Home/School PartnershipKimberly Ralph

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Partnerships

• Pickett (2004) defines partnership as having a common interest.

• Our common interest is educating the children.

Teachers Need Parents

• If parents are involved in their children’s education, the children are more successful in school(Meyer & Mann, 2006).

• Parent involvement is a strong indicator of academic achievement (Meyer & Mann, 2006).

What Can Teachers Do?

Two examples of how teachers and parents can work together are:

1. Home Visits

2. Home Reading Programs

Home Visits

1. Can be helpful in establishing connections between the home and school.

2. Helps teachers understand a child’s family better (Meyer & Mann, 2006).

3. Establishes a teacher/parent relationship on a positive note from the beginning of the school year.

The Power of Home Visits

In Meyer & Mann (2006) regarding the benefits of home visits, teachers expressed the following:

• Home visits helped improve his/her relationship with the parent and child.

• Overall communication with parents improved.

• Seeing the home environment helped him/her understand the children and their behavior better.

Take-Home Literacy Programs

Key Components of a successful early reading program:

1.Fluency

2.Word Decoding

Take-Home Literacy Programs

• Even when these components are present in the instructional program, sometimes children need more time than can allotted in the course of the school day.

• The home is the most logical area for expansion of a literacy program(Padak & Rasinski, 2006).

Characteristics of a Successful Take-Home Literacy Program

Create activities that are fun and easy to follow. Keep the involvement time to 10-15 minutes.

Provide a means of documentation for easy monitoring.

Provide authentic reading texts (rhymes, poems and jokes) and follow the “read to, read with, and listen to children” pattern.

Train parents and provide ongoing support. (Padak & Rasinski, 2006)

Fast Start

• Fast Start (FS) is a take-home literacy program for primary students.

• Parents work with a reading passage each day.

• FS follows the “read to, read with and listen to children” format.

• Parent and child work on phonemic awareness or word study.

• (Padak & Rasinski, 2006)

Bringing it All Together

• Parents and teachers share a common interest.

• Both want to help children be successful in school.

• Working together can help teachers and parents achieve that goal.

References

• Pickett, J.P. (Ed.) (2004). The American Heritage Dictionary. (4th ed., 616). New York: Bantam Dell.

• Meyer, J.A. & Mann, M.B. (2006). Teachers’ perceptions of the benefits of home visits for early elementary children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(1), 93-97.

References

• Padak, N. & Rasinski, T. (2006). Home-school partnerships in literacy education: From rhetoric to reality. The Reading Teacher, 60, 292-296.