What Does the Research Say About Engaging Parents?

Outreach Parent Liaison- Kellie Johnson-Cheyenne Region

When parents are involved in education, children do better in school, and schools get better.  According to a new review of recent research published by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (2002), students with involved parents are more likely to:

• Earn higher grades and test scores, and enroll in higher level programs
• Be promoted, pass their classes and earn credits
• Attend school more regularly
• Have better social skills, show improved behavior and adapt well to school
• Graduate and go on to post-secondary education

Other key findings in the research offer more compelling evidence for nurturing parent involvement in schools.

Families of all racial and economic backgrounds are involved in their children’s learning at home.  This finding also crossed all education level and cultural barriers.  White, middle-class families, however tend to be more involved at school.

Programs and special efforts to engage families make a difference.  Teacher outreach to parents and parent workshops on helping children learn at home result in strong, consistent gains in reading and math.  Schools with highly rated Partnership programs make greater gains than schools with lower rated programs.  Effective outreach practices include meeting face to face, sending learning materials home, and keeping touch about progress. 

Higher-Performing Schools effectively involve families and community.  These schools build trusting, collaborative relationships among teachers, families and community members.  They recognize, respect and address family’s needs as well as differences and they embrace a philosophy of shared power and responsibility.  

These findings should be in the forefront of guiding effective school practices. 

Excerpted from A New Generation of Evidence: The Family is Critical to Student Achievement, by Anne T. Henderson and Nancy Berla (Washington, DC:  Center for Law and Education, 1994) and A New Wave of Evidence:  The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement, by Anne T. Henderson and Karen L. Mapp (Austion, TX:  Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 2002 – in press).   

Oh No, it’s Snowing! Now What am I Supposed to Do With My Child?

Blanca Moye- Parents as Teachers Parent Educator- Jackson Area

Winter is here and as Parents often times it is difficult to figure out what to do with the little buggers during the cold months. It is not as simple as the summer when we can get outside and enjoy long days of nice weather. We need something to tire them out appropriately before coming home in the evenings so we can enjoy our quality time without temper tantrums.

Therefore, from one parent to another, some activities to enjoy with your children include:

If at home try:

• Family game night- a healthy dose of competition never hurt anyone and this way it’s not just the siblings arguing.

• Family baking gets a bad reputation as a messy endeavor but when it’s cold outside there is nothing like having the kids decorate cookies until they can’t see straight. The best part is to drop off the home baked goods at school to share the sugar rush with others- it is the season of sharing- and I believe that the teacher is in desperate need to know what kids hopped up on sugar is like at least once this season.

• Making puzzles is also another good standby as kids love cutting up things with scissors whenever possible.

• Create Holiday crafts, save time and money by allowing your young child to make a wonderful card for others. Grandmothers and anyone with kids usually eat this stuff up and feel oh so much more appreciated afterwards.

If it’s nice enough outside:

• Let your kids play in the snow, I mean king of the mountain will teach them worthwhile skills that will follow them into the future- and if that’s not a winner I don’t know what is.

• Try ski lessons- as then its someone else’s responsibility to stay outside with your kids to make sure they don’t break a bone while you sip cocoa in the lodge catching up on a great book.

• Snow Shoeing as a family is also an option as it will get everyone out of the house- just think of all that cardio as the chance to eat a treat every now and again.

• Take the kids to different museums, it’s very important to show them the beauty of local places and often times they are relatively cheap.

• Take the kids to a movie it’s always fun!

And the last but not least sharing a book with your child is one activity that never goes out of style!

IDEA Soup and Things to Remember as an Advocate

Michele Pena- PIC Outreach Parent Liaison- Casper Area

As a parent going into the Special Education process for the first time can be very frightening. There is so much to learn as far as knowing and learning about the rights of your child. For instance when starting the IEP (Individualized Education Program), you are told by the LEA (Lead Education Agency) who may be your school district or a local child development center that they are considering the LRE (Least Restrictive Environment) for your child. These acronyms are just a few that may be used during the Special Education process by teachers, service providers and principals.

Unfortunately many of us do not realize that parents starting this process may not know what we are talking about and parents are often afraid to ask. It’s easy to use these acronyms and forget about parents who are just entering Special Education with their child are most likely overwhelmed with all the information they are being given.

As advocates when we are supporting parents through this process it is our job to help them understand the acronyms being used and where to find the information. My favorite website to use for this is Wrightslaw.com. This is a wonderful website with up to date information and help with specific information.

Bullying Is a Big Deal

Terri Nations, PEN OPL--Sweetwater County

Bullying is a big problem. It can make kids feel hurt, scared, sick, lonely, embarrassed and sad. Bullies might hit, kick, or push to hurt people, or use words to call names, threaten, tease, or scare them. A bully might say mean things about someone, grab a kid’s stuff, make fun of someone, or leave a kid out of the group on purpose. Some bullies threaten people or try to make them do things they don’t want to do.

Bullying is a big problem that affects lots of kids. Three-quarters of all kids say they have been bullied or teased. Being bullied can make kids feel really bad. The stress of dealing with bullies can make kids feel sick.

Bullying can make kids not want to play outside or go to school. It’s hard to keep your mind on schoolwork when you’re worried about how you’re going to deal with the bully near your locker. Bullying bothers everyone — and not just the kids who are getting picked on. Bullying can make school a place of fear and can lead to more violence and more stress for everyone.

Helping Kids Deal with Bullies

1. A common contributing factor to bullying is a lack of effective supervision or guidance of young people in school settings. If recurring incidences of taunting are happening on school grounds to one or more children parents often need to find out what personnel is supposed to be supervising at the particular time and place that the problem occurs.

2. Once a parent has some details and if they have a good relationship with one or more administrators or teachers they are often able to discreetly tell staff members what is going on and ask for help. Skilled school personnel can usually figure out how to intervene in ways that do not reveal the source of their information. It is important to locate people who can be discreet as a child’s fears about retribution are certainly not unwarranted suppose

3. It is also helpful to remember that bullies can be suffering from stress or parental absence in their homes. Once informed, schools can offer children who are “acting out” towards others guidance, support or counseling. Such services can make a difference in the short and long term behavior of the children involved. ed to be supervising at the particular time and place that the problem occurs.

4. Unfortunately schools do always have the resources to supervise or offer good counsel to troubled students. In this case parents can try to identify even one adult on staff who might keep an “eye out” for their child. If a child who is being targeted has a watchful teacher or counselor who can intervene when possible and/or offer a shoulder to lean on when things are tough it can help. Parents can also feel less alone with the problem if they have someone to keep in touch with on a regular basis in the school.

5. Giving support to a “victimized” child at home can also be helpful. Parents naturally become alarmed at reports of consistent taunting and teasing. It can be hard for a Mom or Dad to listen to their child recounts all of the “gory” details of the incidents you describe without getting upset. However, if parents can manage to listen to stories and sympathize with difficulties in a relatively calm way it can help a child “get out the stress” and feel more relaxed at the end of a long day.

6. Sometimes parents are quick to offer solutions to complicated problems. Parental suggestions can be useful but it can also be helpful for Mom and Dad to elicit their child’s thoughts about possible ways to solve major challenges such as how to handle bullies. If Mom or Dad can help their child produce a few of their own solutions it can build their confidence and self-esteem

7. Sometimes including adult friends, relative and other children who have witnessed or survived incidents of bullying in family discussions can help as well. “Putting a number of heads together” to generate possible solutions can produce a variety of ideas that can help.

Posted in Children’s Behavior

It can be challenging for parents to sort through ways to get thoughtful help from their child’s school and/or to offer days or weeks of consistent support and encouragement to their child but this kind of ongoing attention and understanding can shift even difficult situations like bullying to a good resolution.

Is Your Preschooler Ready to Read, Learn, and Grow?

Erin Swilling- Parents as Teachers Parent Educator- Cheyenne

Children need a variety of experiences with language, books, and print during the preschool years in order to enter school “ready to read” Young preschoolers respond to music using all domains of development, so it is likely that many areas of the brain are stimulated by exposure to music. The more kids use their body the more opportunities they have to learn and grow!

To introduce music and movement and provide opportunities to kids in early childhood try the following fingerplays and sings alongs:

- 5 Little Monkeys swinging in a Tree

- Baby Bumblebee

- The Farmer In the Dell

- Five Little Ducks

- Head and Shoulders

- The Hokey Pokey

- This Little Piggy Went to the Market

- Ring Around the Rosie

- Who Took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar

- Mary Had a Little Lamb

Traditional nursery rhymes and songs, because of their repetitive patterns, are among the best tools for organizing young brains around language. Language helps the brain develop it’s ability to act as the control center for thinking, learning, and planning.

Top children’s books I would recommend include:

- Llama Llama Red Pajama

- Corduroy

- Good Night Moon

- Dr Seuss Books

- Alexander and The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

- Stellaluna

- If you give a mouse a cookie

- Are You My Mother

- Curious George

- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

- The Little Red Hen

- Each Peach Pear Plum

- Mercer Mayer Books

Reading is essentially a language skill! When you share a book or other reading material with your child, you help them with language, social-emotional, and intellectual development.

ADHD/ADD Tips and Strategies for the Classroom

Janet Kinstetter- PIC Outreach Parent Liaison- Moorcroft

ADHD is real, and responds to positive consistent  teaching and support.  Without help, children are at risk for school failure, social problems, delinquency and addictions and depression.

When families feel blamed:  strengths are ignored, knowledge is not shared and they may blame themselves, they many blame others and they learn not to trust.

ADHD affects motivation.  Students do not control motivation.  Entertaining teaching is remembered.

So, what works?

Frequent, ongoing, positive communication with families:

Written notes or home to school notebook, phone calls (as often as needed), email for communication, for homework and assignments

Stimulating instruction:

 verbal, visual, written and interactive.

Post the rules :

simply, in view and review regularly.

Keep to a schedule:

Posted, review regularly and plan for changes, tell the child and give reminders

Directions…Repeat, repeat, repeat!!!

Explain directions more than once.  Provide a written copy, keep them simple and be sure they are understood, give in steps and ask students to repeat.  Check often to see if student is following directions.

Class participation:

Give choices, talk to student after class about hobbies, preferred activities, etc.  “Secret signal” for students who need help, positive messages from school/home and call on only when certain that students know the materials.

Movements:

Schedule breaks during difficult academic activities, permit physical movement-pacing, changing seats, desk toys or “stress ball” to squeeze, classroom errands.  Do not withhold recess or class breaks for failure to complete assignments.

Behavior:

Plan ahead before problems arise, include strategies for the student, teach self-monitoring

Handling difficult times:

Decide when a short “escape” from the classroom is valid; decide where a child will go and when he/she will return.

Terrifying Parents……..

Krista Sweckard, Outreach Coordinator

When trying to figure out what to write in this blog, I have always erred on the side of neutrality. This week, probably because of dwindling readership and the fact that I have had a really yucky week, I think I am going to speak what’s on my mind.

Someone told me yesterday that “teachers must be terrified of you”. Hmmm. That gave me a pause to consider what my expectations are of schools now as this terrifying mom that enters a school building and teachers scatter like mice……

 A little background: I taught school for nine years. I taught cute little elementary kids who are now grown and not so cute high school kids who I wonder if ever will grow up. I know that for me and the teachers who shared our schools, working with parents was not job 1. Our job was to teach our kids—and as a teacher, we took a lot of pride in that role. I also know as a mom, having had experience in two different states—that teaching is job 1—not working with me or keeping me informed about what is going on in my kids’ classrooms. Now don’t get me wrong—I totally want my kids’ teachers to teach, that is the job at hand. I am also not asking for the key to the kingdom—I as a mom, just want to work with schools to make sure my kids and other kids are more successful.

So, I am the polar opposite of what teachers expect parents to be. As a parent and as a teacher, I know that many schools want families to be involved—on their terms—and when parents like me come through the doors, they don’t have the foggiest notion of how to work with me, and frankly are probably terrified—I make them feel uncomfortable because I am different. Now, taking a look at the flip side—if I make teachers tremble—what do most teachers do to most families that don’t look like me? Teachers are, after all, considered by many families as the experts and when you stop and put the shoe on the other foot, it makes you think that if I am so different and I scare teachers, do teachers scare most parents that don’t look like me?

Reading to Your Children Really is Imperative!

Tammy Dexter- PEN Parent Educator- Riverton

Reading to your baby/child is so important for development. It has positive influence on intellectual and emotional development.

Reading during pregnancy assists with parent/child bonding and provides a sense of comfort to the unborn child.  It fosters voice recognition and early listening skills.

While reading to infants and children, you are providing beginning early education.  Reading helps children learn to listen, build a stronger attention span and understanding of the spoken language.

Books provide a variety of exposures to concepts such as numbers, letters, colors, pictures, and wonders for children of all ages.   It provides fun information about the world around them.

The more that you read to your child the more you are increasing their ability to talk and read. You are nurturing their social and emotional development and promoting their thinking skills.

Not only is reading educational but it is fun, exciting and provides opportunities of exploration, imagination and fantasy.

So have fun reading to your children, it will pay off in the long run!

Meet My Reason for Knowing about Autism, What’s Yours?

Betty Carmon- Parent to Parent Coordinator- Powell Region

My son Steele who has autism is now 22 years old and I have been teaching autism strategies for most of his life, when Steele was diagnosed at 2 ½ there wasn’t a lot in the form of education and training for kids with autism so I did whatever I could to learn about autism in order to help my son, and with all that training the best teacher I had was Steele, he taught me more about how the brain of a person with autism thinks and that in turn allowed me to come up with strategies that made huge impacts on his life, and I would like to share a few of those with you.

1. Write it down, a task, a question, an emotion, anything that you want them to really understand.

2. Beginning and end, it could be a task, the day, dinner, a game, anything, by allowing them the information of beginning and end and to process that information early enough gives them calm and allows them to feel accomplishment.

3. Talk to yourself, as your doing this (with your child in the room) say the things that you need to do, example; “Oh my trash is really full and it stinks I better go empty it.” then do it. Don’t ask him to watch or look at you, if you continue to do this all the time, they will learn how to observe their surroundings, you’ve modeled a task, and they can take information in at their own rate.

4. Pay attention to good behavior, whenever they are doing something right or acting appropriately make them aware of it, sometimes they don’t know which behavior is which, and when you focus on the positive so will they.

5. Opportunity, Make them try everything, skiing, art, football, swimming, clubs, choir; don’t ever think that just because they have a disability they can’t do it, they will surprise you.

Have any tips of your own to share?

No Cupcakes Here: So Much More than the Bake Sale

Outreach Parent Liaison- Kellie Johnson-Cheyenne Region

Now that school is in full swing and your little learners are adjusting to the routine of their classroom and coming home with all kinds of new knowledge to report, you may be asking yourself, “are they really learning?”  What can a parent do to get a fuller picture of their child’s academic progress and what they should be doing to help?   Having meaningful communication with your child’s teacher, be it a phone call, a face to face interaction at school, an email to him or her, or even your child’s first parent/teacher conference shouldn’t be an intimidating, confusing or one-sided event.  Having a quick list of questions for the teacher written out on an index card can make interaction more meaningful for everyone involved.  Here are some sample questions taken from Beyond the Bake Sale:

• Is my child performing at a proficient level (up to standard) in basic skills?  If not, is my child above or below? If below, ask:  What is your plan for helping my child catch up?  How can I help?
• What do my child’s test scores show?  What are his or her strengths and weaknesses?
• Can we go over some examples of my child’s work?  Will you explain your grading standards?
• Does my child need extra help in any area (including adjusting to school)?  What do you recommend?  How can we work together to help my child?
• Does my child do all the assigned work, including homework?
• Does my child seem to like school and get along with classmates?
• Have you noticed any changes in my child (over the year)?

 These types of questions get away from just a child’s behavior and give a parent a truer understanding of whether learning goals are being met.   It also communicates to the teacher that the parent and teacher are equal partners in a team effort.