My question is "What happens when parents reinforce a reading skill at home that mirrors skills taught in school?" So many questions about how the heck to do this. Some things I am wondering about after reading the comments from peers at our last TIC meeting.
1. How will I monitor practice of these skills at home? Or do I just hope for the best???
2. How will I teach parents how to work on these skills at home? If I host a parent-night, do I only teach those who are able to make it? Do I make home visits?
3. Does this project become more about parent involvement or comprehension strategies.
I will stop there for now.....I would love any insight you all may have.
I think your project sounds awesome! I will try to answer your questions the best I can.
ReplyDelete1. You may want to have a training night with phone calls home as a follow up. That way, as the parents start helping their children they can ask you questions they have as they arise.
2. The parents who come to your training night are probably the ones who will be more likely to try the skills you are teaching them. You could always separate the kids out by whether or not their parent attended the training night and see how their growth differed. Home visits are a great idea and I think it is something that should be offered to all parents.
3. I agree with how this project may change when you add in your parents. I think this will still fit with your initial question though. You could change it a little to ask what happens when a parent reinforces a skill and what happens when they don't.
Hope this helps and I can't wait to hear more about your project!
Thank you so much Kara! That is a GREAT idea to add in a phone call follow-up and it fits in with our family friendly vision as well! THANK YOU!
ReplyDeleteLisa,
ReplyDeleteI think Kara's comments were very helpful! Not sure how to add to it! I think you will discover if your project is more about parent involvement vs. reading comp. as you progress. It may be about both equally, or it may create a bond between school and home that you cannot anticipate at this point. I think your parents that choose to become involved will appreciate learning how to teach comprehension skills. You may want to think of ways to collect data based on how these parents think and react to this work. Their insights will become a treasure for future work! Happy TICing!!!
Holly
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI have been instructed to work with a question that only you have control over. You will not be able to control whether your parents actually use taught skills with their children or not, so maybe you could consider using reading buddies that would work on taught skills with your students. You could control these variables. Just a thought. Cherié Baker
Hummm...good thought, Cherie. I am wondering if maybe I should find a sampling of parents who are interesting in helping their students at home. Maybe sign a contract of some sort. The progress of these students could then be compared to those that are not a part of the project???
ReplyDeleteI think the other comments have hit the nail on the head. You need to have control over what is happening and you may not with parents. If you can find a group of willing parents, that would be great, but then again you are going to get data for those involved parents only. If you had two groups to monitor, one with parent reinforcement, one without, you may be able to compare data. I don't think you need a huge group in order to get some usable results.
ReplyDeleteI also think that you will end up enlisting a group of parents who will volunteer to be part of the project. Like Tina said, I do not think that you will need a large sampling to get data that you will be able to use.
ReplyDeleteGood luck! Liz
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI think your project idea is super and has wonderful implications for student growth, but accurate measurement of data is an issue. So much of the data you need to answer your question is dependent on an environment you have little control over: the student's home. What if you were to send out an invitation to parents that makes their participation in the project ,including a training class on how to mirror the techniques in their home an option. Then measure the system’s use by having participating parents track each time they use the skills with their child and complete surveys of how effective they feel the techniques are. You can also do a comparison measurement using map/autoskills scores of participants verses the students whose parents are not participating.
-Jenni
Wish I knew what to say. Parent involvement is such a tricky thing to measure. Even if they say they have done it, do you really know how it went?
ReplyDeleteHey, I think that parent involvement in reading will definitely improve their reading. However, teaching the parent some skills to help their children read could totally change the equation. You could even teach them some strategies specific to their child. I don't know what that would look like but you could even send something home.. post it on the school website, and encourage parents to come in and visit.
ReplyDeleteI think the comments made are very valid. You can not control home time, but having a sampling of involved parents vs. not involved. My question is how do you know which ones aren't involved to compare. Just a thought.
ReplyDelete