Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement
(Including: Sample Practices, Challenges, Redefinitions, and Expected Results)
TYPE 1
PARENTING
Help all families establish home environments to support children as students.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Sample Practices
Suggestions for home conditions that support learning at each grade level.
Workshops, videotapes, computerized phone messages on parenting and child rearing at each age and
grade level.
Parent education and other courses or training for parents (e.g., GED, college credit, family literacy.)
Family support programs to assist families with health, nutrition, and other services.
Home visits at transition points to pre-school, elementary, middle, and high school. Neighborhood
meetings to help families understand schools and to help schools understand families.
Challenges
Provide information to all families who want it or who need it, not just to the few who can attend
workshops or meetings at the school building.
Enable families to share information with schools about culture, background, children's talents and
needs.
Make sure that all information for and from families is clear, usable, and linked to children's success
in school.
Redefinitions
"Workshop" to mean more than a meeting about a topic held at the school building at a particular
time. "Workshop" may also mean making information about a topic available in a variety of forms
that can be viewed, heard, or read any where, any time, in varied forms.
Results for Students
Awareness of family supervision; respect for parents.
Positive personal qualities, habits, beliefs, and values, as taught by family.
Balance between time spent on chores, on other activities, and on homework.
Good or improved attendance.
Awareness of importance of school.
Results for Parents
Understanding of and confidence about parenting, child and adolescent development, and
changes in home conditions for learning as children proceed through school.
Awareness of own and others' challenges in parents.
Feeling of support from school and other parents.
Results for Teachers
Understanding families' background, cultures, concerns, goals, needs, and views of their
children.
Respect for families' strengths and efforts.
Understanding of student diversity.
Awareness of own skills to share information on child development.
Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., et. al., Partnership
Center for the Social Organization of Schools
3505 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218-3843
Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement
(Including: Sample Practices, Challenges, Redefinitions, and Expected Results)
TYPE 2
COMMUNICATING
Design effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs
and children's progress.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Sample Practices
Conferences with every parent at least once a year, with follow-ups as needed.
Language translators to assist families as needed.
Weekly or monthly folders of student work sent home for review and comments.
Parent/student pickup of report card, with conferences on improving grades.
Regular schedule of useful notices, memos, phone calls, newsletters, and other communications.
Clear information on choosing schools or courses, programs, and activities within schools.
Clear information on all school policies, programs, reforms, and transitions.
Challenges
Review the readability, clarity, form, and frequency of all memos, notices, and other print and
nonprint communications.
Consider parents who do not speak English well, do not read well, or need large type.
Review the quality of major communications (newsletters, report cards, conference schedules, and so
on).
Establish clear two-way channels for communications from home to school and from school to home.
Redefinitions
"Communications about school programs and student progress" to mean two-way, three-way, and
many-way channels of communication that connect schools, families, students, and the community.
Results for Students
Awareness of own progress and of actions needed to maintain or improve grades.
Understanding of school policies on behavior, attendance, and other areas of student
conduct.
Informed decisions about courses and programs.
Awareness of own role in partnerships, serving as courier and communicator.
Results for Parents
Understanding school programs and policies.
Monitoring and awareness of child's progress.
Responding effectively to students' problems.
Interactions with teachers and ease of communication with school and teachers.
Results for Teachers
Increased diversity and use of communications with families and awareness of own ability to
communicate clearly
Appreciation for and use of parent network for communications.
Increased ability to elicit and understand family views on children's programs and progress.
Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., et. al., Partnership
Center for the Social Organization of Schools
3505 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218-3843
Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement
(Including: Sample Practices, Challenges, Redefinitions, and Expected Results)
TYPE 3
VOLUNTEERING
Recruit and organize parent help and support.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Sample Practices
School and classroom volunteer program to help teachers, administrators, students, and other parents.
Parent room or family center for volunteer work, meetings, resources for families.
Annual postcard survey to identify all available talents, times, and locations of volunteers.
Class parent, telephone tree, or other structures to provide all families with needed information.
Parent patrols or other activities to aid safety and operation of school programs.
Challenges
Recruit volunteers widely so that all families know that their time and talents are welcome.
Make flexible schedules for volunteers, assemblies, and events to enable parents who work to
participate.
Organize volunteer work; provide training; match time and talent with school, teacher, and student
needs; and recognize efforts so that participants are productive.
Redefinitions
"Volunteer" to mean anyone who supports school goals and children's learning or development in
any way, at any place, and at any time -- not just during the school day and at the school building.
Results for Students
Skill in communicating with adults.
Increased learning of skills that receive tutoring or targeted attention from volunteers.
Awareness of many skills, talents, occupations, and contributions of parent and other
volunteers.
Results for Parents
Understanding teacher's job, increased comfort in school, and carry-over of school activities
at home.
Self-confidence about ability to work in school and with children or to take steps to improve
own education.
Awareness that families are welcome and valued at school.
Gains in specific skills of volunteer work.
Results for Teachers
Readiness to involve families in new ways, including those who do not volunteer at school.
Awareness of parents' talents and interests in school and children.
Greater individual attention to students, with help from volunteers.
Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., et. al., Partnership
Center for the Social Organization of Schools
3505 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218-3843
Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement
(Including: Sample Practices, Challenges, Redefinitions, and Expected Results)
TYPE 4
LEARNING AT HOME
Provide information and ideas to families about how to help students at home with homework and other
curriculum-related activities, decisions, and planning.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Sample Practices
Information for families on skills required for students in all subjects at each grade.
Information on homework policies and how to monitor and discuss schoolwork at home.
Information on how to assist students to improve skills on various class and school assessments.
Regular schedule of homework that requires students to discuss and interact with families on what
they are learning in class.
Calendars with activities for parents and students at home.
Family math, science, and reading activities at school.
Summer learning packets or activities.
Family participation in setting student goals each year and in planning for college or work.
Challenges
Design and organize a regular schedule of interactive homework (e.g., weekly or bimonthly) that
gives students responsibility for discussing important things they are learning and helps families stay
aware of the content of their children's classwork.
Coordinate family linked homework activities, if students have several teachers.
Involve families and their children in all-important curriculum-related decisions.
Redefinitions
"Homework" to mean not only work done alone, but also interactive activities shared with others at
home or in the community, linking schoolwork to real life.
"Help" at home to mean encouraging, listening, reacting, praising, guiding, monitoring, and
discussing -- not "teaching" school subjects.
Results for Students
Gains in skills, abilities, and test scores linked to homework and classwork.
Homework completion.
Positive attitude toward schoolwork.
View of parents as more similar to teacher and of home as more similar to school.
Self-concept of ability as learner.
Results for Parents
Know how to support, encourage, and help student at home each year.
Discussions of school, classwork, and homework.
Understanding of instructional program each year and of what child is learning in each
subject.
Appreciation of teaching skills.
Awareness of child as a learner.
Results for Teachers
Better design of homework assignments.
Respect for family time.
Recognition of equal helpfulness of single-parent, dual-income, and less formally educated
families in motivating and reinforcing student learning.
Satisfaction with family involvement and support.
Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., et. al., Partnership
Center for the Social Organization of Schools
3505 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218-3843
Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement
(Including: Sample Practices, Challenges, Redefinitions, and Expected Results)
TYPE 5
DECISION MAKING
Include parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Sample Practices
Active PTA/PTO or other parent organizations, advisory councils, or committees (e.g., curriculum,
safety, personnel) for parent leadership and participation.
Independent advocacy groups to lobby and work for school reform and improvements.
District-level councils and committees for family and community involvement.
Information on school or local elections for school representatives.
Networks to link all families with parent representatives.
Challenges
Include parent leaders from all racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and other groups in the school.
Offer training to enable leaders to serve as representatives of other families, with input from and
return of information to all parents.
Include students (along with parents) in decision-making groups.
Redefinitions
"Decision making" to mean a process of partnership, of shared views and actions toward shared
goals, not just a power struggle between conflicting ideas.
Parent "leader" to mean a real representative, with opportunities and support to hear from and
communicate with other families.
Results for Students
Awareness of representation of families in school decisions.
Understanding that student rights are protected.
Specific benefits linked to policies enacted by parent organizations and experienced by
students.
Results for Parents
Input into policies that affect child's education.
Feeling of ownership of school.
Awareness of parents' voices in school decisions.
Shared experiences and connections with other families.
Awareness of school, district, and state policies.
Results for Teachers
Awareness of parent perspectives as a factor in policy development and decisions.
View of equal status of family representatives on committees and in leadership roles.
Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., et. al., Partnership
Center for the Social Organization of Schools
3505 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218-3843
Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement
(Including: Sample Practices, Challenges, Redefinitions, and Expected Results)
TYPE 6
COLLABORATING WITH COMMUNTY
Identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family
practices, and student learning and development.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Sample Practices
Information for students and families on community health, cultural, recreational, social support, and
other programs or services
Information on community activities that link to learning skills and talents, including summer
programs for students.
Service integration through partnerships involving school; civic, counseling, cultural, health,
recreation, and other agencies and organizations; and businesses.
Service to the community by students, families, and schools (e.g., recycling, art, music, drama, and
other activities for seniors or others).
Participation of alumni in school programs for students.
Challenges
Solve turf problems of responsibilities, funds, staff, and locations for collaborative activities.
Inform families of community programs for students, such as mentoring, tutoring, business
partnerships.
Assure equity of opportunities for students and families to participate in community programs or to
obtain services.
Match community contributions with school goals, integrate child and family services with education.
Redefinitions
"Community" to mean not only the neighborhoods where students' homes and schools are located but
also any neighborhoods that influence their learning and development.
"Community" rated not only by low or high social or economic qualities, but by strengths and talents
to support students, families, and schools.
"Community" means all who are interested in and affected by the quality of education, not just those
with children in the schools.
Results for Students
Increased skills and talents through enriched curricular and extracurricular experiences.
Awareness of careers and of options for future education and work.
Specific benefits linked to programs, services, resources, and opportunities that connect
students with community.
Results for Parents
Knowledge and use of local resources by family and child to increase skills and talents or to
obtain needed services
Interactions with other families in community activities.
Awareness of school's role in the community and of community's contributions to the school.
Results for Teachers
Awareness of community resources to enrich curriculum and instruction.
Openness to and skill in using mentors, business partners, community volunteers, and
others to assist students and augment teaching practices.
Knowledgeable, helpful referrals of children and families to needed services.
Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., et. al., Partnership
Center for the Social Organization of Schools
3505 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218-3843
Curriculum as a Collaboration
with Families and the Community
5
Pretest
1. Collaboration with families and finding
ways to involve them in the curriculum is an
important goal in early childhood education
today. T/F
2. Teachers don’t need to learn about
students’ families in order to have an
effective curriculum. T/F
3. Offering them information about learning
standards helps families understand how
the curriculum works. T/F
4. Documenting and displaying what children
do conveys a message that their work is
important. T/F
5. It is worth the effort to invite families and
members of the business and neighborhood
communities to serve as volunteers. T/F
© Yellow Dog Productions / Getty Images
Answers can be found at end of the chapter.
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Explain the importance of a collaborative approach to working with families.
2. Summarize accepted principles, effective strategies, and typical challenges for understanding and working with families.
3. Explain how teachers can help families understand the current standards-driven
environment.
4. Describe ways in which teachers can help families understand the curriculum.
5. Describe how the community can be incorporated as a resource for your curriculum.
What Is a Collaborative Approach and Why Is It Important?
Chapter 5
After completing your home visits, you realize that you now have a lot of additional information about the families of the children who will be in your class. You know which children
have a single parent as the household head and have some information about family occupations and work schedules. You now know who lives with siblings and/or an extended family
and which children have pets. You have also identified the parents and children with limited
English proficiency, and you have some information about what steps have been taken to support the two children with special needs.
But you also have many remaining questions about how the families will respond
to you as the teacher and how to create
and sustain productive and satisfying relationships. You want the families to feel
like partners in the adventure of early
childhood education, but you also realize
that there may be many factors that could
complicate your efforts.
© Banana Stock / Thinkstock
There are many ways for early childhood educators to
connect with families and the community, as we will discuss in this chapter.
What can you do to learn more about the
values, traditions, hopes, and wishes of
your families? What strategies to include
them in their children’s school lives will be
most successful? How will you help them
understand the curriculum as partners in
their children’s learning? How will you
make connections between the school,
your families, and the local community?
In this chapter, we will address the very important challenge of how to construct meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with families and the community, particularly with
respect to curriculum. (Note: In this chapter, all references to interactions and communications
with families are made on the assumption that they would be conducted in or translated to
the home language as needed.)
5.1 What Is a Collaborative Approach and Why Is It
Important?
An expanding number of households have both parents working outside the home. Between
1950 and 2000, the number of women in the workforce increased by an astounding 256
percent, from 18.3 to 65.6 million; it is projected to increase by another 39.5 percent by 2050
(Toosi, 2002, p. 16). Therefore it can be challenging to effect a significant representation
of families in the affairs of programs and schools. In one survey for example, approximately
70 percent of families indicated that they never helped out at school, while only 4 percent
described themselves as highly active (Epstein, 2001).
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) states that there is
no single formula for collaboration between programs and families. However, as part of their
recent Engaging Diverse Families project, they have outlined six principles that focus on communication, engagement, and decision making. The principles suggest that:
What Is a Collaborative Approach and Why Is It Important?
Chapter 5
1. Teachers and programs engage families in two-way communication
2. Programs implement a comprehensive program-level system of family engagement
3. Programs and teachers engage families in ways that are truly reciprocal
4. Programs provide learning activities for the home and in the community
5. Programs invite families to participate in program-level decisions and wider advocacy
efforts
6. Programs invite families to participate in decision making and goal setting for their children (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2012)
Many years of research and well over one hundred studies on initiatives connecting families,
schools, and communities overwhelmingly attest to the value and benefits of strong, positive
connections (Fiese, Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006), not just for the children but for the parents
and teachers as well. When families are actively involved in the daily lives of their children
in school or care and they know what their children are doing during the day, children feel
more secure, have a higher sense of self-worth, and learn better. Parents can benefit from
feelings of affirmation, increased knowledge about early education and child development,
and higher self-esteem. Teachers feel supported and gain additional, relevant knowledge and
resources from working closely with families (Gestwicki, 2004).
These kinds of positive correlations with student achievement are most closely associated with
programs that feature:
• Support and respect for family values and expectations
• Attention to and observation of parent behaviors and interactions
• Promotion of parent and family participation in school activities and affairs
• Inclusion of parents in decision-making processes that affect their children (Weiss,
Krieder, Lopez, & Chatman, 2005)
Early Collaboration: ParentTeacher Associations
Like other aspects of early childhood education, the characteristics of parent/family
involvement in schools have evolved over a
long period of time (Olsen & Fuller, 2008).
In the 1800s, when schools were primarily
isolated and rural, the men in a community typically had control over all school
matters. As more schools were built to
accommodate the population growth
that occurred with large-scale immigration, schools were located increasingly in
urban areas.
© Candace Jaruszewicz
In the days of mostly rural schools, the community shared
all responsibility for the education of its children. This
photo documents the author’s great grandfather using
his tractor in 1918 to move the local one-room “Liberty”
school across the prairie to its new location.
In response to growing concerns about social
issues and the welfare of children, women—who did not yet have the right to vote—began
to organize and advocate. Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst established the
What Is a Collaborative Approach and Why Is It Important?
Chapter 5
National Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) in 1897. The goals established at that time (and
subsequently achieved over the following century) were:
• The creation of kindergarten classes
• Child labor laws
• A public health service
• Hot-lunch programs
• A juvenile justice system
• Mandatory immunization
By the 1950s, parent involvement in elementary schools through PTA membership had swelled
to more than 6 million members. As many women returned to homemaking after World War
II, they became increasingly involved in their children’s schools in both volunteer support and
PTA leadership roles. Today, the PTA continues as a national organization, with the mission to
“make every child’s potential a reality by engaging and empowering families and communities
to advocate for all children.”
In addition, local parent-teacher organizations, loosely referred to as PTOs, have established
a parallel network of independent groups. Most recently, federal funding for Title 1 schools
through the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act mandates that schools receiving funding should
establish parental involvement policies that focus on:
• Assisting their child’s learning
• Being actively involved in their child’s education at school
• Serving as full partners in their child’s education and being included, as appropriate,
in decision making and on advisory committees to assist in the education of their child
(National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education, 2012)
In child care centers, no such national grassroots effort took place. Public funding for child
care began during the Great Depression through the Works Progress Administration (WPA)
and with the Lanham Act of 1940, which established child care for the many women working
in factories to support the war effort (Cohen, 1996). These programs were temporary, ending
with the crises that spurred their establishment. However, federal funding for early education,
starting with Head Start, expanded the missions of programs to include a focus on families.
The Goals of a Collaborative Approach
According to the NAEYC, the goals of a collaborative approach to home/school/community
involvement should be to increase learning and reduce the achievement gap that still persists
in our society (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). One of the core considerations of DAP is the
need to understand sociocultural family contexts as essential to developing curriculum and
experiences that are meaningful and relevant. Curriculum should be “clearly defined for, communicated to, and understood by all stakeholders, including families” (Copple & Bredekamp,
2009, p. 20).
Engaging the entire family, particularly fathers, is a very high priority today. As Glenn Olsen
and Mary Lou Fuller (2008, p. 11) have stated, “Educators are experts in . . . the education
of children, and parents are the experts on their children. However, because past experiences
have given either parents or teachers disproportionate power in the relationship, both now
have to learn to work as a team.”
Understanding and Collaborating with Families
Chapter 5
5.2 Understanding and Collaborating with Families
Many collaboration approaches have been devised, implemented, and studied over the past
half-century. With shifts in priorities and technological advances, the details about how early
care and education programs connect with families continue to change and evolve. But in
general the emphasis and goals have been to promote mutually inclusive, collaborative, and
productive relationships (Gestwicki, 2004). When teachers understand the cultural context
and dynamics of families, they can use that knowledge to create opportunities and encourage
family involvement in their children’s learning.
Children with Special Needs
While all children, families, and teachers benefit from high-quality, ongoing interactions, this
dynamic might be considered absolutely essential for children with special needs. In a recent
study of nine child-care centers that serve children with disabilities (Bradley & Kibera, 2007),
the researchers learned that understanding and attention to family culture was the key to successful inclusion. The provision of an individualized approach, ongoing communication, and
the flexibility needed to adapt to different needs depended on understanding family values
and beliefs, sociohistorical influences, and attitudes about seeking help. Therefore taking a
collaborative approach to curriculum will naturally fit in with the needs of families with children who have special needs.
Understanding Families
Two theories in particular are helpful to teachers for understanding the families with which
they work: Uri Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory (introduced in Chapter 1) and family systems theory (FST), used widely in family therapy settings (Christian, 2007; Fiese,
Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006; Grant & Ray, 2010; Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2007; Weiss, Kreider,
Lopez, & Chatman, 2005). Taking a family-centered approach departs from older, more traditional parent involvement models by shifting emphasis from the program to the families
(Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2007). Further, a family-centered approach respects families as decision
makers and culture bearers and assumes that all members of the family should benefit from
home-school collaboration.
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory
Bronfenbrenner’s theory makes particular sense as a foundation for thinking about home/
school/community relationships because it represents the child’s experience in the context of
interrelated influences. When teachers understand and apply these influences to the particular community environments in which they teach, they can use this knowledge to customize
their strategies for the development of relationships with families. Table 5.1 lists the priorities,
suggested by ecological theory, for educators who want to develop family involvement in
their programs (Weiss, Kreider, Lopez, & Chatman, 2005).
Family Systems Theory
Family systems theory describes family dynamics and provides insights about family structures.
Teachers and programs can apply their understanding of family systems to develop productive
and collaborative relationships. From a family systems perspective, educators recognize that
while the families they serve today are increasingly diverse, all have elements in common that
may be represented and operate in different ways (Christian, 2007; Grant & Ray, 2010).
Understanding and Collaborating with Families
Chapter 5
Table 5.1: How Ecological Theory Plays Out in Family Involvement Programs
Sphere of Influence
System Features
Family Involvement Program Features
Microsystem
Home and immediate
surroundings
• Develop family-focused services
• Tailor different kinds of support for moms vs. dads
• Provide teacher professional development focusing on
family systems
Mesosystem
Relationships among
immediate contexts
• Reduce barriers to family participation
• Cultivate welcoming settings
• Communicate effectively
• Promote decision-making skills
• Help navigate program activities
Exosystem
Links between contexts
that do and do not
include the child
• Focus on family strengths
• Identify the social supports families need
• Promote civic engagement
• Celebrate family cultures
Macrosystem
Links among other
systems
• Ensure that classroom culture is informed by the
community
• Encourage familiarity with children’s lives at home
• Provide balance of individual/larger group interactions
• Embed family values and culture in classroom activities,
goals and expectations
• Self-awareness of teacher values/biases
Source: Weiss, Kreider, Lopez, & Chatman, 2005.
When teachers use strategies such as home visits, child interviews, or questionnaires, they
can acquire information for six specific areas of focus within FST about how families establish
and maintain:
1. Boundaries: Across families, the desired level of involvement with schools varies, as
families have different ideas about the lines that should be drawn between home and
school. Understanding why a family might or might not want to be involved in school
activities can help teachers make decisions about how to encourage involvement.
2. Roles: Children’s behavior and interactions at school reflect what they know about and
how they experience roles they inhabit at home. Children may emulate these roles at
school, as helpers, caretakers, peacemakers, problem solvers, or, conversely, victims or
even bullies. Teachers who work to identify positive role models among their families
can offer opportunities at school where family members can apply these skills in roles
that are already familiar to them.
3. Rules: Both families and programs have explicit and unspoken rules that children have to
integrate. This will be harder when a rule at school is very different from one at home—
for example, a child who is allowed to fight with siblings at home but clearly not with
other children in the care or educational setting. When these discrepancies are identified, communications can be focused on balancing what the child understands about
expectations and interactions.
Understanding and Collaborating with Families
Chapter 5
4. Hierarchies: The ways families make decisions, who
makes them, and who holds and wields power is
greatly influenced by diversity and circumstances.
Teachers learn, for example, which family member
assumes responsibility as primary contact.
5. Climate: Physical and emotional environments
vary widely across families and can change with
circumstances, as in the loss of a job or a significant illness in the family. Teachers can convey sensitivity and respect for a family’s need for privacy
or assistance when they identify and understand
the stresses families experience.
6. Equilibrium: Rituals, customs, and traditions provide consistency, security, and balance. Gaining
insights into the importance of these things can
be helpful to a teacher for planning activities that
represent the diversity among students’ families.
Involving Families at School
© iStockphoto / Thinkstock
Understanding the rules that exist in a
Family involvement models and approaches today aim
child’s home, such as those about interactto achieve what the Reggio Emilia educators call an
ing with siblings, can help a care provider
“amiable school,” envisioning programs that welcome,
to teach the child the rules in the care
incorporate, and reflect everyone’s ideas—those of
setting.
children, families, teachers, and community (Edwards,
Gandini, & Forman, 1998; Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2007).
Teachers and families might take a grassroots approach, constructing their own vision and
strategies for how to promote collaboration and involvement. Or, planning for family involvement might be done within the framework of an established model if the teacher works in
a program that uses one.
Grassroots Approach
Frameworks for collaboration with families typically include some or all of the six types of
parent involvement proposed by Joyce Epstein (2001) for the National Network of Partnership
Schools initiative:
1. Parent education: Providing information or training about topics important to parents in
structured or informal ways.
2. Communication: Understanding the ways in which parents and teachers interact with
one another and share information.
3. Volunteering: Inviting family participation at the educational setting including social
events, classroom support, clerical work, and so on.
4. Learning at home: Finding ways to involve parents in activities that support their learning at school.
5. Decision making: Inviting parent participation in all levels of decisions, from those related
to individual children to advisory councils or committees that participate in establishing
and enacting policies and initiatives.
Understanding and Collaborating with Families
Chapter 5
6. Collaborating with the community: Inviting families to help the program establish
relationships with merchants, organizations, and public services such as libraries or
health centers.
Teachers and programs seek input from families about what kinds of involvement would
best serve their needs, recruit parents who might be interested in leadership roles, and work
together to develop and implement plans.
Family Involvement Models
Some programs, especially those funded by the state or federal government, or grants, establish and operate comprehensive family involvement programs with different kinds of features.
If you work in a Head Start program, for example, there are clearly defined policies about
how teachers and the program will collaborate with families. In a pilot or experimental program such as Leaps and Bounds, the framework might be more open-ended as the program
is developed.
Table 5.2 displays a range of examples of family involvement models with a short description
of each (Gestwicki, 2004; Lim, 2008; Narvaez, Feldman, & Theriot, 2007; Rhodes, Enz, &
LaCount, 2007).
Table 5.2: Examples of Family Involvement Models
Program
Description
Even Start
Federally funded Title I home-based program that promotes family
literacy; GED programs, and workforce skills development (over
800 sites).
No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
Among mandated activities are annual informative meetings for
parents; involvement in planning, review, and improvement of schools;
opportunities for parent input/suggestions.
Head Start (3-to 5-year olds)
Includes parents directly in program decision making; provides
opportunities to work with child as volunteer with career-ladder
support; planned parent activities; ongoing communication; leadership
via parent committees and policy council.
Early Head Start (infant/toddlers)
Similar to Head Start but with home-based services.
Minnesota Early Childhood Family
Education Program (ECFE)
Started in the Minneapolis Public Schools in 1974 with classes and
activities for parents of children from birth to 5 years of age. Expanded
statewide and used as a model for other states to establish parent
education programs.
AVANCE
Private nonprofit organization started by Gloria Rodriguez and the Zale
Foundation in 1973 to serve primarily Hispanic families in San Antonio;
programs as of 2012 in Texas, New Mexico, and California with partnerships in several other states around the country; focuses on parent
education.
Virtual Pre-K
Started in the Chicago public schools, now available nationwide with
free online resources developed by master teachers in English and
Spanish and modeling of high-quality activities parents can do with
their children.
Leaps and Bounds
Developed by Arizona State University, provides support workshops
for minority and underserved families in the Phoenix area, focusing on
kindergarten readiness and accompanied by a research initiative.
Helping Families Understand Curriculum, Goals, and Expectations
Chapter 5
Barriers and Challenges
There is widespread agreement that home/school/community programs succeed only when
mutual trust is well established among those involved (Dombro & Lerner, 2005; Fiese, Eckert,
& Spagnola, 2006; Sciarra & Dorsey, 2007). Other factors are important as well. Parent education efforts, especially literacy-focused programs, require that educators appreciate and
respect many “ways of knowing” and the life experiences of parents—a sociocultural perspective that doesn’t regard teachers as the only authentic source of knowledge or information (Grant & Ray, 2010; Ordonez-Jasis & Ortiz, 2007). Involvement programs that establish
clear goals (Fiese, Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006; Ordonez-Jasis & Ortiz, 2007) and boundaries
(Christian, 2007; Sciarra & Dorsey, 2007) help create a climate for partnership and define
vision and purpose.
Educators have also learned many lessons over time about pitfalls—the factors that can challenge those working to establish relationships and create practical and meaningful family
and community-friendly activities and processes. Memories of past experiences with school,
particularly negative ones, are powerful disincentives, especially for those who might feel
marginalized to begin with by limited education or language proficiency (Gestwicki, 2004;
Grant & Ray, 2010).
Some parents who might otherwise be very interested in participating in their child’s classroom might be limited by logistical considerations, such as access to transportation or work
schedules (Gestwicki, 2004; Grant & Ray, 2010). Other factors, such as a lack of self-confidence, self-consciousness about family structures or alternative lifestyles, perceptions parents
may have about teachers’ “turf,” or cultural norms and expectations may also be present but
are even more difficult to acknowledge or recognize (Clay, 2007; Gestwicki, 2004; Grant &
Ray, 2010).
5.3 Helping Families Understand Curriculum, Goals,
and Expectations
If we want families and the community to be more involved in our children’s early education,
we need to help them understand the nature and purpose of learning standards and how
they affect the curriculum as well as the systems in place for achieving accountability to the
standards. For instance, we need to explain that a curriculum standard is a statement that
reflects society’s current values about what children should know and be able to do. Families
also need to know that standards do not dictate the specific curriculum a program or school
uses but that school districts, child care, and preschool programs choose or design a curriculum that will address and meet learning standards. Finally, families deserve to know how their
children’s growth and progress are documented with respect to standards.
Aligning (Mapping) Curriculum with Standards
Standards are written to allow educators to make decisions on behalf of each individual
child. At the local/site/classroom level, teachers should share the ways in which they interpret
the standards. Sometimes teachers do this by identifying how the curriculum connects with
specific standards or desired learning and development outcomes—a process called alignment or mapping. Commercially produced curricula for early childhood may include written
documentation of this process. For example, the Creative Curriculum includes documents
that connect the objectives, dimensions, and performance indicators of the program with the
Helping Families Understand Curriculum, Goals, and Expectations
Chapter 5
specific domains and domain elements that Head Start programs are mandated to meet. Table
5.3 provides a selected example.
Table 5.3: Creative Curriculum Alignment (for 3-Year-Olds)
Head Start
Domain Element
Examples of Objectives and
Dimensions from the Creative
Curriculum for Preschool
Receptive language:
the ability to
comprehend
or understand
language
8. Listens to and understands increasingly
complex language
8a. Comprehends language
8b. Follows directions
Expressive
language: the
ability to use
language
9. Uses language to express thoughts and
needs
9a. Uses an expanding expressive
vocabulary
9b. Speaks clearly
9c. Uses conventional grammar
9d. Tells about another time or place
Examples from the Creative
Curriculum for Preschool
• Mighty minute 73 “Are You Ready?”
• Intentional Teaching “My Turn at the
Microphone”
• Intentional Teaching “Introducing
New Vocabulary”
• Trees Study: Day 4, Investigation 1
(Large-group discussion and Shared
Writing, p. 34)
• Buildings Study: Day 4, Investigation
3 (Large-group discussion and Shared
Writing, p. 58)
• Intentional Teaching “Introducing
New Vocabulary”
10. Uses appropriate conversational and
other communication skills
10a. Engages in conversations
10b. Uses social rules of language
Source: Teaching Strategies, 2012.
In classrooms that use curricula designed by individuals, parents should also have the
opportunity to know whether the curriculum is consistent with the mission and goals of
the program and the extent to which it aligns with or supports standards used in the state
or local community. Regardless of the type of curriculum, this requires that the teachers and program administrators plan for and implement intentional communication about
the curriculum. Information about the selected curriculum model or approach should be
included in official program documents such as a family handbook, written curriculum
guide or overview, or program websites. Teachers can provide parents with examples of
standards that are being used in their classrooms and point out how they relate specifically to the activities that are planned for the children. Some teachers create classroom or
hallway displays that indicate how an activity is related to a particular standard or group
of standards.
See the annotated list of "Websites for Creating Classroom Blogs" at the end of this chapter for examples of the way in which programs describe or explain their approaches to
curriculum.
Accountability: Testing and Assessment
Parents are entitled to accurate reporting designed to help them understand how the curriculum is working on behalf of their children. Teachers and programs need to provide information to families to help them understand the accountability measures in use and how that
information is specifically relevant to the curriculum and its goals/objectives.
Helping Families Understand Curriculum, Goals, and Expectations
Chapter 5
This responsibility is complicated by many factors. In the public schools, standardized tests are
used that report results in terms of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
Report cards are issued for schools and states, beginning with third-grade data intended to
provide information about which schools and districts are making adequate yearly progress (AYP), with accompanying options for parents who wish to transfer their children from
schools designated as low-performing to schools that report higher achievement.
Although test reporting in the public schools doesn’t officially begin until third grade, many
public and private schools feel pressure to use standardized tests with younger children for a
variety of reasons that may or may not be related to determining progress, including:
• Determining entry-level readiness for a class of 4-year-olds, kindergarten, or first grade
• Screening children who must meet minimal score requirements for eligibility to charter,
magnet, or private schools
• Identification of special needs, including giftedness
• “Coaching” to help children perform better on standardized tests to be
administered later
These kinds of activities are described as highstakes testing—when the outcome of an individual child’s performance on a single measure can
have significant effects on decisions that will affect
the child’s future access to educational opportunities. Often—especially in communities with high
numbers of immigrant or low-socioeconomic,
undereducated families and families navigating
the elementary school choice system for the first
time—parents aren’t aware of the potential implications of high-stakes testing.
The terminology of curriculum standards can also
be confusing to parents and families. While educators use professional jargon and terms such as
AYP, alignment, benchmarks, differentiating
instruction, and high-stakes testing, it is best to
communicate with families about standards-based
curriculum in plain language; this helps to establish
meaningful dialogue (Grant & Ray, 2010).
Developmentally Appropriate
Accountability
© iStockphoto / Thinkstock
Teachers, children, and families are increasingly
affected by high-stakes testing. Educators and
families can benefit from a shared understanding of how external pressures and mandates
affect goals and curriculum.
Assessment and communicating information about assessments is a focus in Chapter 12, but
here it is important to note that early childhood educators are mindful of the developmental
issues associated with accountability and standards. The NAEYC position statements provide
clearly articulated guidance about:
• The types of assessment that are appropriate for young children
• How programs can and should communicate, incorporate, and share assessment information with families
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
• How assessments should be linked to curriculum
• How early learning standards can be developed to maintain fidelity to developmentally
sound principles about how young children learn (NAEYC/NAECS/SDE, 2002).
For early childhood programs seeking national accreditation through the NAEYC, standard 4 is devoted to the identification of criteria that programs must meet to document
that they:
• Develop and use a written assessment system that describes the purposes, procedures,
and uses of assessments and results
• Use developmentally appropriate methods aligned with curricular goals
• Are sensitive to and informed by family culture and home language
• Use the information gathered to plan and modify the curriculum
• Include information from families to inform the assessment process
• Provide regular opportunities for two-way communication with families about children’s progress
5.4 Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
As you begin to develop reciprocal relationships with families, you will want to share information about developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) with regard to curriculum; this will
provide a foundation for further discussion (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009; Gestwicki, 2011).
For example, programs and teachers can:
• Include a statement in promotional or informational materials that curriculum for
young children is based on research about child development and is designed to complement and support how they learn best.
• Invite parents to tour the classroom, emphasizing features that reflect DAP, such as
displays at the child’s eye level, carefully organized and labeled materials that promote
independence, and a variety of materials that appeal to children in different ways.
• Provide resource information about DAP in a notebook or parent library.
• Post information in the classroom about developmental characteristics relevant to the
age of the children in the group.
• Create and display printed labels for classroom centers that briefly describe how activities promote development in different ways.
• Include a statement on interest inventories or family questionnaires that information
gathered is used to construct goals and make decisions about curricular activities.
• Establish a communications notebook or log that goes back and forth between home
and school.
• In parent-teacher conferences, describe a specific example of a decision you made that
was based on an observation about each child’s development (Seplocha, 2007).
• Enlist parents’ support and input to establish learning and social/emotional goals for
individual children (Kaczmarek, 2007).
In short, building relationships with families should include the use of multiple strategies that
clearly communicate the importance of knowledge about child development as the foundation
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
for learning. By sharing information about how children learn, one creates a logical context
for providing visual documentation about what they are learning.
The Power of Documentation
Making the curriculum visible in the classroom and other appropriate areas of the school
sends a powerful message to all—children, families, and community—that what young children learn and do is important. As mentioned in Chapter 2, visual documentation of learning
is a concept associated with and highly developed in the Reggio Emilia programs (Edwards,
Gandini, & Forman, 1998). Essentially, Reggio Emilia teachers construct displays that recount
what and how children learn during long-term project work. The displays include images,
scripts of children’s words, teacher reflections, and examples of children’s work. They focus on
how a project was initiated and how the children think about what occurred over time. Judy
Helm (2007) describes this process for American teachers as “windows on learning.”
The use of visual documentation does not need to be restricted only to those programs that
use an emergent curriculum or long-term project work. From a practical perspective, making
curricular activities visible to others can be a powerful communications strategy in any early
childhood setting. Visual documentation helps visitors understand the curriculum and inspires
confidence that you are teaching from a developmental perspective, meeting children’s individual needs, and meeting learning standards and/or program outcomes.
Reggio Emilia-style documentation was originally constructed on panels—display boards that
included cut-and-pasted photographs and text accompanied by displays of two-dimensional
work or pictures of three-dimensional work. More recently, selected projects have been published by Reggio Emilia in book form, including The Theater Curtain (2002); Reggio Tutti: A
Guide to the City by the Children (2000); Everything Has a Shadow Except Ants (1999); The
Future Is a Lovely Day (2001); and Dialogues with Places (2008).
Using Technologies for Documentation and Communication
With advances in user-friendly technologies, teachers now have at their disposal many options
for creating documentation (Berson & Berson, 2010). Many tools are currently available that
can serve to streamline the process and help families feel a part of the daily learning experiences of their children.
Certainly the digital camera has revolutionized the way in which teachers capture the essence
of classroom activities. The ability to take, store, edit, print, and insert images in a variety of
applications suggests many possibilities for sharing the curriculum with families. Teachers can
also scan children’s two-dimensional work.
But pictures alone don’t tell the whole story. Consider Figure 5.1. The image depicts a block
structure built by children. Without a description, it could be interpreted in any number of
ways. When the teacher adds a simple printed description to the figure (label A), more information is conveyed. Further expanding the label to include a short reflective statement about
what the image represents (label B) connects the activity with the curriculum in a way that is
meaningful. Label C fully describes the learning represented in the photo as well as the skills
and knowledge the children used.
By posting captioned photographs, teachers can give families a glimpse into the everyday lives
of their young children at school or in child care. Extended documentation of children’s work
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1: Labeling
Labels A, B, and C represent three increasingly informative levels of description that complement
the visual depiction of a classroom activity.
Label A
Children in the 4/5K class worked in the
block center this morning.
Label B
This 4-story block tower represents a zoo. It
was constructed during the work cycle
period over two days by three kindergarten
children.
Label C
Three kindergarteners who have been
developing their skills in the block center all
year demonstrate their knowledge of
balance, symmetry and classification in this
4-story construction. These are major math
concepts included in the kindergarten math
standards. The children solved several
structural problems as they worked over
two days to complete the tower. The
decision to add animals and people was
made after the 4 levels were complete, but
before the enclosing pieces were placed. At
one point, they posted a sign that said, “wrk
n prgrs.” After they decided to add animals,
the children carefully counted out pairs of
identical animals, sorting them by size and
type, putting animals from like habitats
together.
and play over time goes even further, showing how the curriculum supports children’s interests, development, and holistic learning. Feature Box 5.1 tells the story of how two teachers
used a blog to document a curriculum study with a group of 5- and 6-year-olds.
Teachers can now use many forms of technology to connect families with the classroom
and the curriculum (Grant & Ray, 2010). Ebooks, like the one you’re reading now, show how
technology is expanding our ability to provide remote access to learning materials. Of course
teachers must follow school or program policies to protect privacy and restrict public access
to online applications. Some programs are also creating policies regarding family and staff use
of social networking sites (National Coalition of Campus Child Development Centers Listserve
Communications, March, 2012).
The level of technological support will likely vary by setting. But to the extent that such applications are available, any or all of the following can be used to link home and school:
• Newsletters (see example in Figure 5.3) can include descriptions of activities; features
on children, families, and teachers; favorite stories and songs; upcoming events; classroom recipes; and much more.
• Classroom or program websites can include both permanent and time-sensitive information (see annotated list of websites at the end of this chapter).
• Blogs (see list at end of chapter for free online blogging sites).
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
Blogging
Two teachers, Mary and Jane, embarked on a month-long field-based investigation of the city parks
in their community. The parks were all within walking distance of the child development center and
easily accessible via public transportation. Family members were invited to participate in the planned
excursions, but the teachers realized that not everyone would be able to do so.
Jane and Mary wanted all parents to feel that they were involved with this project, so they used a
free online service to set up a password-protected classroom blog. For parents without computer
access, daily pages were printed and kept in a notebook at the classroom sign-in area. Parents
could review them as desired at dropoff or pickup times. The teachers posted photographs and
daily entries dictated by the
children. They scanned and
Figure 5.2: Blog Entry
uploaded children’s drawings
In this blog entry from the first week of the study, a few of
and excerpts from their journals
the children went with one of the teachers on a test run
to the blog.
The blog also included teacher
reflections, copies of articles
they had read that informed
their planning, and links to
online resources they had used
to develop and conduct the
study. Other artifacts from their
work, such as organizational
charts and brainstorming lists
that were too big to scan, were
displayed in the classroom and
photographed to upload to
the blog. Figure 5.2 includes a
sample entry from the blog.
▶ Stop and Reflect
1. Since a blog represents an
online forum for sharing
ideas or experiences with
others and may be interactive, it has many potential
applications. Can you think
of a way you might use a
blog in your classroom or
care setting?
2. Do you think there might be
potential privacy issues associated with blogging about
the children in your care or
classroom? How might such
issues be addressed?
of the bus system to get maps from the City Visitor Center.
Many of the subsequent posts were dictated by children to
the teacher.
Septermber 21, 2012
4/5K class blog
The Park Project Blog
Search
About
Our Classroom
Meet the Teachers
Photo Gallery
Upcoming Events
Bird’s Eye View
Upcoming Events
by The Butterfly Class
The first week of Summer
we showed the children some
maps and talked to them
about “birds-eye-view.” We
looked at maps we had picked
up on a field trip to the
Visitor’s Center and also at
Google maps and Google
earth. We asked the children
to draw their own “birdseye-view” maps. You will
Archives
notice that the children
generally combine birds-eyeview and side view. They
draw their beds and other
things they have seen from
above as birds-eye-view and
they draw everything else
from a side view. We really
enjoyed looking at these maps.
September
3
10
17
24
4 5 6 7
11 12 13 14
18 19 20 21
25 26 27 28
1
8
15
22
29
Contact Us
Name
Email
Question/Comment
2
9
16
23
30
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
• Email distribution list to families in addition to individual communications.
• Text or instant-messaging for real-time announcements.
• Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or other social networking applications to connect with
families and connect them to one another.
Figure 5.3: Newsletter
Many teachers publish a newsletter—daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly—with user-friendly software programs. This is a sample newsletter, the Sunflower Gazette, about a 3-year-old class.
Septermber 21, 2012
3-year-old class newsletter
Sunflower Gazette
In the classroom:
Mini Rockets:
Each child
created a miniature rocket out
of a toilet paper tube and film
canister. They decorated
these, and will launch them
for our grand finale of space
after spring break!
Moon Cake:
We enjoyed a
delicious snack of “moon
cake” on Thursday. It was
mentioned in a book we read
about a bear who woke up in
hibernation surrounded by
snow and thought he was on
the moon! He ate “moon cake”
there as well.
Student of the Week:
David
Moon Rocks and Astronauts
As you may have guessed, we are now studying outer
space! After many weeks of the children pretending
they were on a trip to the moon while pushing them on
the tire swings, we realized the interest wasn’t going
away. A few of our students even knew the names of
the planets; naturally, everyone started taking a great
interest. We have been doing many fun space related
activities.
The Sunflower astronauts
helped us create their own
class rocket ship for imaginary trips to the moon!
The astronauts are learning to count down from 5,
play a space board game to
enhance 1:1 counting and
numeral recognition, and
have learned the four
phases of the moon.
Why Does the Moon
Change Shape?
en
be
ve
e’ g!
t w in
ha d
w rea
e
Se
What is your favorite food? “Pizza”
What is your favorite color? “Orange”
Who is in your family? “Mommy and Daddy
and big sister and me”
What is your favorite book? “The Hungry Caterpillar”
1
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
Informational and Interactive Events and Programs
As described in Table 5.2, many well-known models for formal family involvement include
components focused on parent education. These priorities may include such things as general
education, improving literacy and/or facility with English, career-ladder opportunities, or parenting skills. The focus or intent of these kinds of programs is different from parent education
about the child’s curriculum.
In this section, we briefly consider programs and experiences intended to inform and engage
parents/families in dialogue about the curriculum itself. These types of activities fall into three
broad categories: (1) providing access to curriculum resources, (2) planned events that engage
families in first-hand experiences with the curriculum, and (3) sending the curriculum home
(Berger, 2008; Gestwicki, 2004; Sciarra & Dorsey, 2007; Wentworth, 2006).
Providing Access to Curriculum Resources
First, parents should be able to see printed information about the curriculum and relevant
books, articles, or other references they can read or review at any time. If a purchased curriculum is being used, samples of teacher resource books, printed assessment materials, and
examples of print materials that children use should be accessible at school for parents to view.
Teachers who develop their own curricula should make a description of the approach or
model and assessment system available in writing. An organized notebook of print resources,
such as articles that inform the curriculum and examples of children’s activities, can help parents understand its goals. A specific location for resource information should be created that
is clearly designated for parent/family/community use. If a separate room is not available, this
space could be in the entry or reception area, a book rack in a hallway or office, or in classroom observation areas if the site is so equipped.
The point is that parents need to sense that you want to share information about curriculum
with them, that you make an effort to do so, and that the information you provide is current
and accurate. If at all manageable, a circulating or lending system can reach family members
who can’t get to the resource location.
Planned Events That Engage Families
Events provide information and/or hands-on activities that give parents the opportunity to
learn about and interpret the curriculum first hand. Ideally, parents and teachers together
should have input about topics.
Examples of this kind of activity can include:
• Social events—such as a picnic, pancake supper, or cookout—designed to develop a
sense of community at school.
• An orientation meeting or information session to share general information about the
curriculum and/or particular elements such as literacy, math, or art.
• Informal discussion groups focused on a specific topic (such as temper tantrums or toilet training) or sharing a film or reading an article of relevance or timeliness.
• A panel discussion with representatives from local schools focused on helping parents
prepare for children’s transitions to elementary school.
• A back-to-school night or open house intended to familiarize family members with
classroom organization, materials, and activities that are part of the children’s daily
experience.
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
• H
ands-on workshops that engage parents in
activities demonstrating how children learn, such
as story reading, a math/science cooking night, or
even finger painting.
• S pecial events that highlight children’s work, such
as an art exhibit, harvesting the classroom garden,
or celebrating children’s writing.
These events also provide for informal discussion and
question-and-answer opportunities with the teacher.
When teachers and families engage in ongoing dialogue about the curriculum, children benefit indirectly
from insights they gain and a sense of shared purpose.
Sending the Curriculum Home
Inventive teachers also employ practical strategies to
directly extend children’s curriculum activities from
school to home. Academic homework is inappropriate
for young children. But you could, for example, create
© Ingram Publishing / Thinkstock
a “traveling suitcase” or book bag (Gestwicki, 2004)
Teachers can create many different kinds
with items that a child might not have at home but
of informal occasions to give families the
that the family would enjoy using together, such as a
opportunity to become familiar with and
favorite book and puppet or puzzle. You might also
participate in their children’s activities.
provide paper, markers, and envelopes for a drawing
and note to put in the classroom mailbox for a friend.
You can ask parents if it would be appropriate to make a special call to children at home as
an incentive for learning their phone number, or send a postcard when they can tell you their
address. You might send home a photograph of the child at school, with paper and a pen for
the parents to record how the child describes what he or she was doing.
Families as Primary Curriculum Resources
If you reach out to the families in your classroom, you will find that they enrich your curriculum tremendously. Every group of children brings a host of familial language, cultural, occupational, and personal knowledge that, when combined, forms a unique community in ways
both obvious and subtle. Luis Moll and colleagues described this perspective toward family
involvement as a “funds of knowledge” approach (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Grant,
Ray, 2010; Ordonez-Jasiz & Ortiz, 2007), cautioning that failure to recognize parents as a significant resource constitutes a deficit approach (pp. 4–5).
If you were writing a case study paper for a course assignment, you would certainly rely on
primary or first-hand sources (e.g., observation, interviews, and so on) as the most reliable
information for your description of the study subject(s). Similarly, you can consider your children’s families as primary resources for the curriculum. The knowledge and insights you gain
about them should serve as a major influence for the decisions you make to plan and adapt
activities so that the curriculum is relevant, meaningful, and respectful.
Antibias Curriculum
Further support for these perspectives comes from the antibias curriculum guidelines developed by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards (2010). The premise of antibias curriculum is that a central focus of our work should be “to support children’s full development
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
in our multiracial, multilingual, multicultural world and to give them the tools to stand up to
prejudice, stereotyping, bias, and eventually to institutional ‘isms’”(p. vii).
The four broad goals of antibias curriculum can inform our work with families as curriculum
resources:
“Each child will:
1. Demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.
2. Express comfort and joy with human diversity, accurate language for human differences,
and deep, caring human connectedness.
3. Increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe unfairness, and understand
that unfairness hurts.
4. Demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice
and/or discriminatory actions.” (pp. 4–5)
While there are many dimensions of the curriculum that can be enhanced with family support,
learning about the families of the young children you teach is one effective way to individualize curriculum and promote the goals outlined above.
Learning About and Connecting with Families
There are several useful strategies you can use to gather information to help you connect
your curriculum with the children and their families. In this section we will consider three: (1)
questionnaires and interviews, (2) family mapping, and (3) storytelling.
Asking parents to complete an informational questionnaire or to participate in an interview,
either at school or during a home visit, can be extremely useful. The purpose of these activities should be twofold: to gather information about the child and to learn about the family.
Including a brief introductory statement that describes the purpose of the interview or questionnaire can answer questions parents might have about its intent.
Family survey questions should be framed in a manner that gives parents control over how
they report information. For example, asking to list family members who live in the home and
indicate their relationship to the child is preferable to listing family roles such as “mother,”
“father,” “sisters,” “brothers,” with an adjacent fill-in blank.
Table 5.4 lists several examples of questions about children and families you might want to ask.
Table 5.4: Examples of Interview or Family Survey Questions
Questions about the Child
Questions about the Family
1. What are your child’s favorite activities?
2. What are your child’s least favorite activities?
1. List the names of the family members who live in
your home and their relationship to your child.
3. Who does your child like to play with?
2. What is your family’s country of origin?
4. What are your child’s food preferences?
3. What language(s) are spoken in your home?
5. Does your child have any particular fears?
4. Describe your family’s favorite recreational activities
or hobbies.
6. Does your child enjoy being read to or telling
stories?
7. Describe your child’s personality.
8. What does your child seem to be most interested in
learning about?
5. How does your family observe holidays?
6. How do the members of your family share family
history?
7. What kind of work do members of your family do?
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
As you gather information, you can begin to represent it by using a graphic organizer or
chart to create maps for individual families (Bennett, 2007) and/or your class as a whole. In
this way, you can start to see patterns and opportunities for ways to connect your curriculum,
children, and families. Figure 5.4 displays a map for an individual child/family in our imaginary
class. Figure 5.5 provides an example of the kinds of things you might learn about the group
of seventeen children in our opening vignette.
Figure 5.4: Family Map
From this family map you can see that Joseph lives with a bilingual extended family. They own a
landscaping business. His mother is a nurse and she is expecting their third child. The family enjoys
camping and fishing. The family reports that Joseph is generally happy but fights with his brother.
He seems to have science-related interests.
At Home:
Mom (Josie)
Dad (Robert)
Brother (David, 9)
Baby on the way
Grandmother
Uncle (Jim)
Language &
Origins:
Work:
Mom – Nurse
Dad – Landscaping
Uncle – Landscaping
(own business)
Mom / Dad (U.S.)
Grandmother
(Puerto Rico)
English/ Spanish
Joseph
(4)
Traditions :
Family Activities:
Camping / fishing
Child Profile:
Fights with brother
Has 2 best friends
Generally sociable and
friendly
Learning to play soccer
Afraid of dark
Loves baking with
grandmother
Collects rocks & bugs
Hates vegetables
Likes ”Bob“ books
Christmas
Halloween
Annual Family Reunion
Birthdays
4th of July Picnic
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
Figure 5.5: Classroom Map
From charting family survey data, you learn that you have family members who might be able to
support a study of community helpers (nurse, law enforcement); there is expertise related to growing, producing, distributing, and preparing foods and learning about stores and services; there also
might be interesting possibilities for photography and music.
Countries of Origin
• US (13)
• Guatemala (1)
• Mexico (1)
• Jamaica (1)
• China (1)
Home Languages
• English (15)
• Spanish (2)
Hobbies/Recreation
• Camping/hiking (3)
• Moto-cross (1)
• Hunting/fishing (4)
• Carpentry (2)
• Flea markets (3)
• Soccer (6)
• Dancing (4)
• Playing in a band (1)
• Painting (1)
Family History
• Oral history/
storytelling (3)
• Photo albums (12)
• Facebook (1)
• Annual reunion (1)
Work (parents or
extended family)
• Agriculture (6)
• Retail (3)
• Service industries (5)
• Book-keeping (1)
• Photographer (1)
• Baker (1)
• Law enforcement (1)
• Teacher/caregiver (2)
• Landscaping (3)
• Entertainer/singer (1)
• Nurse (1)
Traditions
• Christmas (17)
• Easter (16)
• Day of the Dead (1)
• Chinese New Year (1)
• Birthdays (17)
• Tooth Fairy (16)
• St. Patrick’s Day (2)
• 4th of July Picnic (10)
• Halloween (16)
• First Communion (6)
F05.06_ECE311
A third option for developing insights about families is storytelling. Stories can serve as powerful tools for learning, both as modeling an important component of literacy, and a means to
identify strengths and values within family groups (Fiese, Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006; Overton,
2005). Typically, the focus of family stories and legends varies by culture and reflects the family’s worldview.
In Western cultures influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition, stories often feature main
characters that exemplify strength and a focus on individualism, qualities highly valued in
the American mythology and folklore. In non-Western traditions, a collectivist orientation
influences narrative themes that frequently revolve around family responsibilities and a group
orientation (Fiese, Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006). Asking families to share a favorite story about
their child, history, or interesting characters can be done in numerous ways, including:
• Sending home a tape or digital audio recorder and asking a parent to read or tell the
story for use in the classroom listening center.
• Transcribing the story during a face-to-face meeting or visit to the classroom or care
setting.
• Giving each family a large index card to summarize a story and keeping the cards in a
file box.
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
• Providing each family with a piece of “language experience paper” that has lines for
writing on the bottom and space for an illustration at the top. Short narratives can
then be assembled into a book for the classroom library or book center.
Family stories can reveal patterns of strengths not perhaps observable in other ways, such
as perseverance, resourcefulness, spirit, humor, or diplomacy (Overton, 2005). When used in
the classroom, they offer children a concrete connection to home and opportunities to learn
about their friends.
Strategies for Involving Families in Your Curriculum
If you have engaged in the kinds of activities described above, you most likely will have already
formed initial relationships with the families of your students. Armed with information and
motivated by a desire to include them in the curriculum and classroom culture, what can you
do to encourage them to actively participate? Providing a range of options is critical, as at
any given time family members’ ability and motivation to participate can vary (Hallacka-Ball,
2007). As a general rule, planning ahead and providing clear guidance, and a formal orientation about your expectations if necessary, is also good practice.
Informal visits can help you welcome families and make them feel comfortable in the classroom
or care setting. Such visits do not require a tremendous amount of preplanning, but you should
think about an overall approach, according to what the visit or occasion requires. For example:
• Informal visits or observations—advance notice is helpful, but an open-door policy
makes families feel welcome and lets them see curriculum in action.
• Birthdays or other special occasions—these require advance notice and time limits;
advise families of any policies relative to allergies or food restrictions.
• A visit from the family of the week or month —schedule the visit and let the family
know ahead of time what the routine is and what you would like them to share about
their family.
• Invitations to siblings or grandparents to school—schedule in advance and set aside
time for introductions and interactions.
• Lunch visits—letting the child know ahead of time is important, as separating from the
parent a second time, after lunch, can be difficult.
• Assisted/chaperoned field trips—field trips often require additional adults. Parents
need to know that sometimes children’s normal classroom behavior changes when
parents are present. But parents can be very helpful with the logistics of transporting
lunches, rain gear, a first aid kit, supplies, and so on, and they can provide the closer
supervision that is usually needed when children leave the school or center.
• Guest reader or storyteller—advise the family member on how the choice of a book
or story will be made; consider audio- or videotaping such a presentation for later use
(with permission).
Another range of options centers on more intentional, volunteer-type involvement that is
directly related to curriculum activities. These kinds of activities may require active recruiting, some orientation, or directions regarding the specific nature of expectations or procedures and the need for confidentiality and limits of authority. Volunteering in the classroom
can provide family members with a high level of satisfaction and self-esteem (Sciarra &
Dorsey, 2007).
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
Chapter 5
Note: Long-term volunteers in a child-care
setting, licensed preschool, or elementary school classroom who will interact
with children may have to secure health
and security clearances according to your
state’s licensing regulations.
Volunteer opportunities are limited only
by your imagination, but some of the
more common examples include:
• Reading to children—Reading on a
regular basis rather than the onetime visit described above. You
may need to provide a reading list
and some introduction to effective
strategies for introducing and reading a book, such as previewing the
© Hemera / Thinkstock
Members of a child’s extended family—such as grandparcover, naming the author/illustrator,
ents, aunts, or uncles—are often ready, willing, and able
helping children predict what might
to attend both formal and informal school functions.
happen, and moderating expression
Their involvement can extend the security of family relawhile reading. But family members
tionships to the education setting.
who might want to do this are
likely enthusiastic readers already.
Reading to a group of children can be very different from the one-on-one reading they
do at home, so establishing a comfort level with the number of children a volunteer
reads to can also be wise.
• Clerical support—Some volunteers prefer to work “behind the scenes,” but they can
still learn a lot about and support your curriculum by working with materials: fixing
toys or mending books, cutting paper, laminating, printing announcements, assembling classroom books, making labels. Task cards that provide simple directions are
helpful, especially if the helper is working when you are busy doing other things.
• Work/play facilitators—If a family member wants to volunteer as an “extra hand” in the
classroom for instructional support, the educator must provide him or her with the same
kind of orientation given to a paid assistant. Observing the classroom beforehand will
help the volunteer adapt to standard procedures and routines as well as the teacher’s
approach to classroom management. In the elementary school, volunteers may be asked
to help with homework or even assist at the computer station. Areas of the preschool/
kindergarten classroom particularly adaptable to this kind of help are dramatic play, art,
cooking, and the block area. With babies and toddlers, an extra “rocker” is usually welcome, and volunteers willing to get down on the floor and play can be priceless!
• “Experts”—Enlisting the help of parents or other family members with particular areas
of experience, expertise, or interest that relate directly to curriculum topics. Once you
know what kind of informational resources your parents can provide (via your surveys
and conversations) you can intentionally include topical studies or enrichment experiences in the curriculum that relate to skills and knowledge present among your family
population. Family members are an excellent resource for sharing multicultural activities,
including the stories, but also for the music, food, song and dance of native cultures.
Collaborating with the Community
Chapter 5
5.5 Collaborating with the Community
A developmentally appropriate approach to the curriculum assumes that teachers consider
communities an important source of information for planning (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009;
Gestwicki, 2011). This requires that teachers and administrators figure out how to gather and
share information and successfully integrate the community into the lives of their children in
school or care settings. This part of the chapter focuses on practical ways to do so.
Communities as Primary Curriculum Resources
Every content area of a curriculum is represented in the real world by individuals, organizations, businesses, and the natural/physical environment. Teachers and schools that attempt to
integrate children’s experiences with the community provide them with a meaningful context
for what they are learning, and there are many practical ways to do so.
© Bridgepoint Education
In this image, volunteers, with the support of corporate
sponsors, are painting a school. This is an example of how
community partnerships can be mutually beneficial.
Knowing and Connecting with
the Community
If you have lived in the community
where you work, you will already have
some familiarity with the stores, neighborhoods, businesses, schools, and hospitals that make up the community. If
you are not familiar with the area, you
can make an effort to get to know these
features over time. Once again, creating a file or notebook with information about community resources can be
very helpful. You can also add suggestions for how each resource can support
your curriculum. Figure 5.6 displays a
template for recording information in a
resource file.
Other ways in which you can gather
information about your community
include the following:
• Take walks in the immediate neighborhood.
• Obtain a calendar of community festivals and cultural events.
• Locate the nearest university extension service.
• Find out what child-friendly programs are available through local museums, parks,
media outlets, and tourist destinations such as zoos or historical sites.
• Identify closest access to public transportation, routes, and fare information.
• Gather menus from local restaurants.
• Make use of city/community websites and retail listings or Yellow Pages directories.
Strategies for Involving the Community in the Curriculum
Experienced teachers know that once you have established relationships with individual families and community partners, those networks don’t disappear at the end of each school year
Collaborating with the Community
Chapter 5
Figure 5.6: Template for a Resource File Card
On the sample card, information is recorded for a nearby retail store, including the name of an
individual who would be willing to come to the classroom.
or when your students move on to other schools or programs. The connections you make
over time constitute a store of personal resources that enhance any curriculum you use and
also serve to inform the community about how they can become involved with and invested
in early childhood education.
Opportunities for involving community in the curriculum are limited only by your imagination and ability to make creative use of resources. The following list provides brief narrative
examples from the author’s recent experiences:
• A toddler teacher notices that her 2-year-old children seem very interested in animals
but easily confuse larger farm animals, such as cows, horses, and goats. In her community, horse-drawn carriage tours are a major tourist attraction. She arranges with
a local tour company for a short carriage ride around the neighborhood and a visit to
the company’s barn, which has a small petting area with baby farm animals.
• Kindergarten children observe a nest being built by a bird on the playground and
begin to request information about how eggs hatch. The teacher contacts the state
university extension service. They have a program that offers to send a field agent who
will bring an incubator and eggs to the classroom, teach the children how to monitor
and turn the eggs daily until they hatch, and then reclaim the chicks.
• In a class of 3-year-olds, the teacher notices a high level of interest in rocks. She provides many activities and books about rocks and arranges a walking trip to a nearby
store that specializes in minerals, stones, and rocks. The store owners answer children’s questions and allow each child to choose a small rock to bring back to the
classroom.
Collaborating with the Community
Chapter 5
• Children in a class of 4-year-olds who are studying different kinds of bread plant a
small patch of wheat in their class garden. One of the parents from the class works as
a cashier for a local grocery store. The parent approaches the operations manager of
the store, who agrees to send the head baker to the classroom to demonstrate bread
making.
• The director of a child care program contacts a local lumber yard that agrees to save
and donate trimmings from their custom woodworking shop to the center. The teachers then have a ready supply of interesting wood shapes for construction and threedimensional art projects.
In some instances, more formal, long-term collaborations that enhance curriculum are established between schools, programs, and communities. There are many examples across America
of “public-private” partnerships that represent significant investments of personnel, money,
services, or equipment in early education and child-care programs (U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, 2012). A local business may “adopt” a school to provide it with computers and technology support. A benefactor might donate or bequeath gifts for a variety of
purposes, or a local charitable group may actively pursue a mission to support young children
and their families. The United Way is a good example of a community organization that funds
and organizes activities to “help children and youth achieve their potential.”
Advocacy as a Community Effort
When communities work together with programs, early educators, schools, and families,
advocacy for young children becomes a shared, personalized endeavor. Through formal
and informal interactions, particular areas of strength and need become apparent that provide communities with the information they need to set priorities and distribute resources.
Teachers and caregivers are in a unique position to facilitate this process; besides membership
in national professional organizations (see Chapter 1), at a local level, they can:
• Participate in local or regional professional association activities, such as the NAEYC’s
Week of the Young Child
• Serve on site-based school improvement councils
• Volunteer for community improvement projects and initiatives
• Write letters to local government or private-sector representatives to identify areas of
need or opportunity
• Collaborate and network with educators in other programs
As you gain experience and knowledge about families and the community, your understanding of how to connect these resources with your curriculum will grow. You will see that
the curriculum can respond to, include, and reflect unique perspectives that reinforce John
Dewey’s observation that “the school must represent present life—life as real and vital to the
child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the play-ground”
(1897, p. 78).
Posttest
Chapter 5
Chapter Summary
• Collaborating with families and communities involves communication, engagement,
and shared decision making between teachers, programs, and families. Research documents the many ways in which collaboration among teachers, families, and communities benefit all involved.
• Ecological and family systems theories provide a basis for understanding how productive relationships can be established and maintained.
• Despite challenges such as building trust and logistics, family involvement at school or
the child-care program can be effectively accomplished through formally established
programs or grassroots efforts.
• Helping parents understand learning standards includes providing information about
standards, accountability systems, and developmentally appropriate assessment.
• Teachers use many different strategies—including curriculum documentation, technologies, and interactive events—to help families understand and connect with the
curriculum.
• Teachers gather information about children and their families to gain insights about
the kinds of ways in which they can be considered primary resources for the curriculum and to help them identify and respond to interests and needs.
• Teachers also gather information about the community in order to uncover opportunities for enhancing the curriculum with real-world, meaningful experiences.
Posttest
1. Student achievement is positively correlated with programs that:
a. Establish and maintain strict policies for keeping visitors out of classrooms so that
the teachers can concentrate on their work.
b. Find ways to promote parent and family participation in school activities and affairs.
c. Make all important decisions thoughtfully and then inform parents about how they
will affect their children.
d. Implement standardized testing of children as early as possible.
2. Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst were instrumental in establishing:
a. The PTO network of independent parent-teacher organizations.
b. The National Association for the Education of Young Children.
c. The Parent-Teacher Association (PTA).
d. A coalition of social workers to lobby Congress for passage of the Lanham Act.
3. Bronfenbrenner’s theory makes particular sense as a foundation for thinking about
home/school/community relationships because:
a. It represents the child’s experience in the context of interrelated influences.
b. Uri Bronfenbrenner was particularly well known and effective as a community
organizer.
c. Only theories from respected sources should be used to develop policies and
procedures.
d. It shows that culture has little impact on children’s development.
Posttest
Chapter 5
4. Family systems theory maintains that while families are increasingly diverse,
a. Physical and emotional home environments are remarkably similar.
b. All families are highly motivated to be involved in school or child care center
activities.
c. Children learn to adopt characteristics of mainstream culture at school independently of the roles they exhibit at home.
d. Incorporating rituals, customs, and home traditions can provide consistency, security, and balance for children at school or in care.
5. Alignment or mapping of standards and curriculum is a process that:
a. Matches NAEYC developmentally appropriate practice with the National Core
Standards
b. Matches a particular set of learning standards with curriculum objectives, outcomes, or activities.
c. Shows the relationship between state tests and state standards.
d. Is developmentally inappropriate, so it is not recommended for preschool teachers.
6. Providing information to families about developmentally appropriate practice and the
curriculum:
a. Is not necessary, as only the teachers have the training and experience to understand what a DAP curriculum represents and includes.
b. Helps them understand that standards do not dictate the specific curriculum a program or school uses.
c. Provides an opportunity to address and meet early learning standards.
d. Ensures that they will subsequently want to be more involved in school activities.
7. Visual documentation of student learning is a process that:
a. Preschool and infant/toddler teachers don’t typically use as it takes too much time.
b. Teachers use to adapt curriculum for children with visual impairments.
c. Aligns curriculum and standards using technology, so that it will be easy for parents
to understand.
d. Teachers use to represent children’s work with images, narratives, reflections, and
artifacts.
8. Teachers use many strategies to help families of preschoolers learn about their child’s
curriculum, including:
a. Providing and discussing printed or online information about the curriculum.
b. Sending home report cards four times a year.
c. Setting up an email distribution list to communicate with families.
d. Sending home worksheets for homework, so parents can see what the children do
every day.
Answers and Rejoinders to Chapter Pretest
Chapter 5
9. Regarding families and communities as primary curriculum resources:
a. Isn’t relevant, because the primary grades are not really part of early childhood
education.
b. Isn’t needed because typically the curriculum provides all necessary resources.
c. Includes gathering information in respectful ways that can be subsequently analyzed and organized for opportunities.
d. Is the only way to effectively address the learning needs of the children in your
care.
10. Teachers and families engage in child advocacy when they:
a. Join together to celebrate children in events such as the NAEYC’s Week of the
Young Child.
b. Share responsibilities for chaperoning field trips.
c. Repair and recycle books for the public library.
d. Collect and redeem grocery store box tops to raise money for the program.
Answers: 1 (b); 2 (c); 3 (a); 4 (d); 5 (b); 6 (b); 7 (d); 8 (a); 9 (c); 10 (a)
Discussion Questions
1. Identify aspects of working with families that you feel most and least confident about
and what you might do to either strengthen or enhance those capabilities.
2. From what you already know about the community in which you live or work, brainstorm an initial list of possible curriculum resources; use the card format from Figure 5.6
to record information about them.
3. From the information you have so far from the opening vignettes about your imaginary class, what kinds of opportunities and challenges for successful family involvement
might you anticipate?
Answers and Rejoinders to Chapter Pretest
1. True. Early childhood organizations, researchers, and public funding sources believe
that collaboration improves learning outcomes for children.
2. False. Understanding the ways families work helps teachers understand and respond to
the children they teach or care for.
3. True. Helping families understand goals and desired outcomes also aids their understanding about how the curriculum addresses curriculum standards.
4. True. Making the curriculum visible in the classroom and other appropriate areas of the
school sends a powerful message to all—children, families, and community—that what
young children learn and do is important.
5. True. Connecting children with the community makes the curriculum more real and
meaningful and establishes partnerships within the community.
Examples of Programs Offering Website Curriculum Information
Chapter 5
Key Terms
Adequate yearly progress (AYP) Refers to the expected average gain in achievement test
scores of a school’s population from one year to the next
Alignment (mapping) Documentation in writing of how curriculum goals and components connect specifically with elements of learning standards
Benchmark Description of a desired goal that represents a gain of knowledge or skills by a
particular time
Differentiating instruction Adapting the environment, materials, and planning to meet
the needs and interests of individual children
Family systems theory (FST) Looking at and studying children in the context of family
Graphic organizer Charts or other templates used to organize ideas, information, or
procedures
High-stakes testing When the outcome of an individual child’s performance on a single
test is tied to decisions that will impact access to educational opportunities
Parent-Teacher Association An organization of parents, teachers and staff, all of whom
work together to encourage parent participation in the school or classroom
Examples of Programs Offering Website Curriculum Information
Clicking on the links below will take you to the home page for each school, which provides
examples of the curriculum in use at each.
N. E. Miles Early Childhood Development Center, Charleston, SC. The N. E. Miles ECDC is a
university-based preschool and kindergarten demonstration program.
Nautilus Montessori School, Roseville, CA. A private preschool and kindergarten using an academic Montessori program with additional curricular elements specific to the school.
Emerson Waldorf School, Chapel Hill, NC. A school spanning pre-K through grade 12 using
the Waldorf approach inspired by Rudolf Steiner.
Mini University, Miami, OH. Four NAEYC-accredited centers in southern Ohio using the Creative
Curriculum. Clicking on “age groups” provides access to information about curriculum and
standards used with children of different ages.
SETA Head Start, Sacramento, CA. Clicking on “in the classroom” provides access to information about the curricula used with children of different ages.
Rosalie Cooperative School of Young Children, Albuquerque, NM. This is a home-based cooperative of families inspired by Reggio-Emilia.
Pine Village Spanish Immersion Preschools, Boston. An early childhood program for toddlers
and preschoolers with a curriculum focused on global citizenship and bilingual education.
References
Chapter 5
Websites for Creating Classroom Blogs
Blogger (for teachers) Google site with version designed for teachers.
EduBlogs Designed for teachers to easily create and manage their own blogs, with features
for customizing designs, privacy, and uploading videos, photos, and podcasts.
Kidblog Set up so that teachers can easily create blogs for kids to use. The teacher functions
as the blog administrator to manage children’s accounts.
SchoolRack Award-winning site for creating classroom websites and blogs with features for
communication and collaboration.
References
Bennett, T. (2007). Mapping famly resources and support. D. Kovalek (Ed.), Spotlight on
young children and families (pp. 20–23). Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Berger, E. H. (2008). Parents as partners in education: Families and schools working together
(7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Berson, I. R., & Berson, M.J. ...
Purchase answer to see full
attachment