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

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worked in the classroom and how it factored intotheir grades. Then we let the parents and childrentake the AR assessment. Parents really liked the interactivesession. They loved working with the computers,they got hands-on experience,they received a free book, and theywere able to read together with theirchild. The children were so excited thatthey wanted to continue working withtheir parents on the AR activities. Theywanted to show their parents all aboutthe AR program.Although we considered the night asuccess, I was disappointed because we were tryingto present too much information in too little time.We felt like we weren’t able to adequately answer thequestions that the parents had because of the massiveamount of information we were trying to present. Wewere trying to do everything with this one DIBELSmeeting and we should have broken it down into severalsmaller sessions.In the past we weren’t happy with the grades wewere giving out because we kept saying we’re givingthem an ‘E,’ but these kids still have problems thatare not identified. So, when we sent out the firstprogress report, the teachers were apprehensive becausewe were being very honest with the parentsabout their child’s level of performance. However,after the reports went home the teachers began receivingnumerous phone calls from parents seekinghelp. They wanted to know how to help their child.The parents asked teachers what needed to be done“My project was reallyabout improvingcommunication with theparents so they wouldknow more than just aletter grade.”to help improve their child’s skills and performance.So providing this information really did cause parentsto become more involved. They asked for helpand the teachers were able to give it to them. Whenthe teachers saw the end result, theysaid that students were no longer fallingthrough the cracks. Problems wereidentified earlier on. This allowed us toindividualize our instruction and targetthe students’ weaknesses. Teachers wereable to work more closely with the lowperformance groups while the studentswho were performing on or abovegrade-level work independently.My project was really about improving communicationwith the parents so they would knowmore about their child’s performance than just aletter grade. Instead, they would know what theirchild was doing and learning and how well theywere actually performing. We developed a rubric(Appendix III) so parents could tell what theirchild’s needs were and how to help in areas wherethey struggled. The progress reports specify thestrengths and weaknesses of the student and giveparents strategies.When we do this again we will probably havegrade-level meetings. It’s hard to ask your teachersand parents to keep coming in after school, soyou have a large meeting but it’s not as effective.Our meeting would have been more effective if theteachers presented the information at grade-levelmeetings.BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN SCHOOL AND HOME: STORIES OF SUCCESS FROM LAWRENCE COUNTY, TENNESSEE8
u Helping Parents SupportTheir Children’s Literacy Development uIn order to help parents understandDIBELS and whatthe scores mean for theirchild, we used our parent-teacherconferences to provide moreinformation. The Dynamic Indicatorsof Basic Early LiteracySkills (DIBELS) are a set of standardizedmeasures of early literacydevelopment used to regularlymonitor the developmentof pre-reading and early readingskills. We developed a brochurefor the parents with informationabout DIBELS testing. Inaddition, we gave the parents thefront page of their child’s test scoresso the teachers could explain what thebenchmark was, what DIBELS is, andwhat their child’s scores mean. I alsomade myself available so the parentscould come to my room for furtherexplanation. I had quite a few parentscome and talk to me about their child’sDIBELS scores.To follow up, we’ve planned to have a DIBELSnight in January after our next test so we can, hopefully,show growth. Unfortunately, we had very fewwho scored as well as expected for their grade-level(also known as “benchmarking”). One Kindergartenclass had only 3 to benchmark and the otherclass had 2 to benchmark. We are working with thestudents who didn’t benchmark and doing progressmonitoring with them, especially in Kindergarten.Because of the work the teachers are doing withthe students, we see a lot of growth and we knowthe students are going to do better on the secondDonna Wells is Co-Directorof the afterschool program atLawrenceburg Public Schooland helped to establish aTeacher Center in LawrenceCounty for all LawrenceCounty teachers to use.benchmark. We think it will beencouraging to the parents whenthey see proof of the advancestheir child has made. I think thiswill help strengthen our relationshipswith parents by showingwhat teachers are doing andwhat they, as parents, can do tohelp their child. We are even developingsome activities, games,and booklets that we will makeavailable to parents who want tohelp their child but don’t havethe proper materials at home.I think we are seeing reallygood results with DIBELS andearly intervention. There are thingsthat we can do with children at anearly age to help ensure their readingsuccess. I was reading a book that saidthat there are two things that parentsexpect from schools and teachers:to keep their child safe and to teachtheir child to read. If we can’t teachstudents to read, we’ve lost both thechild and the parent. So, our goal for January afterwe test, will be to compare our scores and bringour paperwork together and share the results withthe parents. This time we will do grade-level meetings.We will show the parents the growth that theirchild has made and give them suggestions as towhat they can do to continue the growth. We have avery active group of parents who want to help theirchildren, but they just don’t come to meetings. Wewill have to come up with some activities that willget the parents in for the meeting. That should beour next goal.BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN SCHOOL AND HOME: STORIES OF SUCCESS FROM LAWRENCE COUNTY, TENNESSEE9
Page 3: Building BridgesBetween Schooland H
Page 7 and 8: u Surveying to Invite Parent Involv
Page 9 and 10: u Grade-level MeetingsHelp Parent-T
Page 11: have the turnout I expected, I woul
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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