Currents in Literacy

Sharing With Parents What We Ask Children To Do

By Mary Hill

Often when I talk with parents about their school memories of learning to read, most have rather vivid recollections that include who their teacher was, what the classroom looked like, what materials they used, and what activities they did. Many remember being in the high, middle, or low reading group, learning a list of vocabulary words, reading orally and being stopped to correct mispronunciations, answering questions found in the teacher's manual, and doing seatwork such as filling in blanks on worksheets or ditto pages.

Most parents also recall they were not allowed to talk. Children talking to one another to clarify directions or share knowledge was frowned upon. Today most classrooms are much different. Children can be found working in small heterogeneous groups with their teacher as well as working independently with one another, sharing ideas and giving help to each other. Where silence once was considered to be golden, now a working hum permeates many classrooms.

Parents who had literacy experiences unlike what their children have today often have concerns and questions when their children are in classrooms that look and sound different from their own experience. In today's classroom, their children may read library or trade books rather than a basal reader. The children may participate in teacher-led as well as student-led book discussion groups rather than give only short answer responses to prescribed teacher questions. And the children may use their own personal spelling to write reactions and summaries to stories just read rather than filling in workbook pages.

Helping to Alleviate Parental Concerns

Teachers can help alleviate parental concerns by sharing what they know about children and literacy development that supports the practices that engage the children. When teachers share their expertise with parents, they should share why they make the instructional decisions they do.

My emphasis on why is based on a lesson I learned several years ago when I was required to assign homework on school nights when I was teaching third grade. I knew from personal experience how traumatic homework can be for children who are uncertain what to do or have trouble understanding the teacher's directions. My endeavors to respond to my son's request for help often ended in his shouting, "That's not the way my teacher does it!" Understandably, we both felt a sense of failure and futility. As a way to help avoid such experiences for my students and their parents, the first week of school I assigned what I thought was a perfect solution. Each school night, for at least fifteen minutes, parents were to read to their child or the child was to read a book of his or her own choosing to a parent.

Much to my surprise after a couple of weeks of school, many parents began to ask, "Don't you ever give homework?" When I reminded them of the reading homework given at the beginning of school, their response was, "Is that really homework?" For those parents, homework meant such things as completing unfinished workbook or ditto sheets, writing the weekly spelling words, learning to identify a list of vocabulary words, or copying definitions of certain words from the dictionary. Children reading to their parents or parents reading to their children did not fulfill their notion of homework As a result, the parents saw little benefit in this activity and eventually stopped doing it in spite of my efforts to tell them it was beneficial.

As a result of that experience, I learned that instead of just telling the children what to do, I should have shared with their parents why this activity was so beneficial to their children's literacy development. To begin with, the parents needed to know and appreciate that one of the greatest benefits of reading to their child is giving the gift of their time. It is a special time, a time that provides the child with a sense of security and peace. But the benefits are not limited to that. Reading to children also helps them to extend their knowledge of the world; to learn about concepts, people, and places they might not learn about elsewhere; to experience language not heard in their everyday lives; and to preview books they may want to read at a later time. Reading to children also helps them to make the connection between oral and written language, to learn new vocabulary, and to overcome any fear of words they may have. Additionally, reading to children provides an opportunity to engage in conversations relating to what the parent and child are reading.

When parents listen to their children read, they are in a perfect position to learn about their child as a reader. They can learn about the subjects that interest their child as well as whether or not their child even likes to read. As teachers, we can help parents have appropriate reading materials available by regularly sending books home and by providing a bibliography so they can buy or check out books at their local library. We can also help parents understand how they can help their children with their reading.

Shared reading of a story is a positive activity for parents to do with their child. The parent reads one paragraph or page and the child reads the next paragraph or page. Shared reading is particularly helpful for children who may be overwhelmed with reading an entire story by themselves. Parents can learn to respect their children as readers. It's important for parents to know the significance of not interrupting a child to constantly make corrections, realizing that each time there is an interruption, comprehension suffers. Parents often wonder what to do if their child is struggling with a word. One suggestion is to tell them to go ahead and skip the word(s) and when they're through reading, you will go back and talk about the words they skipped.

When children go on, they often discover that the context helps them figure out the unknown words. By reading on, children learn they don't have to quit reading when they encounter unfamiliar words. Other ways to help children with unfamiliar words include telling them to reread to see if they can figure out what the word is, to think about what would make sense in the story, or to think of a word they know that resembles the word. If not knowing a word interferes with understanding the story, then parents may want to simply supply the word.

Communication Strategies

Sharing with parents is something that many teachers do on a regular basis. Some teachers, particularly primary grade teachers, write letters to parents telling them what is taking place in the classroom and soliciting any help parents are able to give. In addition to informing parents about classroom activities, I urge teachers to share their knowledge about literacy development as well. Some teachers I know do that by making presentations at an Open House evening or at other convenient times throughout the year. They provide a slide or video presentation of classroom scenes in which students are engaged in a number of literacy events. This gives parents a vicarious trip into the classroom as the teacher explains why it is important for the children to read such things as newspapers, magazines, signs, logos, advertisements, recipes, coupons, and other print in addition to books and stories. They learn why it is important to discuss books, to read without interruption, to use personal spelling, and to write for a variety of different purposes and audiences. Having children included at such a presentation is valuable in that the children can talk about what they are learning. What teachers choose to share should be determined by what they think would be most helpful to parents. Remember, the main thing for teachers to keep in mind is to share why they do what they do.

The Benefits

Even though sharing with parents can be time consuming, the benefits to children, parents, and teachers are worth it. Children will benefit by knowing that their parents and teachers share a relationship in their continued learning. Parents will benefit by having a better understanding of what the teacher is doing, of literacy development in general, and of the role they play in their own child's literacy development. Teachers will benefit by sharing their expertise about children and language learning, by helping parents avoid misconceptions about the instructional decisions they make, and by developing an open line of communication with parents.

References

Hill, M. W. (1995). Home: Where Reading And Writing Begin. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Rhodes, L. K. & Hill, M. W. (1983). "Home-School Cooperation in Integrated Language Arts Programs." In B.A. Busching & J. I. Schwartz (Eds.) The Language Arts In The Elementary School. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Mary Hill is a former elementary school teacher and recently retired Professor of Education from Westminster College in Pennsylvania. She has spent several years studying children's written language development and is a literacy volunteer at the Thompson School.