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
Say Cheese: Sharing Photos to Increase Family and Student Engagement
I am that mom who literally walks around with a storage-full phone. There is no such thing as too many pictures. When my kids were in day care (and even...
The Power of Story
“Miss Masse,” Philippe said, looking at me with tears streaming down his cheeks. “I waked up on the bus and it was cold and nobody was there, and the door,...
Partnering with Families on Reading
Back-to-school night in my district is a scheduling house of cards. Families try to follow their child’s complete “A Day” school schedule in roughly one hour, often dividing and conquering...
QuickTake: Grading Student Writing
Ruth Ayres shares a process for grading student writing that improves efficiency and accuracy.
Rethinking Parent-Teacher Conferences: Centering the Humanity of Students in All Discourses
As an educator who teaches and learns alongside multilingual learners, I have always shared spaces with classroom teachers during parent-teacher conferences. I’d sit alongside the teacher, and together, we would...
Six Tips to Plan a Family Literacy Night
“I would love to plan a family literacy night,” my school’s librarian, Annmarie, exclaimed, after I casually mentioned the idea one afternoon last spring. “I’ve wanted to for years but...
QuickTake: Chronicling Learning All Year
Tammy Mulligan shares a beginning-of-the-year routine where second graders create an identity frame. This becomes a place to highlight photographs of their learning each week throughout the school year.
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,...
