1. Children reap the rewards of parent involvement. Decades of research show the positive effects on achievement when children’s families are involved in their education. The video models how to conduct a family/teacher conference. Think about the value of family/teacher conferences to both the parents and the child. Why should a teacher be intentional in their planning for a conference with a family? How will you prepare for a conference with your families?
Watch the video below and answer the questions that follow.
1. Children reap the rewards of parent involvement. Decades of research show the positive effects on achievement when children’s families are involved in their education. The video models how to conduct a family/teacher conference. Think about the value of family/teacher conferences to both the parents and the child. Why should a teacher be intentional in their planning for a conference with a family? How will you prepare for a conference with your families?
2. One of the most important roles that a teacher has is to work with families toward a partnership with a common goal of nurturing and educating young children. In the video the teacher shares ways that she tries to work with families while building a strong partnership. How would you take the information shared and utilize it in your own work with children and families?
video
[ Music ]
>> Good morning! Hi [inaudible].
>> Morning.
>> How are you?
>> Good.
>> Okay. Take your jacket off, then, Zen.
>> I feel really welcome when you walk in. A typical day would be like I would come in and I would see [inaudible] or one of the teacher’s or the grandma. They’re like a family to me.
>> How was your night? You okay?
>> I believe that parent involvement is the key to success for the children. Usually we ask the parent how is their child, if they have any issue, if they OK, are they feeling good.
>> I took Emily, yesterday, to the hospital, to see the doctor about a scratch in her eyes.
>> Ok.
>> And the doctor said it was just a little scratch, that it is going to be okay.
>> Ok, because we got worried about her eyes yesterday.
>> Yes, yes, so.
>> [Inaudible].
>> She’s definitely a little [inaudible].
>> Is there any concern, anything that they need to tell us, like this morning we have a child that is not feeling good. He had a fever last night.
>> Do you feel good? You’re coughing. You ok? All right. Can you do me a favor? Did you sign him in?
>> Uh?
>> Sometime it’s hard for us to talk to the parents, when you have, I have 20 parents, so it’s hard for me to be talking to all of them at once. So I might miss one, in case I miss one they can go to the parent communication notebook where the parents can write down information. Then later on, we go back and read it and respond to the parent, so that way they all get to talk to us. The benefit is we have a better communication with the parent and the parents feel like, you know, they can trust us. They feel like, oh my child is safe, safe and I don’t have to worry about it. If there’s something wrong, the teacher will call me and let me know. In the beginning, we ask the parent to do a transition, where the parent come the 1st day for 1 hour with the child in the classroom and the 2nd day, they will stay for half a day just to see the child interact in the classroom and the 3rd day, the same thing, they will stay for half a day. It depends on the child, some child will settle down really fast, but other children take longer. We ask the parent you know, input on that. Some parent definitely like oh, oh I don’t want to leave my child I want to stay you know, especially if it’s their only child. They feel like I need to stay longer, we’ll give them more time.
>> I just want to show you, this is the time card, that’s all the information for you.
>> Our center provides a variety of information for parents. In the parent board, we information in English and Spanish and sometime in French, for the other parents. We have ESL class for the parents who doesn’t speak English.
>> There are also other programs like parents, teachers, kid’s night, where we come and we just discuss family relationship with the kids and teachers and the parents. There’s a lot of information going on there. You read those things and you know, we look forward to, to coming to for those meetings.
>> We have a class for dad. It’s says dad workshop. So we, we get not only the mother’s, but the father’s involved in their childcare. This is a letter that we sent to you to inform you of what we do in the classroom. Every month you going to receive a new one. We also have they parent newsletter that we sent home every month. That describe the theme, the topic that we talking about for the month. We usually ask for the parent to get involved. They can come in or they can bring stuff to enhance the curriculum. So if you have any feedback, you can always come to us and let us know and sometimes we ask for you. It says right here parent involvement, it is in order to help us with our project you can provide us [Inaudible] planting, you can bring us some seeds, some soil and for food, you can bring some recipes from your culture.
>> So, you send a letter and then based on the letter, whatever I can. This morning when I talked to Mona, I was pleasantly surprised. This is about [Inaudible] building, playing with the building blocks.
>> OK right now I’m just going to just show you some pictures of your son in the classroom. As you can see, so talented. In the block area. He always building. Always building. He told me the other day he was building a skyscraper. I was like, wow.
>> Oh yea, he’s bad with the cardboard it’s like a mess in the room. He cuts everything and pastes everything on the wall.
>> OK.
>>Every time you have to clean up he takes all my papers and he’s like pasting and I don’t know, but this building a skyscraper it looks like one but I don’t.
>> It looks like one.
>> Though he plays with the building block in our home we, actually, we never sat down and actually looked at it. We thought that’s like a normal thing and everybody does that but then Mona, when Mona find it out because he puts more effort and he’s more diligent at building blocks. Mona has a more professional insight into it because, so maybe she was saying it because she was comparing him to other students. That was kind of surprising like oh, maybe I should give more thought on that, has you know, the way he plays with building block, maybe there’s something that I can help him, maybe there’s something I should learn from [Inaudible], maybe I’m not getting in there. So that was really surprising.
>> Good morning Mona.
>> How are you today?
>> I’m fine thank you.
>> Thank you for coming. Because we we’re trying to have a time to meet regarding your daughter.
>>Yea. I know, we have been trying to do that.
>> To start the parent conference, I usually ask the parent when are you available? Sometimes they might be available in the morning, in the afternoon, so you have to make yourself available. When whenever they are available. So then you tell, you make a time, if they are available on Wednesday at 10:00, then you make yourself available at 10.
>> So, this is the assessment reading.
>> OK.
>> And this is what we came up with for the assessment.
>> We will have a parent conference on assessment two times a year, we make with the parents to discuss their child assessment. Where they were, where they are at, and set goals for these children together with the parent. So that way you on the same page.
>> In [inaudible] language, [inaudible] in class.
>> Yeah.
>> She’s good. She’s very verbal.
>> Yeah.
>> She follow direction.
>> OK.
>> She asks simple questions. She uses simple, you know, simple sentences.
>> OK.
>> With complete, complete sentences.
>> OK.
>> So, the goal that we have for her again, is that be able to write her first name.
>> OK.
>> And some of the letters of the alphabet.
>> OK.
>> Like you say, she’s having difficulty with the letter I and L.
>> Yeah, and L.
>> So we, as the teacher, we can work with her on those two letters.
>> OK.
>> And at home, you should do the same thing.
>> The only thing I would like her to do more is like her name, you said you want to practice more and then a little bit of sharing.
>> OK.
>> Because sometimes she doesn’t want to.
>> She has difficulty sharing?
>> Yeah, so.
>> So, you can write down right here.
>> And then, six month later, you meet with the parents and they say oh, you know what, this is the goal we set at the beginning for your child, look, your child has, you know, achieved a goal. Let’s make another goal. For new teacher’s, I would say, make yourself available to be able to talk to the parent. If you don’t get the parent face to face, do a phone communication. Start communicating with the parents at the beginning. Parents are always welcome to come into the classroom to volunteer. It’s hard to get parents to come, you know, I know they have to go to work and stuff, but we always ask them. Whenever we can get them, it’s great. It’s great for the children to see their parents, Oh my mommy’s here. You get that boost, they feel good about themselves.
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