A huge issue in schools today is the lack of support children are receiving from their home with schoolwork. With 75% of parents today both working, it can be extremely difficult for children to get the help they need after school. Not to mention how challenging it must be to be a single or non-English speaking parent. What I love about Chapter 10 though, was the fact that it recognizes all of the difficulties that parents face on a daily basis, and stresses the importance of teachers understanding those challenges as well. Even though it can be stressful to teachers, it is vital that we do our best to understand how busy these parents are.
Page 424 in our book provides some awesome photos of different ways that parents can assist with their children's literacy development at home, besides just sitting down and reading a book with their child. Following a recipe while cooking is an idea that guardians can do with their children, as well as creating a journal with a child, and keeping a chore chart. As long as children are engaging in reading and writing in some form, then they are learning just as well as they would by reading a book. Page 425 also includes a checklist of materials and activities that parents can complete to ensure that their children are learning at home in a variety of ways.
Overall, I found that Chapter 10 was both encouraging and informative for me. Even though the literacy experiences I had in my own home may greatly differ from my future students' experiences, this chapter reminded me to remain patient with families. I also learned about all the different ways that parents can encourage their children to learn, and will definitely be passing that information along to my students' parents in the future.
I think that parents are one of the scariest parts of our future careers as teacher so I also appreciated that this chapter took some time to talk about family involvement. I agree that it is important for us to realize all that these parents are trying to accomplish and do for their students. Even when we get frustrated we need to remember that they are doing the best they can. I also agree that it is great to get students reading and writing in some form whenever we can. I think a great way to have students do this at home is to assign them to draw a picture of something at home and then journal about it. Why did they chose to draw that, why did they chose the colors they used, and how did they feel when drawing. Just simple activities like this would be easy to accomplish if you send home some paper and some writing utensils. When considering families in need I think that it is important to keep the assignments short and to the point. I agree that my childhood and first interactions with literacy may differ from my future students but maybe that will help us create activities that will provide our own students fond memories like we have.
ReplyDeleteMaddy, I agree that sometimes teachers don't realize how hard the parent might be working to get their child fed and don't necessarily not care about their child's education. Although I am sure there might be some of those parents, but we don't know exactly what is going on at home and shouldn't assume that. So, taking that into account how do we get parents involved or even making sure the students have some access to literacy at home? I liked how you talked about having the children follow the recipes when their parents or guardians are cooking. That is a simple was to have literacy in the home and it doesn't take a lot of time from the parent who might be stretched for time. I also like the journal idea, definitely if the parents don't see their children a lot, like in the video we watched in class. The parents could read what the child wrote and then the parent could write back maybe. It would be a good way to have communication with the parent while also working on literacy development. I agree that chapter ten was a very informative chapter and something that we really need to know as future teachers. Everyone's literacy experiences are probably going to be different, definitely with our future students who have technology as a big part of their lives. It is important to try different strategies to help our students do the best they can, some might strike out and some might work really well, but we have to put the time and know our students. Thanks for the great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that the support children get with their schoolwork is dangerously low. In my experience this situation mostly occurs when parents have to work multiple jobs to support their family. It might also occur when parents are not able to read or write themselves. I think that most of the parents really want to support their children and give them the best chance but they might not be able to do because of their living situation or work life. I do not believe that many parents chose to just not help their children in my opinion most of them want to support their children.
ReplyDeleteThere are several easy and simply activities that parents can do with their children at home to support their children's development.
Great post. Family literacy is in my opinion the most important thing when children are beginning to read. When parents are involved in a students life their grade will reflect it. Teachers can't do everything on a daily basis thats why parents need to show some support and reflect on the things that were taught by the teacher. Parents have just as much responsibility as teachers to teach their children things.
ReplyDeleteI agree a lot with your post. It’s hard when children don’t get support at home, as it could make a big difference. Unfortunately, one or both parents might work, and just aren’t able to really give their children the support they need. But we have to believe that they are doing the best that they can. We can make parents aware that helping their children is important and make suggestions for things that parents can do at home to help their children.
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