Prioritize Family Engagement
Overview
Students are more likely to come to school when families feel like a valued part of the community. Research has shown that students can fall behind academically when they miss only two days every month. This strategy also supports the practice of culturally responsive teaching and can be used with other strategies that allow representation of all learners in the curriculum.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Learn how Wolfe Street Academy connects with and engages families. As a community school, Wolfe Street provides services, like food giveaways and after-school programming, to both students and families to support learning.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Watch how Remind provides a way for families, teachers, and students to communicate quickly and easily through a mobile app about student progress, assignments, and other school-related activities.
From Colorin Colorado (2016)
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Teacher Modeling and Support Strategies
Teachers can support language development by using and providing Syntax that is appropriately leveled (e.g., short, simple structure for young students).
Teachers support language development by using and providing Vocabulary that is appropriately leveled (e.g., using word wall words).
Writing can become personally meaningful when students have an actual audience and a real purpose for communicating with that audience.
Content that is provided in clear, short chunks can support students' Working Memory.
Teaching students how to label, identify, and manage emotions helps them learn Inhibition & Self-Regulation skills.
Actively and authentically encouraging all students to seek support, ask questions, and advocate for what they believe in creates a safe space for risk-taking and skill development and supports a Sense of Belonging.
Providing constructive feedback supports students' writing development by letting them know how to improve their writing.
Teachers can help students understand that learning involves effort, mistakes, and reflection by teaching them about their malleable brain and modeling their own learning process.
Providing feedback that focuses on the process of developing skills conveys the importance of effort and motivates students to persist when learning.
Learning about students' cultures and connecting them to instructional practices helps foster a sense of belonging and mitigate Stereotype Threat.
By sharing their own reading and writing, teachers can create a literacy community that supports students in finding meaning in their own work.
By talking through their thinking at each step of a process, teachers can model what learning looks like.
Helping students think about what they know about the topic of upcoming work helps activate their Background Knowledge or reveals gaps.
Maintaining consistent classroom routines and schedules ensures that students are able to trust and predict what will happen next.
When students read models of the type of writing they are doing, they can identify effective elements to incorporate in their writing.
Reading aloud regularly exposes students to new and familiar Vocabulary and texts.
Reading aloud books about skills children are learning provides another model for their development.
Through one-on-one conferences, teachers can provide individual support to each student to deepen comprehension and interest in reading.
Providing students a voice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful.