Sunday, April 16, 2006

Helping Parents Help Us-

Promoting Comprehension Through Parent Involvement

by V. Susan Bennett-Armistead

Your assignment is to read chapter 11 on parent support. Please reflect on the following key questions:

1. How might parent involvement efforts improve achievements in reading comprehension?

2. What are the barriers to parent involvement in your community?

3. What are your ideas that would involve parents who traditionally do not get involved at school?

Please click on the comments icon to submit your reply.

2 Comments:

Blogger Sam Fuchs said...

1. How might parent involvement efforts improve achievements in reading comprehension?

Parents can be very important people in their child's education if they are involved. First of all they know their children the best and usually see them more than we do. By reading with their child at home not only are they reinforcing the skills at school but they are showing their child that reading is important. I think because they have more flexibility when they read with their child than when teachers work with the class there is an opportunity to more tailor the reading to the child and make it more fun. When students enjoy reading they do well.

2. What are some barriers to parent involvement in your community?

I think we have pretty good parents overall, but there is still a few that feel that "schoolwork" should be done at school. The parents don't see the importance of the work at home. Also, we do have some students whose parents have language barriers. I think another big problem is that parents are not always sure what to do unless it has been assigned by the teacher.

3. What are your ideas that would involve parents who traditionally do not get involved at school?

I have tried some of the strategies mentioned in the article. I have put suggestions in the newsletter, talked with parents about how to work with their child, or found buddies for poor readers to read with. Another thing I do is that we have a book report each month and I try to make them so that they include the parents nor people from outside of school. One last thing I have participated in at a previous school was we had a book lending program. In the program there were many backpacks that were filled with books and activities about different themes. Parents could sign up for a theme and the kids would take them home when it was their turn. Since most of them were fun activities involving reading there was a high level of participation throughout the school.

5:11 AM  
Blogger Mr. Bretzmann said...

1. Parental involvement connects what we do at school to what is going on at home in the "real lives" of the students. The idea is that reading comprehension isn't just something that is important for a class, it's important everywhere. Parents can encourage students to read, understand, discuss, analyze, interpret, predict, make decisions, form opinions if they get involved with what their students are doing and ask them about it. "Do you have any homework?" is not enough.
2. One of the biggest barriers is time. Parents and students are committed to so many things that reading and discussing reading take a backseat. I think another barrier is the students themselves. "why do you keep coming to school." "gawd, stop asking me about my homework." "why are you always hassling me." It may take some time to get rid of these questions from some students. Of course, others would welcome the involvement.
3. a. call parents in the beginning of the semester to introduce myself. b. call parents and e-mail parents throughout the semester on good topics, not just bad topics. c. send a letter to parents asking for their involvement if they have some expertise related to topics that we're studying. d. encourage parents to ask about and discuss what we're studying in class. This may lead to more comprehension by both students and parents since we're studying a lot of current events and political topics. e. encourage parents to post to the blog that their students will post to at www.civicsblog.blogspot.com

7:53 AM  

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