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
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....
Writing Homework
Five years ago, I began using the workshop method in my reading and writing classes. Since that time, my nightly reading homework has been the same: read a book of...
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...
Can Books Harm Children? Support and Censorship
I recently read a blog entry written by a young adult author, Andrew Smith. He told of enduring a negative media storm around his book Marbury Lens. Responders believed that “harm...
Getting to Know You: Brown Bag Objects
Getting to know you, Getting to know all about you. Getting to like you, Getting to hope you like me. “Getting to Know You” from The King and I is...
Curriculum Night? No Sweat
It is curriculum night, and I am sweating. Not the subtle, sheeny glow the beautiful people have after running a 5K, but large raindrop-size plops of sweat rolling down my...
Animal Backpacks and Literacy Joy
Let the beauty of what we love be what we do. Rumi Children love stuffed animals. When my own children were small, stuffed animals took over their beds. Bedtimes were...
Ending Reading Workshop by Planning for September
Reading workshop is the heart and soul of our classroom community of readers. We know how important it is to set up our systems and structures right away so we...
Understanding the Summer Slide: Sharing Data with Parents and Students
Without school support, many of our students stop reading. It is as if we are taking two steps forward during the school year and one step backward during the summer....
The Gifts of Literacy
“I will miss you all the way to heaven and back.” Peyton modified one of my favorite lines in children’s literature in a way that both revealed a surprising depth...
Working with Emergent Bilingual Children (PODCAST)
In this podcast, Heather Rader chats with Ruth Shagoury about working with emergent bilingual chidren and their families. Ruth is the co-author (with Andie Cunningham) of Starting with Comprehension. She...
Celebrating Screen-Free Week (BOOKLIST)
At our school, we have attempted for the last several years to get children and families talking about screen time during Screen-Free Week. Screen-Free Week is scheduled for May 5-11...
On the Same Team: Better Parent-Teacher Conferences
Parent/Teacher Conferences used to intimidate me as a young teacher. I was worried that I wouldn’t get my message across, remember to share everything I wanted, or know how to...
“We Gather Together”: On Research and Weddings
There are many similarities between committing to a research project and committing to a spouse. As I worked with a team of seventh-grade teachers at Wawasee Middle School to create...
Lessons from Listening to Toddlers Read (Home Is Where the Books Are Series)
It’s fascinating as a mom to have the luxury of enough time to pay attention to the different ways my kids read. It helps me understand their process, find books...
Routines to Build Independence Early in the School Year
During the first month of college my freshman year, my mom sent me this poem by Erma Bombeck. I can remember finding it inside of a letter she had written...
