Choice Lit Topic: Family Relations
Families come in many forms. A good rapport with parents, siblings, and grandparents can make all the difference in building a classroom and school community. Here are some creative suggestions for reaching out to families through conferences, special events, and volunteer opportunities. Our contributors also share the challenges of communicating with parents, and what they’ve learned when they’ve failed to connect.
Results
Keeping Parent Communication Open in Middle School
Last year was a mixed year for Tara’s seventh-grade son. He had some successes but some consistent difficulty with focusing in class, leading to an overall difficult year. There were...
Homework Challenges
This professional development session is designed to help participants explore the concept of weekly “homework challenges,” as well as to consider what is working well with their homework program and...
A Homework-Free Classroom
I don’t believe in homework. There. I said it. I am a teacher and a mom, and I don’t believe in homework. My daughters are seven and nine years old....
Summer Literacy
“What can I do to help my son and daughter stay sharp and not lose momentum? They have come so far this school year, and I am afraid they will...
Unadulterated Reading
My son sighed in exasperation and yelled across the table, “Why does my mom have to be a reading teacher?!” There it was. The dreaded phrase that I have come...
Conferences with Parents of English Language Learners
In the past decade, my school population had shifted dramatically. Transiency, shifting attendance lines, and the passage of time has changed our school population such that we have a significant...
Conferences Between Middle School Parents and Teachers
The week after school started, my 14-year-old nephew announced he would have four study halls during eighth grade. My sister looked at me for an explanation, her face expressing pained...
Ohana Means “Family”
Ohana is the Hawaiian word for “family,” with a meaning that is both simple and complex. Ohana includes the people to whom you’re related, as well as the larger group...
One Child, Many Stories
Have you ever sat down in front of a student’s data and still felt like you don’t have any answers to your questions? Those moments are too familiar to me...
Parent Book Clubs
This year, one of our district goals was to improve and increase our communications with families. We accomplished this partly by using Google Classroom and sending updates to families about...
Better Parent-Teacher Conferences
I have a love/hate relationship with parent-teacher conferences. Or rather, a love-hate relationship with the ongoing inner conversations I have about conferences. I’m not referring to the meetings and conversations...
School-to-Home Journals
I love school-to-home journals. I’m talking about the type where a student writes a letter to someone at home once or twice a week, and that someone—a parent, usually, but...
Explaining a Workshop Model to Parents (Part 2)
A friend recently went with her mother to an important medical appointment. When she spoke to the physician, she found herself confused and unsure: “He was using words I didn’t...
Explaining a Workshop Model to Parents
I frequently sit in on parent-teacher conferences, most often when a student is struggling in class or when a parent is particularly concerned about a child’s progress. In doing so,...
Parent in a Foreign Land
For students who are new to the English language, nothing comes easily: they have to work hard to figure out a new language, new customs, new foods, new friendships, and...
Student-Led Conferences from Many Perspectives
In Ohio, teaching third grade has become particularly challenging, as it is sometimes difficult not to be consumed with test scores and test results. We have an Ohio law called...
Bringing Writers’ Voices Home with QR Codes
I love the feeling of wrapping up a unit of study in writing. I love watching my students choose a favorite piece and prepare to make it public by adding...
Alternatives to Home/School Reading Logs
When I announced to my fourth graders that we would not be having reading logs this year, they breathed a collective sigh of relief, and a whispered chorus of thanks...
Channeling Monet
She wanted to come into my class to “volunteer and observe.” I understood the desire to volunteer, but I struggled to make sense of her purpose in observing. Usually when...
Learning to Observe: Inviting a Parent to a Tutoring Session
But—more than anything—I liked him because he treated me as a companion and conversationalist in my own right. —Donna Tartt, in The Goldfinch Persistent parents, pushy parents, perpetually pestering parents....
Helping Parents Talk with Students
My educational work as a tutor brings me into contact with parents. These are parents with children who struggle, and literacy learning is a challenge. I am entrusted to intervene...
