Connecting with Families

Hello and welcome to the fourth and FINAL edition of my summer blog series all to get our middle school students excited about reading. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out

Today, you will learn about the importance of involving families in their children’s reading and strategies to use to get middle schoolers reading at home. 

Families are a student’s first teachers and they remain central throughout students’ academic careers. For many middle schoolers, their first encounter with literacy is at home, however, this isn’t always the case. Many of our students are primary caregivers after they leave our classroom, leaving little time to focus on academics and personal activities, such as reading. The American Psychology Association (2010) found as many 1.4 million U.S children between the ages of 8 to 18 are caring for a parent, grandparent, or sibling(s). Most of our adolescent caregivers are from low-income, single-parent households (para. 2). 

There is also a strong correlation between the families’ perspectives and beliefs about reading that impact an adolescent’s view. Our students develop their interests and attitudes towards reading through experiences and actions they see at home. So, how can we offset this trend? How can we support our families so that our middle schoolers are reading outside of school? 

Developing a plan to communicate with families often is a critical step in increasing reading engagement at home. This can be done in a variety of ways, such as monthly phone calls, parent-teacher connection apps, newsletters, and family surveys. 

Phone calls home are one of the most effective ways to keep an open line to families. Although texts and emails are a much easier and faster way to communicate, phone calls can make a greater impact. In my eight years of teaching, I have made it a personal goal to call home for every student each month. Most parents expect negative news when they receive a call from a teacher; however, consistently communicating their child’s academic progress will increase at-home engagement. You can also take this opportunity to clarify anything caregivers are finding difficult or confusing. 

Parent-teacher connection apps are another great tool for educators to use to keep an open line of communication with our students’ caregivers. Apps such as:

• Klassly
• Classting-allows you to share videos and files
• ParentSquare
• Remind
• TalkingPoints- Multilingual texting feature
• ClassDojo
• ClassTag- Multilingual texting feature

Many come with multilingual features so that you can communicate with any caregiver in the home. 

Newsletters are another great way to keep caregivers informed of what’s happening inside the classroom. You can give reading tips and tricks, information about local library events, and information about what their child is learning. If at all possible, provide this information in the home’s first language. 

Lastly, surveying your families is another effective way to better understand your students' needs at home. This strategy will provide you information on how reading is viewed inside the home, reading habits, and resources available within the home and community. You will be able to adjust your support and provide materials so that your students are engaged in reading at home. Here is an example.

Neuman and Celano (2001) support that limited resources can and do hinder reading activities within the home. Although access to reading materials is an important component of a literacy environment, it is not the only component that fosters reading motivation. Cultural differences, parental illiteracy, family problems, negative educational experiences, job-related issues, economic conditions, health, and living arrangements all contribute to accessibility within the home (Plevyak, 2003). Reading motivation and achievement within the home are interconnected with the activities' actions, goals, and circumstances. 

Educators must have empathy and understanding of each student's background. By being open and aware of linguistic and cultural differences teachers can provide caregivers with resources and support to help foster a positive relationship with their child’s education at home and school. Here are a few ways educators can bridge the gap between home and school reading. 

Build a classroom website. In a digitized age, giving caregivers easy access to classroom resources through a website is a beneficial way to keep them up-to-date. Through this portal, you can place tutorials of strategies being used in class, provide quick links to literacy resources in their communities, online reading supplements, and links to online activities.

Images provided by Hannah Schrempp

Make reading at home interactive. If you’re like me and your school requires homework for all students, take a second to reflect on what kind of homework you are assigning around reading. Does it require mundane tasks such as recording when reading has started and stopped? Does it require a caregiver’s signature? Reading logs, in my opinion, are not useful. Most of the time students lie. You can easily replace this task with reading conferences within the classroom. You can learn more about it in The Classroom Library blog post if you would like to learn more.

Image provided by Hannah Schrempp

Reading choice boards are a great way to embed writing at home with reading. Allowing students to have power over the method of their homework will increase engagement. Adding tasks that connect to students’ Linguistic and cultural backgrounds, interests, and even their suggestions is a great way to make your own reading choice board. Here you see that a student of mine chose to reflect on the symbols in Insurgent (2012). 

Include caregivers in on the fun. Give students options to interact with family members with their reading.

Example of reading choice board student response provided by Hannah Schrempp

Encourage asking questions and promoting discourse at home. Developing a student's vocabulary and background knowledge in any language are two of the greatest contributors to success in and through their literacy development. Encouraging students and parents to sit and watch documentaries, the news, Netflix, or shows on any other streaming service promotes understanding of concepts. It develops 21st-century skills such as innovation, creativity, problem-solving, reasoning, communication, and collaboration. Here are a set of questioning cards you can give to families to use at home. 

In conclusion, we have to provide our students and families with the resources to promote and support reading at home. If you are sending home materials for students to read, make sure families are made aware of how to support their child at home and make sure it’s accessible to all students.

Questions to consider:

• What is your biggest struggle when it comes to families?

• If a parent is not fluent in English, how can you support their child?

• What ideas do you have after reading this post that might alleviate your struggle?

• What are ways you have found success when connecting with families and building a positive reading relationship?

Throughout this summer series, I have asked you to reflect on many components of how you teach, what you teach, and how you foster positive reading environments and experiences. As you finish up this series, please take the time to fill out my survey.

Connect with me!

mrssclassroomcraziness@gmail.com

@mrssclassroomcraziness

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Want to learn more? Check out these reads!
Little-known caregivers
How to Promote Family Involvement in Literacy Education

Neuman, S., & Celano, D. (2001). Access to print in low‐income and middle‐income communities: An ecological study of four neighborhoods. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(1), 8–26. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.36.1.1

Plevyak, L. H. (2003). Parent involvement in education: who decides? The Education Digest, 69(2), 32–38.