Parental Engagement

Highlight: Kids and Family Reading Report

April 22, 2015

http://www.scholastic.com/readingreport/key-findings.htm

Scholastic recently released their Kids and Family Reading Report. You can read the key highlights of the report here. I want to highlight just one section, Reading Aloud at Home. Here are their key findings in this section:

More than half of children ages 0â€“5 (54%) are read aloud to at home 5â€“7 days a week. This declines to only one in three kids ages 6â€“8 (34%) and to one in six kids ages 9â€“11 (17%);
four in 10 children ages 6â€“11 who were read books aloud at home (40%) say they wished their parents had continued reading aloud to them.
When it comes to being read aloud to at home, more than eight in 10 children (83%) across age groups say they love(d) or like(d) it a lotâ€”the main reason being it was a special time with parents.

Spotlight: Reading with Kids from Birth

Nearly three-quarters of parents with children ages 0â€“5 (73%) say they started reading aloud to their child before age one, yet only 30% say they began before the age of three months.
Six in 10 parents with children ages 0â€“5 (60%) have received advice that children should be read aloud to from birth; however, just under half of parents in the lowest-income households (47%) received this advice vs. 74% in the highest-income households.

There’s a lot more information in this report and it’s worth reading. Click here to access the whole report as well as to see infographics based on the data.

Beyond The Bake Sale – Book Review

April 20, 2015

Beyond The Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships is the definitive book on parental engagement for schools. Practical, comprehensive, and inspiring, the book provides a detailed road-map for educators. The book identifies four key beliefs regarding parental engagement.

Core Belief 1: All Parents Have Dreams for Their Children and Want the Best for ThemÂ (page 28)
This theme is again revisited later in the book. The authors write: “We suggest that your team start with this premise: All families, no matter what their income, race, education, language, or culture, want their children to do well in school – and can make an important contribution to their children’s learning.” (pg. 115)

Core Belief 2: All Parents Have the Capacity to Support Their Children’s LearningÂ (page 32)
Three key concepts that influence parental involvement:

How parents develop their job description as a parent (role construction): “What parents think they are supposedÂ to do to help their children and what their family and friends say about what’s important and acceptable…”) (pg. 33)
How confident parents feel about their ability to help their children (efficacy) (pg. 33)
- They have the skills and knowledge needed to help their children
- Their children can learn what they have to share and teach
- They can find other sources of skill or knowledge if needed
- What they do will make a positive difference in their children’s learning
Whether parents feel invited – both by their children and by the school (pg. 34)

Core Belief 3: Parents and School Staff Should Be Equal PartnersÂ (pg. 36)
This tenet is underscored by two pieces of excellent research reported on in the book.

Researchers “Tony Bryk and Barbara Schneider found that schools where staff trust parents and their colleagues tend to have higher levels of student achievement.” (pg. 48) (Click here to access the cited study.)
A study of seven hundred African American middle schoolers found that when students were assigned homework that required them to converse with their parents, students were boosted in their writing skills, grades, and test scores. (pg 98) (Click here to access the cited study.)

Core Belief 4: The Responsibility for Building Partnerships Between School and Home Rests Primarily with School Staff, Especially School LeadersÂ (pg. 39)
To provide some evidence for this statement, the book citedÂ a longitudinal study of Title 1 elementary schools. Researchers found that teacher outreach to parents improved student progress in reading and math at 40-50% higher rate. These teachers met face-to-face with each individual family at the beginning of the school year, sent those families materials each week that included ways to help their children at home, and telephoned routinely with news on how their children were doing. (pg. 94) (Click here to access the cited study.)

Beyond The Bake Sale is filled with wonderful insights, down-to-earth advice, realistic action steps, and examples of best practices. Here’s a link to the book on Amazon.com.

When leaders accept these core belief’s and follow the steps towards trusting parents then good things can happen.

Let’s #TrustParents

In This Welsh School, Parents Study With Pupils

April 13, 2015

Ysgol y Foryd is the name of a school in north-east Wales that was highlighted in anÂ article, published at the beginning of March, Â which reported how the school integrates families and empowers parents. At this school,

“Families have a say in the way school is run, through a parents’ forum, and a family liaison office helps to improve attendance.Â There are also classes where parents come in to work alongside their children, on anything from computer skills, to crafts or health eating.”

This pro-family engagement policy is in keeping with the Welsh government whichÂ has launched a campaign called ‘Education Begins at Home.’

This parent-engagement approach has been very successful:

The infant school says pupils whose parents play an active role in the learning perform at a level higher by the end of the Foundation Phase, at age seven.

Parental engagement is effective and like Wales is doing it should be encouraged. When it comes to education, we should #TrustParents.

State of Parenting Report and Parental Engagement

April 10, 2015

Pearson, in associated with NBC News, has released their State of Parenting report which has data from a nation-wide survey of parents. When it comes to parental engagement, this report has much to say.

To begin with, nearly four in five parents (79%) say they eat dinner together as a family on most days of the week. And a majority of parents (51%) say that they spend more time with their children than their own parents spent with them.

Now, here’s an interesting tidbit: “parents who say they are satisfied with their own level of involvement are more likely (82%) to rate their kid’s education as excellent or good.” In other words, parents who trust themselves are more likely perceive their children as receiving a quality education.

When it comes to making parental more effective, parents are looking for, “a better understanding of the benchmarks and skills that their children are expected to master” and “training [i.e., workshops or classes] on dealing with . . . educational issues.” What is especially noteworthy here is that minority parents are more likely to say these strategies would be very effective in helping them.

Here’s the bottom line. Research has found that a parent’s self-efficacy (belief that they can parent well and that through their parenting, they can better the life of their child) is linked to positive outcomes in parenting. (See, for example, “Self-Efficacy and Parenting Quality, a report from Coleman and Karraker”) When parents trust themselves, they feel confident and are thus positioned to be a better parent.Â As educators, we need to support parents and encourage them to be confident in their ability to parent. And when parents ask for benchmarks and workshops, we should supply them.

Read the full report here.

Trust Parents: Why Engaged Parents are Essential in Building Lifelong Learners

March 30, 2015

Last weekend I had the opportunity to speakÂ at the Greater St. Louis Area Home Educators Expo. I spoke several times but my keynote presentation was,

“Trust Parents:Â Why Engaged Parents are Essential in Building Lifelong Learners”

At the heart of this talk is the simple truth that parents are the key to a successful education. The secret? You donâ€™t have to be a rocket scientist to help your child succeed. Drawing on a rich set of research, various social sciences studies, and Ethanâ€™s homeschooling story â€œfrom coonskin cap to college graduate,â€ this talk provides a compelling argument for the importance (and power) of trusting parents. Learn practical tips for parental engagement and be encouraged by the evidence that says, â€œparents you can do it and you can do it well.â€

Here are my slides from the talk:

This message of trusting parents is one that I am passionate about sharing because of the far reaching positive implications. If you’re interested in this idea and would like to have me speak at your next event just visit the contact page and we can talk. Here is a link to a blog post with research on parental engagement that I cite in this talk. Also check out my math and parental engagement blog series which I reference in my talk, as well as my series on reading, and history.

Book Review: Hispanic Parental Engagement

March 25, 2015

I recently came acrossÂ the book, Hispanic Parental InvolvementÂ book by Dr. Lourdes Ferrer. Dr. LourdesÂ is an education consultant and speakerÂ and hasÂ more than thirty years of experience as a mother, teacher, school administrator, and education consultant. This vast experience has convinced her that our public education system functions at its best when parents are part of their children’s academic lives.

Hispanic Parental Involvement by Dr. Lourdes Ferrer

In her bookÂ Hispanic Parental Involvement, she specifically addresses the need for parental involvement in education within Hispanic communities. However, much of what she writes is universal and speaks to all parents.Â At the beginning of the book, Dr. Ferrer recounts how Hispanic students she spoke with cited lack of parental involvement and support as a main explanation for their poor education performance.

In exploring this, Ferrer makes sure to clarify that generally this lack of parental involvement is not a lack of love but rather a lack of knowledge. Many parents in question don’t really know how to navigate the complexities of America’s education system. It’s also true that some don’t see or fully realize the value of education. (pages 9-10)

The book shares ten competencies that Parents and Schools can work towards in order toÂ improve outcomes:

Value Kid’s Education
Meet Kid’s Needs
Overcome Immigrant Challenges
Maintain Family Unity
Understand Their Role
Believe In Their Children
Connect with Teachers
Make Reading a Lifestyle
Make Homework a Routine
Build Kid’s Character

Dr. Lourdes uses the analogy of a tricycle to explore the roles of child, parents, and teachers in education:

Students are the front (big) wheel. “The same way that the front wheel determines the direction of the tricycle, the students’ needs determine the course of action to help them reach academic proficiency in their academic subjects.” (pg. 85)

Parents and teachers are the two back-wheels, connected, that provide support and balance. “Parents and teachers must work collaboratively to provide students the kind of support and balance they need to reach their maximum potential and contribute to society.” (pg. 86)

Parents are essential especially in providing support. Dr. Ferrer writes:

Parents can better support their children’s education when they believe in their children’s ability to learn; expect their children to achieve academic success; and develop a good understanding of how children can reach proficiency in any academic subject.

Check out herÂ book on Amazon.comÂ visit her website and follow her on Twitter.