Open Communication

After reading Chapter 11: Sharing Information With Families of Catching Readers Before They Fall, I realized how important it was to bridge the teacher-parent gap. It is not enough to have parent teacher conferences to assess the student’s progress. We must work together in other aspects as well. For instance, chapter 11 raises many questions that parents have about our curriculum and teaching process.  Parents want to help their student as much as we do and there are concerns that go beyond a conference. In order to help the parents, we need to make sure that we can explain our instructional strategies and know how to ask the parents for help when the student is at home.

Parents will not always understand our view on instruction. The questions brought up in Chapter 11 demonstrate that clearly. We may have ideas that work in the classroom, but parents need to understand in more depth why we choose the strategies and techniques that we currently use. That said, it is important to be explicit about what these terms “mean” for our classroom. For instance, one of the parents asks, “What is a strategy?” Too often, we assume that parents understand our lingo. After doing what we can to explain to parents our process, we need to let them know how they can help at home.

A part of assessment is to understand the student’s abilities at the time before instruction. We can go from there to set up a plan for their growth and assessment. Also, parents are rightfully concerned about standardized tests as is demonstrated in Chapter 11. It is understandable that parents want to make sure our individual strategies will actually help their student pass tests. As teachers we should take the time to help parents understand why we chose our strategies and show measurable results on how it works for tests and growth. For instance, in the blog with Dr. P. David Pearson, he says that it is good for parents to ask questions to the schools because it keeps schools accountable. Although it will take extra time to speak with parents, we should embrace communication because it ultimately helps our children succeed. Having an ongoing discourse with the parents will also show them that we care about their child as an individual as well as a child who is an integral part of the class.

Parents are as important as teachers when helping children learn. In fact, bridging teachers and parents will help the student reach more heights. Open communication can help both sides learn what is needed to help the student at home, in the classroom, and in the world.