At Ohio County Public Preschool our motto is “Nurturing Children and Families.” As I read Involvement or Engagement, by Larry Ferlazzo in the May 2011 issue of Educational Leadership I reflect back to the core meaning of those words. As preschool educators we focus on the care and development of our early childhood students. Even though we focus on students, there is another prime component that we must include – the families. According to this article the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory indicates that having the right kind of relationship with families has many benefits for students including “higher grade point averages and test scores, better attendance, enrollment in more challenging courses, better social skills, and better behavior at home and school.”
Ferlazzo also points out that there are two distinctly different ways that schools get parents to participate. The first is family involvement. Furthermore, according to Ferlazzo when you use the word involve, you are implying that you are “doing something to” families. These may be projects, goals, or needs that families can help with. On the flip side of this you have family engagement. When you use the term engagement, you are implying that you are “doing something with” families. Schools focused on family engagement listen to parents and strive to gain partners in the educational process.
So, how does our program work to promote parent engagement? First, one of the components of our preschool program is home visits. The home visits serve two different objectives. The first objective is to share with the family’s information regarding our preschool program. The second, more important objective is for us to learn more about the child from the family themselves. Their child’s likes, dislikes, and their goals for the child’s future. Another way we build family engagement is by including parents in self assessments. These self assessments give us a platform in which we engage parents and gain insights into our program and how we can improve and strengthen our family ties and communication. Third, we have parent advocates which help establish family engagement. These family advocates work with the families building on their strengths and developing plans to help the family address any areas of concern. They review parents’ goals with the teaching staff. They help families get access to the resources they need including social services, education, and parent training. Finally, we work toward parent engagement with our curriculum. We use Creative Curriculum Online as our instructional assessment in our preschool program. This program allows parents to have computerized access to their child’s work in the preschool room as well as providing activities that they can work with their child on in the home setting. This curriculum component allows for two way communication between the families and teacher on an ongoing basis through an email component.
What are some of the ways your school is trying to build parent engagement?
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