Lessons from the Cities, part seven: Involving families in learning
Like parents everywhere, most urban parents are eager to support their children’s school success. Dr. Joyce Epstein, director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University, has found that, when schools encourage parent involvement, students do better on everything from homework to attitudes to overall achievement. But parents don’t automatically know how to help, especially if they lack a formal education themselves. Increasingly, teachers and schools are finding ways to bring parents into partnership to promote student learning, reinforce the curriculum, and strengthen positive study habits and social skills. In Partnering with Parents to Foster Learning at Home, Epstein offers specific suggestions, such as:
Ask parents to regularly read to their children and/or listen to their children read aloud
Lend books, workbooks, and other materials to parents
Give an assignment that requires children to ask their parents questions
Help parents provide appropriate rewards and/or penalties based on school performance and/or behavior
Ask parents to observe the classroom with particular attention to teacher strategies
Provide parents with hands-on learning to build their teaching techniques
In September, NWREL’s Equity Center sponsored a two-day symposium for parents and educators. Dr. Reginald Clark—a prominent researcher and consultant who also happens to be the grown son of a teen mother from an inner city—summarized four key ways that parents can boost their children’s academic achievement:
Create a comfortable environment for learning.
Make your home a place where your child feels secure, connected to adults, and safe.
Expect your children to do well and to go far in school. Help them imagine the idea of college and believe they can succeed in higher education.
Work with teachers and other adults to help your child set goals and plans for how to be successful in school.
Help your children organize their time and activities in a way that enables them to be competitive with their classmates.
Online sources. These Web sites offer more resources and research about education in the nation’s cities: Council of the Great City Schools (www.cgcs.org/); Equity Center of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (www.nwrel.org); Laboratory for Student Success, the regional educational laboratory with a specialty area in urban education (www.temple.edu/LSS/); Urban Education Web maintained by ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education (eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/).
