourage and promote learning. It is important that as future teachers we connect with parents because it is proven that student performance will be higher. We take it for granted here at our rural school. My sister is at a large school district in a Title school and the parents are not involved at all. They pay big bucks to hire a person to coordinate activities to get parents involved. The chapter refers to ways to communicate with parents such as introductory letters, introductory parent-teacher conferences, newsletters, bulletin boards, parents’ nook, telephone calls or emails, daily notes, and family-teacher conferences. As a teacher it is important to take a survey I think at the first of the year to make sure you know what the best way to communicate with your parents. Some don’t have email, some can’t speak English, and some might not have transportation. It is important that we communicate in an effective way to every parent by meeting their needs. I love the suggestions given to share with parents especially the one that parents need to understand that their primary duty when it comes to education is helping their child understand that practice is necessary to become skillful in any task. Isn’t that great! I also liked the home-school literacy connection I can use this right now with my students. PAT emphasize all the time how important it is to start early with reading and do so well connecting with parents and the importance of home and school. I recently had to do my first Parent Teacher Conferences for Title One all by myself. I was very nervous because I wanted to be honest but not come across negative in any way. The tips they give in the book are very helpful and would have been great to have reviewed right before my first conference. It was hard to see parents cry because their kid struggles in Reading. I was very positive and gave them a resource packet to take home that was full of strategies, tips, websites, and drills that they could practice at home with their child. My favorite thing mentioned in the chapter was the technology nights, what a great idea!
Chapter fourteen discussed how teachers and others in the community can work together to help children learn. As I am sure you know, parent or other caregiver involvement is very important to aiding student learning. The book mentioned that parent involvement has two categories. They are involvement at school and involvement at home. This was sort of new to me because I just basically combined the two. I can relate to a lot from this chapter. Growing up, especially through the elementary grades, my mother was very involved in my school work. I think she played a very important role in helping me learn at the elementary level. It is sad, but I do not think that all students have that same support and reference that I had. I think there are a lot of parents who need to play a more important role in helping their children learn. As a future educator, I want to know how I can motivate those parents. Does anyone have any ideas or experiences? Like the book mentioned, there are many benefits when people work together to better the education of a child. It not only helps students academically, but it also helps them physically, socially, and emotionally. I really enjoyed reading about family-teacher conferences. The book offered some very helpful tips. This is one thing I do not really look forward to. I am sort of nervous to discuss with parents if a child is struggling in my class. I worry that parents will argue or disagree with what I have to say. I guess that is why we have records, though. I plan to follow these tips to try and make family-teacher the best experience I can. The last thing I want to mention from this chapter is over the technology presented in this chapter. The book had a section called “technology nights.” This was completely new to me. However, I think it is a great idea. Today, many students have technology available in their homes. There are many educational websites that can serve as a great tool to helping students not only learn but have fun doing so.
I thought you presented a great overview of the chapter. I have seen that teacher have students do more homework that is related to an educational website, students can get on and complete a few problems and the teacher can check it. I think websites like this help students who may have parents that are not able to help them or chose not to. Another great program I have seen is that school will issue laptops to students for those who do not have a computer at home.
Chapter 14 Blog Zoë Greenemeyer Parental involvement is crucial for students, educators, and parents. The national PTA developed three areas that both schools and parents are responsible for. Parental involvement encompasses two basic categories, involvement at school and involvement at home. When I spoke with a teacher at my daughter’s school she said that as an educator you need to make the parent feel there is a partnership. The chapter starts by encouraging educators to know about the home life of their students and their cultural background. When my mother was a teacher she would always do a home visit at the beginning of the year to make sure she was able to meet the parents of her students and get an idea of what the home life was like for her students. I also plan to do this, I think it is a valuable experience and shows parents that there will be a partnership and the student is important. Studies have indicated that students who are more successful academically have parents who are involved in their schooling. I was not aware that parents in the urban setting have lower involvement at home than those living in suburban and rural areas. As a parent I like to get the monthly newsletters to find out about what is happening in the classroom. I cannot imagine working with parents who do not see the value in education; I hope to provide the student with as much help as possible and continue to encourage a partnership with the parents.
I have been very lucky with my children and have only had amazing teachers who are innovative and fun. My children have had been very lucky and in the same respect I have as well. I have had a handful of great teachers to model my own future classroom and teaching methods off of. Due to the fact that my son attends a school for students with disabilities I have had some great role models. The Language Acquisition Preschool, my older sons school, has done every single item on the 'ways to communicate with parents' suggestion list. When I was reading the section on working with difficult parents I was so upset. The fact that there are some parents who do not value education was appalling. I really found the suggestions for working with parents who are highly critical was refreshing in that it offered a way to try to turn the situation around. I really liked the technology suggestions and loved the resources (wordless books and almost wordless books). I feel like I should have read them at the beginning of the semester.
Jessica, I agree with you when I think about the parents I will have to work with as teacher I hope they will not be difficult. We should be a team and help eachother not make it harder for one another. I really hope I have a classroom of students that parents want to be apart of the classroom as well.
1. Analysis of the reading/issue. Chapter fourteen of the textbook Literacy Assessment & Intervention by B. Devries discusses how educators, guardians, and others in the community work together to benefit the student. According to the textbook “the parents are responsible for 1. Assisting in their child’s learning, 2. Volunteering at school, and 3. Collaborating with the community to provide resources to the school” (Devries et al., 359). This chapter describes why it is so important for the teacher to know the students live at home as well as in the classroom because they do go hand in hand. This chapter also describes different ways that teachers can encourage parents to communicate with teachers in the classroom. The last part of the textbook discusses how to encourage parents to be involved in the classroom and also how to deal with difficult teachers.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue.
None at this time.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently? I really liked how this chapter discussed how to communicate with the parents of students. Sometimes parents can be sensitive when it comes to their child so it is very good to know how to deal with those sensitive situations that may come up in the classroom. I also liked the different ways to involve the parent in the classroom. I like to feel that most of the students’ parents want to be involved in the classroom but may feel uncomfortable so these are great ways to make the parents feel more comfortable and then want to participate more.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience. When I worked in a school as a para educator I had a classroom where the parents were very involved in the classroom. It was so great to have such a devoted class and parents to help. It made such a difference for the students and I could really feel a classroom feeling when I did not have those same students (parents) the following year.
This is a refresher for me. I have seen most of this information previously but it is good to be reminded. There does need to be a connection between home, school, and the community. Students who have a parents who are involved in school and at home, are students who have better grades and are achievers.
ReplyDeleteSchools need to influence parental involvement. I have wondered how schools and teachers can do this with out making the parents feel like they are being attacked. On page 366, there are general suggestions to help with this. I like that this says that administrators should take care of this. so that there is no confrontation between the teachers and parents. At the beginning of every school year, the parents will be sent a letter about "good parenting tips" so to help the student in school. I think this is a great idea but there needs to be things to keep this going throughout the year instead of just at the beginning. I do like the reading together idea listed on page 367. Parents are busy, however this is a short activity that will still allow time for students and parents to read together and show the parent is a part of the student's academic life.
I love the part about the importance of teachers understanding the parents and the students' home life. This will help so much with understanding and more cooperation and ways on how to help the students. When we understand what is going on, we know how to help, or how to teach to the student. My last semester of interning really relates to this. The students' home lives were chaotic and totally run by the child, the parents were not influential at all. So this helped the teacher understand what needed to be done in her classroom. She said it was a complete change from her previous years of teaching.
To add on to the topic of what was discussed, the chapter does talk about difficult parents. I think this is my weakness. I hate confrontations. I worked at Toys-R-Us during holiday season and was yelled at by a mom my first day. Took everything in my not to cry! ha! So I take parents very seriously. The book states we will have to remember the child at all times when working with difficult parents.
Volunteers could even help with the students who have difficult parents (all students, even), by pairing the students with the volunteers to use as a model for education. In my hometown high school, we have big brothers, big sisters within the school. So I think this would be a way to involve the high school students even by showing these kids that education is important and using the high school volunteers as role models. My mom was also a volunteer when I was going to country school. She would spend a couple days a week at school as a para, reading to students, working in the library, helping with homework, etc. There were only 2 teachers for grades K-5 (I think it was 5th grade). So by her volunteering, we got to see a role model, got to practice with a mom figure who valued education, and enjoyed participating which made the students enjoy the task at hand.
Good point on your paragraph about understanding students home lives. This is very important as a teacher. The school I intern has vast differences in students home lives, from more middle class to extreme poverty. It is very important for the teacher to know about each and every child and what their life is like outside of school, because they are all different. The head of the program in the school I tutor at talked about volunteers coming in and helping students, as your last paragraph talks about. It is great to see people out their that look forward to help children in school, especially students who need a positive role model in terms of their education. Good post.
DeleteI think that you make so many good points throughout your blog. I know in the the school where I work there are many community volunteers that come into the school and help our students. We also have Big Brother/Big Sisters. The high school students, or a community member is paired with one of the students to act as a Big Brother/Sister. We also have volunteers that come in and read with the students, bring animals to educate the students, and even a guidance dog that a woman beings in for the students to read to. It is really neat to know that there are members of the community that volunteer their time to come in and make a difference in the student's lives. There are more students than we could imagine that do not get that positive role modeling within their home lives. I also think it is important to have that communication between the parents and educators. Everyone should work as a team to do whatever it takes to help the student. I have seen first hand some of those difficult parents that the chapter discusses and like you, I can see that as being one of my biggest obsticles in the education field. I do not like confrontation either, but the most important factor in the situation is the student. We as educators must be advocates for our students and their education. I enjoyed reading you thought on this chapter. Great blog :)
DeleteThis chapter is mainly about parents and their importance to their child's education. The book told of research that shows students perform better in school when they come from a caring home in terms of education. When parents are involved in their child's education they help their child succeed in school. Unfortunately not all parents are like this. The book states different types of parents: Engaged, Ones who don't seem to care, Highly Critical, and Ones that don't believe their child is struggling. The book gave great suggestions on how to become involved and work with all these different types of parents.
ReplyDeleteIt is a teacher's duty to help parents get involved in their child's education. The beginning gave an example of a great way to get parents involved in their child's reading. The book also gave other great ideas, from the traveling bag to having a technology night. The main thing is to make sure you, as a teacher are trying to get all parents involved in their child's education, even if they at first are difficult to work with.
I have seen my mentor teacher have her students call their parents. This is done for positive and negative things. When students have a great day they are allowed to call their parents to tell them at the end of the day. I think this is a great, simple way to show that you care about their children and want them to know about it. I also have seen her call for negative things, but every time she calls it is the student that does the talking to their parent, not her. I think that it is also good to do this, so that it doesn't make the parent seem like you are just calling to complain about their child.
In my tutoring group I got to see different sides of parents. One student has a very caring, engaging family when it comes to their child and reading. This student reads at least a half hour a night and enjoys reading at home. On the other end I have one parent who said that their child needs to have their homework done at school because they are not able to help them at home. It is understandable that upper elementary stuff can be confusing to adults because it isn't used as often as adults, but I did feel like these parents were not so engaged with their child at home. The chapter showed me just how many different types of parents we will get in the future. It also added some great advice on what to do with parents that I'm sure I will look back on in the future when I'm working with parents as a teacher.
Ryan, My mentor teacher, too calls some parents almost on a daily basis. She does a great job of letting the parent know if their child had a good or difficult day. She often says to me, “I’m going to call his mom to find out if he didn’t take his medication today.” She is very observant on every child’s personal life as some maybe going through a more difficult time, like a death in the family. She also reminds her students to visit the blog and work on the links she posted for extra homework with math. She mentions to me as well that not all parents are as involved as others. It is frustrating for her especially when she is trying so hard to improve scores but gets no support from parents.
DeleteI sure don’t want to be one of those parents!!
This chapter focused on the importance of getting families involved with their child’s education. This chapter also discussed the importance of community support. It was mostly review to me but I always think something like this, particularly, is worth repeating. I personally get very excited and even upset when it comes to this topic. I believe so strongly about how parents are their child’s first and most important educator…it is NOT their classroom teacher. It is the parent’s job to teach their child from early on in life, and just because they begin school doesn’t mean the “teaching or educating” part is over!
ReplyDeleteThis chapter gave a variety of ways to keep families involved with their students. I believe it is not just the teacher’s job to keep the families involved, as it is a community effort. Some parents just do not know any different, because of how they were raised. And when you have a teacher trying to lead a parent to get involved it doesn’t always work. However, when the support of the entire school board, community, PTO and local business are giving their time and effort into the importance of education, it can influence more than one could imagine. One of the greatest things today that seem to be keeping parents involved is, technology. The school I am interning has a page for their school on Facebook. They have reminders posted daily, pictures of school activities, and most recently pictures of the Veterans Day Assembly. This is a great tool to keep families informed, involved, and knowledgeable about what their school is doing and participating in. The teachers at this school each have an active blog that they post weekly assignments on, websites for more studying, current activities and goals from the classroom, pictures of students and highlights of each student. I have also seen where schools have a website that parents can go to see a student’s current scores and grades and account information.
No matter what there, in my opinion, I think it is sad that there are parents out there who believe it is the teacher’s job to educate not the parents. I have seen it both ways. When tutoring I had one parent say to me, “reading just isn’t her thing, she has always been behind.” While another parent worked every night with her daughter reading the sight words. In the end there was a big difference with the students who did their work, compared to students who didn’t.
However, as a parent and educator I try so hard to help my kids go above and beyond. But, each child of mine does in fact accept my help and tutoring differently. One of my girls wants to learn while the other, doesn’t. But, I never give up…in fact I find it a challenge.
As of right now I have no questions.
I also believe that education starts at home. I think we have to assume that parents want to help as much as possible, even though this isn't always true. I think that counting on help is the safest and smartest attitude to have. If we give our students extension activities to take home and they do get done, then the child benefits. If the activities don't get done, then the child is no worse off. I think we need to make it as easy as possible for parents to help in many ways. I think giving parents a choice of activities, from little tasks to big activities, will be effective. Even little things, like showing a parent where they can put their purse or coat when they come into the room, can go a long way to helping parents feel welcome.
DeleteJennifer- I enjoyed reading your post. It was interesting that you mention that the parent is the child's most important teacher and how the parents are in fact the first teacher and continues to be their child's teacher through the years. One of my tutoring student's parents ask me how I got her student to do work for me and what strategies I did to get her child to be interested in the work. I told her that I used ideas from the interest inventory, took into consideration what the parents said about their student, and tried to find interactive, fun, hands-on learning activities. She made the comment that she couldn't get her daughter to do anything for her and that her daughter doesn't see her as a "teacher". I think the home-school connection is so important for the student. The child needs to see that they are a team and are working together to help them succeed.
DeleteThis chapter was quite interesting to me because I can read it through the eyes of both an educator and a parent. I do like how this chapter encourages teachers to team up with parents as much as possible. Many parents want to help but don’t really know what to do at home. How can they really enforce what kids are learning if they don’t know what is being taught? Although my own kids’ teachers give a weekly newsletter describing what they are learning in reading, math, and social studies, I’m still not quite sure how I can reinforce important concepts at home. For example, the newsletter I got today talked about how they are practicing questions while reading. That was pretty much it. But imagine how much more effective it would be if my kid came home with a book to read and with 3 or 4 specific instructions on how to practice asking questions? There could be a series of books, one for each student, with directions like this. Some could focus on certain skills or all of them could focus on a different skill. Kids could take them home at night (maybe once a week) to have a specific activity to do with their families, sort of like the poetry activity described at the beginning of the chapter and on p. 367.
ReplyDeleteI loved the ten effective principles to encourage a positive home-school connection, especially “share a student’s success with her parents.” My aunt, who teaches kindergarten, does a reward system where students can earn a “good phone call home.” That call is to only be positive and encouraging, even though there may be ongoing issues with behavior or academics. I wish my kids’ teachers would do this or send something positive and personal home once in a while.
I think newsletters are one-way communication and I don’t particularly think they are effective. I always skim the ones that come home from school and toss them out almost immediately. I think I would be more interested in them if they had samples of student work and/or a feedback section. I would like to see something more interactive. I would like to have a class blog where parents could see more about what students do during the day. I understand that not every family would have access to this, so the printed newsletter would be a great supplement.
Was anyone else saddened to see that one of the ways to be an involved parent is to give your kid breakfast?
Amy- I too liked the tips to help with a positive home-school connection. I think more parents need to be made aware of how this directly affects their student's performance and the more the two work together, the higher the student will perform. I like asking parents what they observe about their child's skills, such as literacy skills. Although during the school year the teacher spends more time with the child than the parents, the parents still know their child best and it's great to ask for their input on their child rather than just sit and tell your side of what you see. I thought this was a great chapter.
DeleteOur Chapter 14 reading this week covers teachers, caregivers, and the community working in collaboration. There are specific responsibilities of the school and parents. Schools are responsible for scheduling regular communication between home and school, supporting parenting skills, and involve the parents in major decisions. The parents are responsible in assisting their child’s learning, volunteering at the school, and collaborating with the community to provide resources for the school. Parental involvement both at home and at school is so important for the child. The student benefits academically, physically, socially, and emotionally. Schools have many ways to communicate to parents through bulletin boards at the school, conferences, newsletters, an introductory letter for a new teacher, e-mails, telephone calls, happy grams sent home as well as personal notes. For some parents who are unable to give more of their time than others, these communications are important so the parent who cannot be as involved at school will still feel included. Teachers also need to take into consideration that not all parents have the same values, beliefs, and involvement with their child’s school as others. Teachers must find ways to work with those parents who may be difficult. Unfortunately there are some parents out there that feel that their child is the teacher’s responsibility Monday-Friday from 8 AM- 4 PM 180 days out of the year. I've not only heard this, but have seen it with my own eyes. As a pre-service teacher I know there are many different strategies that I can use to try to involve the parents and to get the help, reinforcement, and encouragement that their student needs. Without the schools and parents working together in a team effort, it is the student that ends up suffering.
ReplyDeleteI like what you discussed in your post. We do have many other committments in life, kids have activities, parents work, etc. So parents being involved is very hard. Although I still believe having a parent who comes and helps out in the class helps all students in the classroom. My last internship, there was a mom who came to school often and helped with all the kids. She was like the classroom mom! My mom also did this and everyone at school looked at her as their mom. Plus I attended a small 18 student country school so we all knew each other anyways, but the students still saw parent/community involvement even if it wasn't their mom or dad.
DeleteThis also makes me think of the parents that hated school as children and still have that feeling now! How can teachers help? Be their friend, show that they are part of a team, its all about people skills. So there is so much for teachers to remember, rather than just how to educate students during school.
LeAnn, you pointed out some great attributes from the chapter reading to help teachers and that we all need to keep in mind when we ourselves are educators. I've never thought about the fact of working with hostile parents simply because I've never been in a positition of really having a parent mad at me but reading this chapter has me a little on the nervous side for when I do have to deal with this fact. You said that teachers need to remember that not all parents have the same values, beliefs and involvement with their child's school as others. I agree with this completely. We need to find common ground and remember what we are all here for, the students learning and we all need to work together in the best interest of the child.
DeleteChapter 14 starts off by discussing parent involvement and how to handle different types of personalities with parents. I think as a future educator this is something that I will struggle with in the first few years of teaching. I feel this way because this is something we really haven’t encountered during our education through FHSU. The chapter goes on to discuss the importance as well as benefits offered when parents are involved in student learning. The text listed 5 beliefs for parents when they become engaged that I felt were important: 1) they can affect their child’s education, 2) they are important in their child’s education, 3) their school wants to help, 4) they feel comfortable helping at school, and 5) they can be successful in helping with their child’s learning. I was intrigued when reading the different ways to communicate with parents via introductory letters, introductory parent/teacher conferences, newsletters, bulletin boards, telephone calls, portfolios with personal notes and so on. I feel like this is something that is very “do” able in every classroom and I will keep in mind. The chapter also went into great depth on working with difficult parents offering great useful tips. I found all of this information to be very helpful because this is the one area especially that I am concerned with as I edge ever so closely to completing my degree. Although we are given the opportunity to complete student teaching I feel as though hostile parents are something our mentor teachers will still have to deal with.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated the section on working with difficult parents. I hope that we have wonderful parents to work with, but what if we don't? It is good to have a plan and some pointers to help us out. If there are any negative comments from teachers it has usually been about dealing with difficult parents and not the students. I think this is a skill that we should definitely develop. It will benefit our students and that is the ultimate goal. We all want to see our students succeed and be the best they can possibly be.
DeleteI have enjoyed getting to know everyone this semester. I wish you all luck in your future classrooms.
Chapter 14 has so many great ideas to make reading fun for the entire family. This chapter tied in our knowledge of multiculturalism and the classroom. If we don’t understand the different cultures of our students, then we may offend both the student and their family. The text also mentions the benefits of parental involvement in their child’s education. DeVries gives some really great ideas to communicate with parents. It is important to share positive things about each student with their parents and have goals so that both school and home are helping the student work towards reaching that goal. On page 367, the importance of parent and child reading together is mentioned. On page 369 there are tips on working with difficult parents. There are several ideas on how to involve parents with technology to make the home-school connection.
ReplyDeleteI do not have any questions from reading this chapter.
I really appreciated the list of ten things to consider when helping to make a positive connection between home and school on page 360. The section on ways to communicate with parents had some really creative ways that I had not thought of but could be really fun. I personally like to communicate with my childrens' teachers through e-mails. This chapter gave me some new ideas that I can use when I have my own classroom.
When I was a Para, one of the classroom teachers would send home a Friday Folder that contained the work completed throughout the week as well as a classroom newsletter that kept the parents informed about what went on in the classroom each week and a section that parents could cut off and return for questions or feedback. Every Monday the teacher would go through the folders and address the notes from parents during her planning time. When the student returned the folder, they received a stamp on the front of their folder that said, “Way to Go” or something encouraging on it. Sometimes the teacher would put notes that needed to be signed and returned in the folder. It was an effective way to communicate with the parents. She also made phone calls when necessary as well as sent e-mails when appropriate. I really liked her system because it was very organized and easy to maintain each week.
Patti, I also really appreciated the list of considerations to help make a positive connection between home and school. I think its important to remember and use positive and professional practices because it will benefit everyone involved. It is also important to get to know each and every student, parent/ caregiver, and home life, as no one family is alike and shouldn't be treated so. I think e-mail would be a great way to communicate especially because then you don't have to worry about something getting lost or misplaced.
DeleteI like the idea of doing a Friday Folder. Having a routine like this established is a great way to keep students and parents involved. I like this. In something like this, I wonder if you could do a "get to know you" activity for the parents at the beginning of the semester. I think it would be a great way to establish a connection with the parents. In return, you could send a little bio or answers to the same questionnaire home with the parents. I like this way of being organized and using positive reinforcement.
DeleteChapter 14 was a great refresher and reminder over a teacher’s duty that sometimes gets pushed aside . So much focus goes into our students, content, and lessons that I think parent and community involvement sometimes is an after-thought, even though it is a very important part of a teacher’s job. I appreciated all the detail about ways to encourage parent involvement in the classroom and at home. I really liked all the lists of considerations in regards to the students’ home lives and various situations. The benefit of parental involvement was also discussed and can help the student academically, physically, socially, and emotionally. The different types of parents that we may encounter were also discussed as well as ways to communicate and work with each type.
ReplyDeleteCommunication with parents is the key to success and this chapter listed the various ways to keep the lines of communication open. Introductory letters, parent or family/ teacher conferences, newsletters, bulletin boards, happy grams, and telephone calls or emails are just a few of the ways teachers can communicate with parents. I have seen some teachers use classroom blogs and facebook pages for communication as well. Some of them are so cute and well organized, and as a parent I think I would love that. I had one question in this area and it has to do with giving out cell and home phone numbers. Is that something that teachers typically do? I know it is probably up to each individual teacher, but in the example letter the teacher didn’t list a phone number and said to call her at the school only during certain times. So, I was just curious as to what the “typical” practice is.
I thought there was a great list of technology resources at the end of this chapter and I love the idea of being able to share them with parents to use at home.
Parents are such an important part of a child’s education. In my experience in the educational system so far, I have seen the impact they make over and over again. Students who lack parent support do not respond well to directions. Some of the students I have worked with did not have both parents at home or parents that took an interest in their education. These students would not listen to the classroom rules, the teacher, or even the administrator. At one point, I told (at the time I was a paraeducator) a student to put away her cell phone. She promptly told me no. The teacher then told her to put the cell phone away or give her the phone. The student then told the teacher that it was her mother on the phone and she would like to talk to the teacher. The parent scolded the teacher for not letting her talk to her daughter. I was so astonished that a parent would have such blatant disrespect for her child’s education, teacher, and the classroom. This student did not respond well in the classroom ever and as many of you can guess, did not do well in school.
ReplyDeleteNot having a child in school yet, I did not realize the standards for parent involvement with schools. I knew that classrooms often ask for volunteers but seeing this as a standard puts this request in a whole different light. I see the positive implications for this and hope that many parents take this seriously. For the parents out there with school age children, are these standards clearly addressed when you enroll your student in kindergarten or in the school district?
Engaging parents is something I really hope to do. I like the ideas in the book such as introductory letters, introductory parent-teacher conferences, letters, etc. I would like to have a Wetpaint or other similar page set up with assignments, upcoming events, and even homework help so if the parent can’t help them, the student can still receive a guide while completing homework. I think in this day and age, technology will be vary beneficial to parents. Both of the parents of the students I tutored preferred to communicate through text. I wonder how parents would feel about this as another form of communication. A Skype group could be another way to help everyone be in contact and create a community for each class. I think technology has made communication with parents much easier. The part of this I struggle with though, is ESOL students. I wonder if many of their families have access to these resources or if parents would be able to understand through these modes of communication?
I think that is a great idea to have a Wetpaint page for assignments! This will help parents be able to see what their child's homework is and what grades they have. This is a great way to keep parents informed
DeleteI think that having a classroom page where the parents can get on and look at what is going on in the classroom on a daily basis would be a great idea. Another way would be to have a weekly newsletter that you could even have students help to createwould be fun and indormational for the caregivers.
DeleteChapter 14 is about teachers, caregivers and the community all working in collaboration to benefit students. Parent involvement is very important in a students life. Teachers need to understand a students home life so that they can better relate and educate their students. As an educator it is important to communicate with parents. The text listed several ways to do this that included; introductory letters, newsletters, bulletin boards, and emails.
ReplyDeleteI did not have any questions concerning the reading. I feel that this chapter went over parent involvement very well. I liked that it also had a section on parents who don't accept their child's academic problems. As an educator we must know that sometimes parents are hard to work with. This section gave a list of ways to work with an aggressive parent. I wish it would have had a little more information and suggestions.
One way this reading affected my view was that I learned there are several ways to communicate with parents. One way that I learned was with a happy gram. The text gave an example of a happy face gram for parents. I really liked this idea.
My own experience with parent involvement is that I am a parents who likes to be involved in my child's academic needs. I try to email and keep in touch as much as I can with my son's teacher. My son is ADHD and so I check in to see how he is doing.
Rashawna, It was unfortunate that there wasn't more information about certain situations with parents in the chapter. I think that is sometimes just part of being a new teachers acclamation to the job. Learning the best way to handle some parents.
DeleteRicky
Literacy
ReplyDeleteChapter 14
I think that chapter is truly one of the important ones as they most are. Yet, I think that this one might have a case to have been one of the earlier chapters. Obviously this entire books is made with the purpose of reading strategies and corrections. This chapter though is what typically might need to happen prior to the assessment phase of deciding if students need other types of assistance. Collaboration between teachers and other adults to let be known that a student might have some sort of reading issue. Then the work is done to see if the student actually does have a need to correct their reading. Then adults and the team will collaborate again to decide what the best course of actions is to correct the issue. All in all I think that the idea relayed within this chapter is to have a team effort between, schools, teachers, and parents. The chapter discussed some of the best ways to go about keeping parents engaged by way of bulletin boards, newsletters, and other common modes of correspondence. I found one of the most important parts of this chapter dealing with how to handle difficult parents. I have found within my own current career that there are many difficult parents. Many of the parents put up a good front that they care but rarely have follow through in their words. It is very discouraging and frustrating to basically be lied to. The most comforting thing that I have learned to tell myself is that my approach and way that I handle the student is the most important for that time. Making my time with the student(s) the most valuable for the current time. My hope is that from putting forth that normal additive and consistent behavior the student will see that there are people who do as they say and show that they care.
Ricky
I feel that there are few parents who truly care about what their child is doing in school or feel that they have no control over what they do in school. But I also feel that schools are intimidated by parents who do care and who are willing to do whatever to help their child with their academic studies.
DeleteThis chapter discusses the important roles that the teachers, caregivers, and community play in a student’s education. The teacher must recognize and understand each child individually and their home lives. Because we live in such a diverse culture with so many different cultural environments, educators must approach each student for their different cultures, values, and communication skills. However, the chapter also points out that educators should never base their assumptions in regards to the neighborhood a student lives, or their socioeconomic status. The chapter reiterates that a positive home, parental involvement, and school connections all play their part in the students’ performance. There are great benefits to parental involvement and parents that are engaged in their child’s education. I liked reading the sample letter of introduction that was presented on pg. 363 of our chapter reading. I think it is a great idea for every teacher to take the time to share information and open up the lines of communication with parents. I also like the idea of newsletters and bulletins that not only present upcoming events, and activities, but also discuss different teaching strategies that are being used in the classroom, some home activities for children and parents, and educational technology websites/TV programs.
ReplyDeleteIn our school every grade from k-5 has some form of a home-literacy connection. In my opinion this is an extremely important strategy that is used in order to help create success for the students. I learned a lot by reading the guidelines that were discussed in the chapter reading. I also liked the strategies that were provided to the parents during the reading sessions. I can look at those guidelines as both a parent and an educator.
Another topic that enjoyed learning more about was the involvement of caregivers and technology. The book gave some great suggestions for parents/child activities and involvement in technology within the home for learning purposes. I think that it is great when teachers send home different learning websites for their children to engage in at home. Many parents would never know about such learning tools for their children otherwise.
One last topic that I wanted to discuss that was in our reading was the importance of volunteers and community involvement in a school system. As a Para educator I know that there are many students that need this type of positive role modeling in their lives because they are not getting it in their home life. I really enjoy seeing different community members take the time out of their schedules to come into our school and make a difference in a student’s life. There are many students who look forward to this time and really enjoy the fact that someone cares enough to be a part of their life. I would agree that parents and volunteers can help teachers and provide many ideas and resources to build on. The most important thing to always remember is that we all want success for a child, both in school and in life.
There were some items in this chapter that really had my full attention. For us this far into our own education we know that parent and school partnership is very important to the student’s academic success. I found it interesting that each, parent and school, had their own responsibilities. The school is responsible for scheduling regular communication between home and school, supporting parenting skills, and involving parents in major decisions. The parents are responsible for assisting in their child’s learning, volunteering at school, and collaborating with the community to provide resources to the schools. There are studies that show the impact of a student’s learning with the involvement of parents at school. Having a positive home-school connection often results to higher performance from the student. There are many benefits of parental involvement. Students can benefit socially, emotionally, physically, and academically. Being an engaged parent is important to a child’s life. A parent will become engaged when they feel that they can make a difference in their child’s education, when they feel that the school wants their help, and when they feel that they can be successful helping their child with their learning. Keeping an open line of positive communication is important between teacher and parent. Such items are phone calls, emails, happy grams, newsletters and bulletin boards.
ReplyDeleteMy only question is when dealing with a parent who does not seem to accept their child’s academic difficulties is that when does the teacher give up on the student because they feel they can no longer teach them? Why do teachers I see use this as an out for students who do not learn like the mainstream class but don’t do any teaching that would relate to how the student learns?
I feel that this chapter was a good overview of what we have been taught all throughout our schooling. I see so much from this book that does not happen, I feel that I don’t know what to believe. I see what we are told to do from our text and from our instructors but when asking the same questions in school districts now they either do not have the answers or does not know what I am talking about. This scares me some to take my education to places that do not acknowledge what I have learned.
Hanna, I agree with you that having positive connections between the adults in the student life can have a lasting positive affect. I HATE when a teacher gives up on a student that has parents that are not involved in there kids academics. I feel that this is when the teachers should be the most involved in making these connections.
DeleteHanna;
DeleteI think your question is a reminder to us as pre-ervice teachers to NOT give up on students and to use different activities to involve and include all the learning styles and interests. Some times we learn more about how we DO NOT want to be from others than how we want to be.
Chapter 14 is about teachers, caregivers, and the community working in collaboration. As a teacher it is super important to really get to know your students and their families. This is something that is constantly being reiterated. You need to be able to understand where the student comes from and their culture. Getting to know the parents is also important because their involvement in their child’s academics can help to determine how successful their child will be. When parents are academically involved, the student is more likely to be successful at school but also have a better physical well being, be socially well adjusted, and more emotionally stable. This chapter discusses ways to communicate with parents such as starting out with an introductory letter so that the parents can learn about you , and you can ask them to become involved in school and classroom activities. You could also have an informal conference to collaborate with parents, send out newsletters, use a bulletin board to put up information, and sending emails or calling parents with positive remarks about their child instead of getting in contact to give the parents bad news. I think that by taking the time to say good things about the student to the parents would really be regarded highly by the parents. I know that if I were a parent I would love to be contacted about good things rather than behavior problems. I like that this chapter also discusses ways to work with parents that may be difficult to work with. This chapter also gives several suggestions to help parents with helping their child with reading at home. I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I think that it offered many great suggestions to help build relationships with caregivers so that they can help their child be more successful.
ReplyDeleteI get a weekly email from my kids school and a weekly printed version of a classroom newsletter. I love the little tidbits that they tell me because they help me to (in the words of this class) activate prior knowledge and help my son to not only tell me what he has done that day but to teach him words when his vocabulary fails him. Because of his speech disorder I also get weekly updates, both verbal and written, about his progress. I have started to notice that his teachers will often tell me 1 or two positive things with the negative. His teachers also do a lot of other things suggested in the text: bulletin boards and portfolios, conferences, personal emails, etc.. .
DeleteThese are all things I will try to do when I am a teacher.
Devries chapter 14 looks at the whole picture in regards to education. It is not a single person that changes how a student learns it is collaboration between all of the adults that interact with that student. We are often unaware of how big of an influence we are over the kids that we interact with.
ReplyDeleteParents, teacher, administrators, caregivers, grandparents, family and friends all affect how successful students are in their education. Often this is through such an informal manor that we don’t even realize it is affecting our students. I had a conversation with a student two weeks ago, that has a very hard time staying on task, because he loves to draw and does not like just listing. I explained that he was much like my son and how we helped him was by having him draw his own illustrations for the chapters in his reading assignments for school. This helped him stay on task because he had to read the chapter’s carful to create illustrations that made sense.
The next week when I went in Jiel was working on a drawing and his teacher said that he had read his whole reading assignment and passed the test so she was giving him free time to draw. I went to high five him and he told me he was illustrating the chapter he had read. I was so excited that something so small had affected a student that I did not even knows I was helping.
As the text explains we must be able to get all parties on board with the student’s success for the benefit of each of our students. It is amazing how much a little collaboration can do for a struggling student. Even the smallest task such as reading a story to a pre-reader can have a huge impact of helping them see your love of reading.
I completely agree that it takes an army of people to make a child's education successful. I enjoyed reading the chapter and thinking about how I would use the information in my future classroom.
DeleteCathryn-
DeleteI really like how you stated there is not one single person who is responsible for the success one the student. It truly does take a village to raise a child. I finally know what this means in both my professional and personal life. I also love how you highlighted something as easy as reading to a child can build their love for reading. My 3 year old loves books. We read bedtime stories nearly every night. I enjoyed reading your thoughts.
Cathryn:
DeleteThat was a great idea about illustrating the chapter. I will have to remember that one!
Chapter 14 discussed the Teacher, Caregivers and the Community working in Collaboration. The chapter begins by talking about Parental Involvement and how important that is to a child’s success in education. It also talked about how important it is for the teacher to understand and learn about each child’s home life. Every student is not going to have the same background, nor are they going to have the same background as their teacher so to fully understand how to teach each student you first need to know where they come from and go from there. The next section talks about the benefits of parental involvement which I personally think is lacking in our schools today. Most parents do not even know what their child does at school except for what comes home in an agenda that says so and so had a good day. I think that students would excel in school if they had the support of their parents or guardians and had the opportunity to work on things at home. As a future teacher I really enjoyed reading this chapter because it gave such great examples on how to connect with the parents at the beginning of the year and at different times in the school year. I think that it is important to keep them informed and it was nice to have some ideas on how to do that. I personally liked the Newsletter idea. I worked at a school where the teacher put out a newsletter every two weeks informing the parents of what the class was working on. With the advanced technology that we have these days, blogs and email are also a great way to stay connected and informed. Overall I took a lot of great information from this chapter on how to connect with engaged parents, as well as, parents that are not so willing to help. I think that I will most definitely use this information in my future classroom
ReplyDeleteSince this is our last blog I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed reading posts from the other students and commenting with my thoughts on each of the chapters.
Tammi,
DeleteI must say that I agree with you about parental involvement being low in schools today. We have a couple students who never come back with their homework completed, and I feel that it is partially by fault of the parents not being responsible for what their child is doing at home. I would take helicopter parents any day over those who could care less about their child's education! :)
Carissa
Chapter 14 makes me think of the popular phrase "it takes a village to raise a child". Chapter 14 is about how teachers, care givers, and the community work together in collaboration to help children. I have heard much of the this information before and I have personal experience with connecting with community, parents, and teachers together through my past occupations. I think one of the biggest issues I will face is getting "all" parents involved in their child's education. On page 360 DeVries stated "it is imperative that teachers understand the homes from which their students come". With the growing diversity in our country and in my current location I know this is something I need to remember. I also found the information on engaged parents to be very insightful. The other issue I know I will face is parents accepting their child's difficulties. I am personally dealing with this issue in my Pre K classroom. The tips DeVires provided were helpful and very beneficial. The last thing I took with me from this chapter was in the concluding thoughts section on page 372. DeVires summed up the importance of parental involvement and also stated, "parents can be very helpful to teachers by offering ideas and resources". This is something I had no fully considered or reflected on until now. And like I have recited in nearly every post of mine this book is one I will be keeping for my professional library.
ReplyDeleteYes Jade, I agree that statement is perfect for this chapter. It is so important that the whole community come together and help raise the children. It is so important that we as teachers know where are students are coming from. I think it will help us to be empathetic to the child's needs. It is also helpful when assessing children. It is sad to see children that have no parental involvement, that is why the community should play a part in their education. I have never worked in an inner city school, but I always think of those kids when I read about parent and community involvement. Many of those kids rely on the community for support. I am so glad we have this book to refer back to as well. It is amazing and has great resources!
DeleteI do not think you are the only one who will be keeping this book! It has so many helpful tips and information, and I think I will be using it for many years to come. I like the phrase you mentioned in your post. I had not ever heard that phrase before, but it is so true! It basically ties straight in to what this chapter talked about.
DeleteWhen you talked about getting all parents involved, I think this is something that all teacher strive to do. However, sadly enough, we know that all parents are involved all the time. The book offered a lot of helpful information and tips on how to deal with such parents. I really like the idea of pairing these students with an older, caring adult.
1. Analysis of the reading/issue.
ReplyDeleteChapter 14 of the textbook is all about teacher/parent collaboration. The chapter discusses how the bridge between parents and teachers is a vital component in the education of their child. The book states that the school is responsible for reaching out to the parents regularly and keeping the parents involved, while the parents are expected to assist in their child's learning and get involved with school activities. The book also discusses the importance of getting to know the parents and home life of the students in order to fully understand how to work with each child. There may be factors at home that need taken in to consideration when establishing curriculum and instruction for your class. Lastly the chapter discusses techniques that can be used to help parents work with their students at home such as reading together or having a literacy night. The chapter briefly discusses how to cope with difficult parents who are either too involved or not involved at all.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue.
I did not have any real contradictions to this week's chapter. One thing the chapter mentioned was that the parents are responsible for becoming involved at school by volunteering for events, PTO, etc. While I feel this is very important, I think it is also important to understand that not all parents can provide this level of involvement with jobs, other children, sports, etc. I see a lot of students in our school that have parents who work at nights and don't have time to volunteer or even help their child with homework.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
I have always felt very passionately about keeping parents involved and being an involved parent. I know that when my kids get in to school I will want to be keep up to date on their progress and I will expect regular updates from the teacher. As an educator, I see the importance of doing this and look forward to collaborating with parents.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience.
I actually dealt with this first-hand this past week. One of the parents of a student I tutored for this class called me to get an update on her son's progress. I felt honored that she valued my opinion and pleased that she has taken such an interest in her son's education. Although I did not share any of the scores with her, I discussed how her son progressed and what he still needed to work on. I also volunteered to tutor him after school if she desired, as I think he would benefit from further intervention. It was fun to talk to my first parent and get that line of communication open.
Chapter 14 is about collaboration between teachers, caregivers and the community. The National PTA developed standards parental involvement with specific responsibilities for schools and parents. The school is responsible for scheduling regular communication between home and school; supporting parenting skills; and involving parents in major decisions. The parents are responsible for assisting in their child’s learning; volunteering at school; and collaborating with the community to provide resources to the schools. Teachers need to understand their students’ home lives, cultures, value systems and ways of communicating. Students are benefited academically, physically, socially and emotionally if their parents/caregivers are actively involved in their education. This benefit is seen across socioeconomic levels and from both majority and minority groups. Some ways to communicate with parents are through letters, parent-teacher conferences, newsletters, bulletin boards, parents’ nook, phone calls, happy grams, portfolios, and family-teacher conferences. There are three basic types of parents: parents who do not seem to value education; parents who seem highly critical of everything the teacher does; and parents who seem not to accept that their child is struggling in reading or writing. For the first type of parents, use happy grams and family-teacher conferences to help give these parents a positive attitude about education. For the second type of parents, schedule a conference for an appropriate visit. For the third type of parents, remember to share things that the student does well and set short-term goals so parents can see the successes and regularly send parents progress reports.
ReplyDeleteI am one of those parents who participate in class events whenever possible. I live in a small community and also work as a substitute teacher in the schools. It seems that it is always the same parents helping in the schools. In visiting with teachers at conferences, especially middle school and high school, the teachers have indicated that the parents who attend the somewhat “optional” conferences are generally the ones that do not need to attend. The parents of the students who the teachers would like to visit with are the ones that do not come to the conferences. Being a smaller, rural school district, a majority of parents are involved or interested in their students’ education. It is frustrating to see students struggling or not caring about their education. Unfortunately, these students are often the ones that have parents who are not actively involved or interested in their education.
Chapter 14 was a great way to end this book. Getting parents and the community involved with learning and reading is so important. Just like the text book stated there are so many ways parents can get involved and teachers can allow them to, which will encourage and promote learning. It is important that as future teachers we connect with parents because it is proven that student performance will be higher. We take it for granted here at our rural school. My sister is at a large school district in a Title school and the parents are not involved at all. They pay big bucks to hire a person to coordinate activities to get parents involved.
ReplyDeleteThe chapter refers to ways to communicate with parents such as introductory letters, introductory parent-teacher conferences, newsletters, bulletin boards, parents’ nook, telephone calls or emails, daily notes, and family-teacher conferences. As a teacher it is important to take a survey I think at the first of the year to make sure you know what the best way to communicate with your parents. Some don’t have email, some can’t speak English, and some might not have transportation. It is important that we communicate in an effective way to every parent by meeting their needs.
I love the suggestions given to share with parents especially the one that parents need to understand that their primary duty when it comes to education is helping their child understand that practice is necessary to become skillful in any task. Isn’t that great! I also liked the home-school literacy connection I can use this right now with my students. PAT emphasize all the time how important it is to start early with reading and do so well connecting with parents and the importance of home and school.
I recently had to do my first Parent Teacher Conferences for Title One all by myself. I was very nervous because I wanted to be honest but not come across negative in any way. The tips they give in the book are very helpful and would have been great to have reviewed right before my first conference. It was hard to see parents cry because their kid struggles in Reading. I was very positive and gave them a resource packet to take home that was full of strategies, tips, websites, and drills that they could practice at home with their child. My favorite thing mentioned in the chapter was the technology nights, what a great idea!
Chapter fourteen discussed how teachers and others in the community can work together to help children learn. As I am sure you know, parent or other caregiver involvement is very important to aiding student learning. The book mentioned that parent involvement has two categories. They are involvement at school and involvement at home. This was sort of new to me because I just basically combined the two.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to a lot from this chapter. Growing up, especially through the elementary grades, my mother was very involved in my school work. I think she played a very important role in helping me learn at the elementary level. It is sad, but I do not think that all students have that same support and reference that I had. I think there are a lot of parents who need to play a more important role in helping their children learn. As a future educator, I want to know how I can motivate those parents. Does anyone have any ideas or experiences?
Like the book mentioned, there are many benefits when people work together to better the education of a child. It not only helps students academically, but it also helps them physically, socially, and emotionally.
I really enjoyed reading about family-teacher conferences. The book offered some very helpful tips. This is one thing I do not really look forward to. I am sort of nervous to discuss with parents if a child is struggling in my class. I worry that parents will argue or disagree with what I have to say. I guess that is why we have records, though. I plan to follow these tips to try and make family-teacher the best experience I can.
The last thing I want to mention from this chapter is over the technology presented in this chapter. The book had a section called “technology nights.” This was completely new to me. However, I think it is a great idea. Today, many students have technology available in their homes. There are many educational websites that can serve as a great tool to helping students not only learn but have fun doing so.
I thought you presented a great overview of the chapter. I have seen that teacher have students do more homework that is related to an educational website, students can get on and complete a few problems and the teacher can check it. I think websites like this help students who may have parents that are not able to help them or chose not to. Another great program I have seen is that school will issue laptops to students for those who do not have a computer at home.
DeleteChapter 14 Blog
ReplyDeleteZoë Greenemeyer
Parental involvement is crucial for students, educators, and parents. The national PTA developed three areas that both schools and parents are responsible for. Parental involvement encompasses two basic categories, involvement at school and involvement at home. When I spoke with a teacher at my daughter’s school she said that as an educator you need to make the parent feel there is a partnership. The chapter starts by encouraging educators to know about the home life of their students and their cultural background. When my mother was a teacher she would always do a home visit at the beginning of the year to make sure she was able to meet the parents of her students and get an idea of what the home life was like for her students. I also plan to do this, I think it is a valuable experience and shows parents that there will be a partnership and the student is important. Studies have indicated that students who are more successful academically have parents who are involved in their schooling. I was not aware that parents in the urban setting have lower involvement at home than those living in suburban and rural areas. As a parent I like to get the monthly newsletters to find out about what is happening in the classroom. I cannot imagine working with parents who do not see the value in education; I hope to provide the student with as much help as possible and continue to encourage a partnership with the parents.
I have been very lucky with my children and have only had amazing teachers who are innovative and fun. My children have had been very lucky and in the same respect I have as well. I have had a handful of great teachers to model my own future classroom and teaching methods off of. Due to the fact that my son attends a school for students with disabilities I have had some great role models. The Language Acquisition Preschool, my older sons school, has done every single item on the 'ways to communicate with parents' suggestion list.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading the section on working with difficult parents I was so upset. The fact that there are some parents who do not value education was appalling. I really found the suggestions for working with parents who are highly critical was refreshing in that it offered a way to try to turn the situation around. I really liked the technology suggestions and loved the resources (wordless books and almost wordless books). I feel like I should have read them at the beginning of the semester.
Jessica,
DeleteI agree with you when I think about the parents I will have to work with as teacher I hope they will not be difficult. We should be a team and help eachother not make it harder for one another. I really hope I have a classroom of students that parents want to be apart of the classroom as well.
1. Analysis of the reading/issue.
ReplyDeleteChapter fourteen of the textbook Literacy Assessment & Intervention by B. Devries discusses how educators, guardians, and others in the community work together to benefit the student. According to the textbook “the parents are responsible for 1. Assisting in their child’s learning, 2. Volunteering at school, and 3. Collaborating with the community to provide resources to the school” (Devries et al., 359). This chapter describes why it is so important for the teacher to know the students live at home as well as in the classroom because they do go hand in hand. This chapter also describes different ways that teachers can encourage parents to communicate with teachers in the classroom. The last part of the textbook discusses how to encourage parents to be involved in the classroom and also how to deal with difficult teachers.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue.
None at this time.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
I really liked how this chapter discussed how to communicate with the parents of students. Sometimes parents can be sensitive when it comes to their child so it is very good to know how to deal with those sensitive situations that may come up in the classroom. I also liked the different ways to involve the parent in the classroom. I like to feel that most of the students’ parents want to be involved in the classroom but may feel uncomfortable so these are great ways to make the parents feel more comfortable and then want to participate more.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience.
When I worked in a school as a para educator I had a classroom where the parents were very involved in the classroom. It was so great to have such a devoted class and parents to help. It made such a difference for the students and I could really feel a classroom feeling when I did not have those same students (parents) the following year.