Parent Involvement:

How to get your families to focus on the child’s education

Stephanie Salazar

Parent involvement and engagement

• Though there can be a positive result from both, the most trust can be developed through engagement.

• Parent involvement is often more of a "doing to," while engagement is a "doing with." With involvement, you tend to lead with your mouth -- generally telling parents what they should be doing. Engagement, on the other hand, allows you to listen to parental suggestions and take their views into account.

Importance of Parental Engagement

• Reaching parents in their children’s early years may be especially beneficial in promoting patterns of engagement that will continue through later years.

• There is an achievement gap between many immigrant groups and their native peers that begins even prior to Kindergarten enrollment.

• Parent involvement in education is beneficial across all levels of academic achievement, including GPA and standardized tests, for all minority groups and particularly for Latino populations.

Categories of Engagement

– Parenting: activities by which parents promote child’s learning and healthy development through parenting education and support

– Responsibility for learning outcomes: parents are actively involved in their child’s education and early learning activities

– Home-school relationships: parents are full partners in their child’s education, including through decision-making and leadership roles at schools and early learning centers to assist in the successful education of their children

Working with the parent

• Parents should be embraced as teaching partners.• Teaching partners work in a symbiotic relationship

based on mutual respect, trust, and consistent communication.

• We do all this at the beginning of the partnership and continue to work at it throughout the duration of the relationship.

• Parents will listen to a teacher if they are connected to that teacher and feel as if they, too, have been heard (remember to take suggestions into account).

Empower parents with language limitations

• Studies have shown that the most useful skill in helping a child learn to read a second language (i.e. English) isn't being able to speak it well already — it's being able to read in the child's native language.

• Research demonstrates that children raised in multilingual environments where it is valued and used continuously experience cognitive and social benefits which continues to support the importance of parent engagement in the home for many children of immigrants.

The link between home and school• Parents should choose to become involved in homework because

they believe they should be involved, believe their involvement will make a positive difference in their children's learning, and perceive that their involvement is invited, expected, and valued by school personnel.

• If they don’t feel this way we should encourage this in both in-home instruction and homework. Let parents feel that they can help and make a difference. This is especially important in the early years so neither of them think their mother or father can’t teach them as well.

• Afterschool providers are often ideally positioned to act as a bridge of communication between home and school on issues related to student learning

Targeting the parents

• “Helping the kids" is a noble desire, but when a kid goes home to an environment where there's little education or inspiration, those efforts can easily be unraveled.

• Some programs are repackaging themselves as a "two-generation model“-- providing training to uplift parent and child, they say, is the best way to battle what's become an unending cycle of dropouts.

Results of “two-generation” programs

• Cleveland has a yearlong home-visitation program (called Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids, or SPARK) with good results: 22% of SPARK kids tested as being ready for kindergarten, while only 4.9% of non-SPARK kids at their schools were considered kindergarten-ready.

• Data show that SPARK is having a lasting results: Its participants score better on third-grade standardized tests than kids whose parents didn't take part in the program.

• These results are from a combination of kids starting out with a strong reading foundation and the parent getting the training to support learning in the home.

• The bottom line: Let's stop aiming programs just at children and put their parents on the team, too.

Successful tutor program studies show:

• The most promising results in improving long-term student achievement were seen in home-based tutoring programs

• Mentoring/coaching each student’s parents on sustaining the day-to-day learning process in the home after the tutoring ceases is an important role for effective tutors.

• Parent involvement showed that they valued learning and education for their child. This allowed the parents to take on the role as primary motivator of their learning and enhanced the child’s learning even after the tutoring sessions ended.

Tips for helping parents get involved:

• Give a summary of the activities that will be done that day to the parents so they know what they will be learning about. This way they will feel involved and informed from the beginning and will feel comfortable with what comes next.

• I also ask the parents about their personal experiences with the topic to get their prior knowledge and to get them discussing the topic with their children. (ex: volcanoes or monarch butterflies in their home towns). – This way the student will get to learn something about their parent’s

life while relating a topic they will be learning about. Connecting to real life.

– Also, this makes the parents feel as though they can contribute to the lesson when at times they feel I am the only one that can do so.

Continue parent contribution

• As I am explaining some facts to the kids I also translate it into Spanish so that the parents can learn along with them and give them time to ask questions if they would like.

• When we do outdoor activities, I have the parents come out with us to see the activity we have so they can see what they have learned in action.

• The parent can help younger students with crafts if it is too difficult for them to do or they can participate in games with the child if they are an only child.

Distracted Parents

• If the parent is occupied with younger children, provide materials for the younger children to play with so that the parent can still pay attention as the children are with them.

• If the parent is in the kitchen, try to stay nearby so that they can still participate in the discussion and then bring them out to see the main activities and ask them questions throughout the lesson.

Suggestions at end of sessions

• Ask the parents how they think their child is doing in school to see if they have any specific concerns about their child’s education that I can either incorporate into the day’s lesson if it applies, or incorporate it into future lessons.

• When giving RIF books, tell the parents that you want them to keep track of their reading, remind them of competitions and the forms.

• Explain to the parent how the child is doing after the session and if the parents provide you with a report card take the time to explain their progress and what to focus on with them, if they are struggling with a particular subject.

Continue their learning after tutoiring

• Suggest that they read to their kids often. At least 15 minutes a day or every few days to begin with.

• Provide parents with Spanish books so they can read to them or bilingual books so they can read to each other.

• At the end of the lesson, leave the parents with a suggestion on how to work with the kids on things they are struggling with.

• Give them easy materials to work with such as flashcards if they are struggling with a particular subject and explain how they can work with the student while you are gone.

Role Play:

• Situations that may come up with parents:– Mother struggles to get child to sit still– Has younger siblings grabbing your projects– Parents want to wander off – Student is working on family history project– Parents are discouraging– Parent wants your help with school paperwork– Student needs a good spot to get work done

Resources:• http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_fer

lazzo/2012/03/response_the_difference_between_parent_involvement_parent_engagement.html

• http://www.edcentral.org/building-immigrants-strengths-improve-childrens-educations/

• http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigrant-parents-early-childhood-programs-barriers

• http://engagingparentsinschool.edublogs.org/2013/08/20/the-best-infographics-about-parent-involvement/

• http://www.hfrp.org/publications-resources/browse-our-publications/parental-involvement-in-homework-a-review-of-current-research-and-its-implications-for-teachers-after-school-program-staff-and-parent-leaders

• http://www.cleveland.com/bernstein/index.ssf/2012/11/targeting_parents_tutoring_oth.html

• http://www.pdkmembers.org/members_online/publications/Archive/pdf/k0902gor.pdf