Building Bridges Between School and Home - Center for Literacy ...

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u Introducing Parent InvolvementKits at Parent-Teacher Conference Night uLast year, we spent someof our Title I moneyon items that teachersthought would be good classroomand parent involvementactivities. After researchingmany products, the teacherschose Frog Family Fun Packs.These kits encourage parentinvolvement while their childpractices a particular skill. Thekits have different skills for thechild to practice and offer activitiesthat parents can complete withtheir child. We selected kits for first,second, and third grade. The goal wasto train the child and parents on howto use the activities in the kits. The kitswould eventually go home with thechild each week so the parents and childcould complete the activities and playthe games together. We received the kitsat the end of last year and we put them on the shelfuntil we could decide how to incorporate the kits inour parent involvement program this year.We decided to introduce the kits during ourparent-teacher conferences. The night of the conferenceswe offered different sessions that parentscould attend while waiting for their opportunity tomeet with their child’s teacher. I wanted to revampthe way we had been offering the traditional parentteacherconference. I wanted the night to offer somethingmore than just going to see the teacher. Oftenthere are long lines of parents in the halls, waiting tosee teachers and they are just sitting there and gettingfrustrated. I thought if they had some other activitiesto rotate to while waiting — and could gainknowledge at the same time — it would make for aMichelle (Shelly)Campbell was aninstructional coach withLawrence CountyPublic Schools and hasrecently retired.smoother flow. Plus, the parentswould feel more involvedand there would be morethings going on while the parentswait.My Title I assistant and Iworked on signs and schedulespromoting the Frog FamilyFun Pack session. Parentscould attend this session andlearn more about the FrogFamily Fun Packs and learnhow to do the activities. Weoffered tootsie rolls (600 of them) toparents to entice them to attend this session.The evening started off somewhatslowly and we had very few participantsin the beginning. But as the night wenton, more parents came in for conferencesand more came in to the Fun Packsession. The parents seemed to have areally good time with the activities andwe considered the night a success.However, that is as far as the project has progressed.We have completed the introduction andtraining on the Frog Family Fun Packs, but we needto carry it on to the next step. We are in the processof deciding where to locate the Fun Packs, whichteachers are going to use them, how we are goingto go about scheduling use of the Fun Packs, howwe are going to spread the word that they are available,and how we will get them home and get themreturned. The kits are still sitting in the boxes asof now. The parents have had the opportunity towork with the kits and know a little bit about whatto expect.If I were going to carry out this project again, Iwould do a few things differently. Because I didn’tBUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN SCHOOL AND HOME: STORIES OF SUCCESS FROM LAWRENCE COUNTY, TENNESSEE6
have the turnout I expected, I would probably putmore thought into sending information out to particulargroups of parents instead of just sending outa school-wide notice of the schedule. I would putmore effort into recruiting the groups of parentsthat would benefit most from having this information,such as 1st through 3rd grade parents. I wouldalso keep up the momentum instead of getting it goingand letting it fizzle. It is hard to find the time toget it going again. Sometimes we have really goodideas but we don’t always have the time or resourcesto carry them out.u Informing Parents ofTheir Child’s Academic Performance uOne of the things thatthe teachers in myschool are reallyconcerned about is how effectivelywe communicate howstudents are performing insubject areas. In order to helpparents understand how theirchild is performing in school,we decided to supplement thereport cards. We developedprogress reports that we send toparents between report cards. Theseprogress reports show parents howtheir child performed on assessments.However, when we looked atthe progress reports, we noticed thatwe gave parents a lot of informationbut we didn’t clearly define whatthe assessments were and what theymeasured. So, to effectively communicate how theirchild was performing, we started setting up informationalmeetings. We brought parents in for a sessionand gave a presentation on Dynamic IndicatorsPatty Welsh has over 20 yearsof teaching experience and asan instructional coach. She iscurrently a Title I teacher atSouth Lawrence Elementarywhich serves over 700 pre-Kthrough 8th grade students.of Basic Early Literacy Skills(DIBELS). During this sessionwe explained the components,defined some of the terminology,explained the benchmarkand goals, and provided activitiesand strategies that parentscould do at home to helptheir child. We also explainedthe tier work that we did inthe classroom.While the parents were in the DI-BELS presentation, the childrenwere working on Halloween activities.After the presentation, the childrencame back in and completedan AR (Accelerated Reader) computeractivity with their parent. Wegave each child and parent a bookand they spread all throughout thebuilding, reading together. They sat on the floor,or wherever they could find a comfortable spot toread the book. After they read, we explained ARgoals, what was expected of them, how the systemBUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN SCHOOL AND HOME: STORIES OF SUCCESS FROM LAWRENCE COUNTY, TENNESSEE7
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Page 7 and 8: u Surveying to Invite Parent Involv
Page 9: u Grade-level MeetingsHelp Parent-T
Page 13: u Helping Parents SupportTheir Chil
Page 17 and 18: • Provide resources. Help teacher
Page 19 and 20: Appendix ILeoma Elementary School20
Page 21 and 22: Working With Teachers and SchoolsHe
Page 23 and 24: Appendix III1st Grade Progress Repo
Page 25 and 26: Reasearch Supports• Reading probl

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