Chapter 8

I think one of the most important things in this chapter is how to motivate children to read and write.  Children need motivation and examples that can help and guide them through their learning process.  Because children hear a lot of negativity throughout their school years, they need that extra push that will help them see that they can do whatever they want to do if they set their mind to it.  According to the book, "Researchers have found that motivation in schools promote: (1) choice, (2) challenge, (3) relevance, (4) authenticity, (5) social collaboration, and (6) success."

In order for children to have an open mind, they need to have kind words in the backs of their minds reminding them that they can do whatever they want.  Here is a picture with examples of what types of motivational phrases they can use instead of negative ones:

Saying these types of phrases to themselves can really help boost students' confidence and make them motivated.
One way that I have learned first-hand is that children LOVE to watch you write and read.  When I was teaching lesson plans in a Kindergarten classroom at Burris Elementary, the students loved to watch us model our writings from the lesson.  When you model literacy and writing for children, it gives them motivation to create their own writing and read what they want to read.  Another big thing that I plan on incorporating in my classroom is a "classroom library".  This will definitely promote literacy in the classroom.  Allowing children to check out books to take home with them will not only let the children read while in school, but expand that time to outside of the classroom.  Bringing a book home with them can involve their parents, caregivers, siblings, grandparents, and relatives in reading and literacy.

What Parents Can Do!

Involving families in literacy will only benefit the child. This can be something as little as reading signs on the way to work, or reading a story together every night. There are so many ways to have families be involved in literacy.

http://www.getreadytoread.org/early-learning-childhood-basics/early-literacy/promoting-family-literacy-raising-ready-readers

This website above provides a few ideas that a teacher can encourage families to participate in making their child more literate.

1. Books- Families need to establish a special place to put their children books such as a bookshelf or a safe place where they can be easily reached. When families place an importance of taking care of their books, then the children will copy their behavior. 
2. Storytelling- Having the family story tell about their family history can promote literacy through establishing fluency. A way to do is to "start by having an older member of the family tell a story about a major family event (wedding, birthday, graduation). Afterward, ask a younger member of the family to re-tell the story in his or her own words. Family members should be supportive when the child misses an important element and help the child pronounce key vocabulary words like names of relatives, locations, etc. This activity helps build vocabulary, understand sequencing and recall information." 
3. Writing notes- It is important to practice and encourage writing skills in young children. One way to do this is by writing notes to other family members on a regular basis. Also, parents are encouraged to leave notes in a lunch box, around the house, or even slipping a note underneath a pillow. Exhibiting writing can encourage young children to cop your behavior. 
4. Using the library- TAKE ADVANTAGE OF FREE LIBRARY RESOURCES! "Visiting the library together is a great way to foster family literacy activities. Not only do libraries often offer access to books on a wide range of literacy levels and subjects, libraries often have books in several languages as well. Adults and children can improve their literacy skills by reading books in the family's first language and then reading the same book in English"

Another way a teacher can encourage literacy with families is hosting a literacy family night! This can be really simple and beneficial for families and students!

Here is a video highlighting the benefits of literacy family nights! 

Tips for Family Literacy

As you all know we have been talking about family literacy. This website is a very helpful tool for those parents who want more activities to do with their students. This website lets you download different themed packets for free and print them. They have different grade levels on them. So if a parent wants to have more practice with literacy at home with their child and does not have access to a computer, you the teacher, could print it out for that family. Give it to the student at school. Reading Adventure Packs for Families is a very resourceful website. I would personally use this as an option for my parents. I want them to be actively involved as much as they can be with their students. Another website that I found is Promoting Family Literacy. This gives you different ideas that you can work on with your family at home. It give families ideas of how to incorporate literacy into home life. This video helps gives tips for family literacy. 

Involving Parents in early literacy

Parent involvement, especially in elementary school is crucial.  If parents are involved in their child's schooling, the child is more likely to be involved in school and to like school better.  When I was growing up, I was always being helped with my school work from my family.  With my grandma and grandpa both being previous elementary school teachers, and my mom, an active middle school teacher, they knew the importance of parent involvement in school.  I found a picture on Pinterest that lists ideas that parents and their children can talk about after reading non-fiction stories:

Talking through a story with your child can really open their minds a little bit more and take in more information from the book than they would if they didn't have anyone to review it with them.

Not only can parents/caregivers be involved just during the school year, but they can be involved during the summer too.  If you can engage your child in reading during the summer as well as during the school year, it will prepare them even more for reading in the next grade.  Parents can get a child involved in a summer reading program or the child's previous or future teacher could send them a calendar with daily activities for children and parents to work on literacy together such as "read a book about an animal today, describe the animal after".

Here is an example:

Promoting Family Literacy Ideas

Literacy in the home is one of the most important aspects to promote. It means that each child is ready for school before even thinking of when they are suppose to start school. This website does not just focus on the student but the entire family, because no student will read when their brother, sister, mom, or dad will not. I love the idea of the family as a unit reading, because it models what the children should do, and it will inturn expand their vocabulary.

Family Literacy Ideas

As mentioned in Chapter 10, family literacy is extremely important. It helps students to develop strong literature skills, and get the support they need both in and outside of school. Sometimes though, the pressure of at home literacy can be too much for parents. They do not know where to begin, or do not have enough time everyday to sit down with their child to provide the adequate modeling needed. This can be very stressful for parents. Especially when all parents want their children to succeed. This article I found titled, Parent Involvement in Early Literacy, provides a great beginning outline for parents. It can be overwhelming  to have the  responsibility of helping your child develop literacy outside of school, especially when you have had no experience doing so. This is a great article that points out many easy ways in which parents can promote literacy within the home without becoming stressed. Even if you do not always have time during the day to help your child this is a great tool for whoever your child is with, or even for your child to try and complete on their own. Providing at home literacy does not have to be anything extremely elaborate. By just providing simple materials like environmental text is a great way to expose children to literacy. This is also a great article that teachers can use. Teachers could use this as a guideline to send home with parents or to even use within the early childhood classrooms. Early Literature is important, and does not have to be something that is a burden on families. This is a time for a family to come together, and to learn and grow from each one another.

How to Make Families an Integral Part of the School

While reading Chapter 10 I kept recalling many of the literary experiences I had as a kid.  In a way, I was using the text to “grade” how well my parents included literature throughout a typical day at our household.  I found that my mom did an excellent job exposing me to literature.  Everyday, she read books before nap time and before bedtime and throughout the day did an okay job pointing out environmental print.  According to the text, I grew up in a literature rich environment.  I began pondering what it would be like to grow up in an environment in which my mom was not there exposing me to literature.  According to the text, 75% of families have both parents working.  Many of these families think they do not have enough time to focus on incorporating literature with their children throughout the day.  Therefore, it is our job as teachers to put forth the effort to develop and advocate for the importance of exposing literature to children at a young age.

Page 436 displays a list to show how we as teachers can make families an integral part of the school.  This list can be used to develop programs that connect families, who may not be exposing their children with enough literature, with opportunities to do so.  There is a total of 12 different bullet points corresponding with 12 different ways you as a teacher can advocate for the importance of incorporating family life within and outside of school.  My top two ideas that I would use in my classroom include:

Bullet point 2: With each new unit of instruction or concept being taught in literacy, send a newsletter to let family members know what you are studying and what they can do to help.

Bullet point 6: Send home activities for parents and children to do together and require feedback about working together.  Include activities such as writing in journals together, reading together, visiting the library, reading print in the environment, writing notes to each other, and watching and talking about programs on television.  Participating in homework assignments is extremely important.

I choose these two bulleted points because I realize that families that have both parents working realistically are going to have a difficult time making it into school.  What I can do is keep them updated on what we are doing and send home pre-made activities that require the parents to follow simple step-by-step instructions.  These activities will not take that much time out of their busy days and will give their child the exposure to literature that they would have been missing out on.  From this list what would your top 2 bulleted items be for connecting families with the school?  And most importantly why do you feel this way?  If you have to, you can choose your top three!