Parental Involvement Perfection!

Research says that students that have involved parents do better academically! Would you like to boost parental involvement in your classroom?  Well, you already have the ability!  This post (along with an awesome book) will give you the push you need to ensure parental involvement perfection!   

Parental Involvement Perfection!

Summertime is the perfect time for teachers to reflect and prepare for the next school year.  Many teachers also enjoy reading (by the beach or pool if we're lucky).  Using the book RAISING A ROCK-STAR READER: 75 Quick Tips to Help Your Child Develop a Lifelong Love of Reading, you can empower your student's parents and pave your way to success as a classroom educator.

(photo credit:  Cathy Collier The WISE Owl)


 


I implore you to share your knowledge with parents.  We may assume that parents know what to do with their emergent readers when they don't.  Hand over your wealth of knowledge to parents and watch your students flourish.  Together teachers and parents can create students that want to read and love to read.  RAISING A ROCK-STAR READER is segmented into ten chapters.  Each chapter captures the essence of the strategies used when teaching reading.  You'll be treated to game ideas, how-tos, dialog, and more on the following subjects:

• best books at all ages
• technology used for academics
• speech development
• concept of print
• phonemes
• phonics
• learning the letters
• rhyme
• emergent readers
• the writing connection 
• fluency, comprehension, and more!  

 Ideas That Have Worked!

Every week I send a newsletter home to parents.  In each supplement there is a section about reading.  I simply discuss something that would help their students grow as readers.  You could write about a new app for sight words, questions to ask students after reading, or simply how to read with them.  There are many parents that don't realize that reading a recipe, a bedtime story, or looking for letters in the environment while on a road trip will help their students.  What I thought was a very simple idea has been loved and used by many parents over the years.  Of course you will have to think of ideas every week.  If you have difficulty with that you can use the 75 hints in RAISING A ROCK-STAR READER.  Ok...... I'm no math genius but with 36 weeks of school........ there are plenty of options and choices for you! 

Remember, when you are talking or writing to parents they may not be familiar with terms like concept of print, schema, fluency, visualization, or sight words.  It is very common place for us to use those words but it scares parents and makes them feel closed to the partnership that we are trying to forge.  Make sure you are using vocabulary that is common to them without speaking over their heads.  

RAISING A ROCK-STAR READER will also help you when planning parent/teacher conferences.  If a student is having difficulty with rhyme a parent may not know what to do.  Teachers have resources to help their students in the classroom but we need to come up with some quick and easy ways to implement those strategies at home and this book is full of amazing and engaging ideas. 

At the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year I send home a list of apps and websites that are helpful academically.  If our students are spending a portion of their summer on a device I want the time to be meaningful!  RAISING A ROCK-STAR READER gives you a list to start with...... the work is already done!

Something To Look Forward To:

Inspired by RAISING A ROCK-STAR READER I plan on including 3 items in every newsletter next school year:

• a book that we've read in class that the students enjoyed
• a fun activity to play with the family at home (hangman which I call smart student) 
• a new app or website to help academically 

Remember above all make sure that families know that reading is FUN!  As you can see I lead by example...... whenever my family sees a statue we pose and read to them. The (reading) statues on the campus of William & Mary are perfect for that!  My family always encourages reading when potty training!  Reading can be done everywhere and a sense of humor is helpful!

What Will You Do?

Let this post inspire you to use your knowledge to empower parents and make them feel like they are part of the team!   Let us all know how you are motivating parents to be involved with their own student's success.  I can't wait to hear how you get parents involved!!!

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