As educators, we are experts in curriculum and instruction. We understand, broadly, students’ needs and how to help students grow academically. Families and caregivers, on the other hand, are experts on their children. Families understand their children’s personalities, strengths, and needs. Together, when we combine our respective areas of expertise, we can make huge strides in the academic and social-emotional development of our students.
As a school-based curriculum leader, it was my responsibility to lead our family engagement work regarding literacy. From communicating with families, we knew that many of them wanted an answer to the question, How can I help my child succeed at school? To provide an answer, our school identified three priorities:
Based on these priorities, we took the following approach to family engagement.
Inform families about the school’s curriculum.
Families benefit from understanding the purpose of the curriculum. Wit & Wisdom® is unlike many curricula, which means that families and caregivers may be unfamiliar with what they see coming home. Instead of leveled texts, all students receive grade-level complex texts and fluency homework. Instead of updating reading logs, students answer reflection questions on the Volume of Reading books they read. Our families deserve to know the reasoning behind these practices as well as what they can do to support students at home.
Wit & Wisdom is designed to build knowledge. When students learn a lot of information about one topic, they build their vocabulary at a faster rate, can access more challenging and complex texts, and have deeper productive discussions and produce well–written pieces. It is crucial for families to understand this part of our English language arts instruction—that learning about important topics, for example, how artists and scientists explore the sea or how people showed resilience in the Great Depression, helps students coherently build knowledge and become stronger readers, writers, listeners, and speakers.
Great Minds® has provided three new resources to help you communicate the importance of knowledge building to families: 1) Building Knowledge and Skills in the English Language Arts Classroom, 2) the family welcome letter, available in multiple languages, and 3) the Wit & Wisdom Overview for Families video, available in English and Spanish. All three of these resources can be found in the Wit & Wisdom Family Resources on the Great Minds Dashboard. To create a free account, please visit our sign-up page. These resources are excellent additions to a Family Literacy Night, a school newsletter, and family–teacher conferences.
Affirm families’ home languages through your engagement practices.
Many families may not be comfortable communicating in English, and that’s okay. At the school level, it is our responsibility to ensure that all families have access to clear and correct communications. We should provide families with materials in their home languages and access to translators whenever possible. Consider contacting local community members as well as multilingual families who may be willing to volunteer as translators if none of your school’s staff speak the home language of your students’ families.
Ensure that families know that discussing module topics, texts, and tasks in their home language is a valuable way for their children to build knowledge and vocabulary in two languages. Even though the language of instruction in Wit & Wisdom is English, the knowledge and concepts are taught cross the boundaries of language!
Great Minds is committed to increasing the language accessibility of our family resources. Currently, Family Tip Sheets are available in English, Spanish, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Thai, Korean, and more. Resources in additional languages are forthcoming. If your school population needs family resources translated into additional languages, contact us at englishsupport@greatminds.org.
Develop families’ ability to support academic activities.
Many families are ready, willing, and eager to support their children’s academic growth, and appreciate information or coaching in ways to provide this support. Interactive tasks that teach families how to support learning at home can be a highly rewarding part of family engagement. Consider starting with some of these strategies:
Ultimately, families are children’s first and best teachers. We designed our school’s Family Literacy Night with this understanding in mind. In addition to the priorities listed above, we worked to make a welcoming environment, especially since the materials the children were bringing home looked new and different. Here are some welcoming ideas to share:
Our Family Literacy Night was a huge success! Families told us that they had a better understanding of what their children were learning at school and how to support them at home. They also appreciated the intentional strategies we used to ensure that all families were welcomed and able to engage in meaningful ways. We know that families play a critical role in students’ success. Building a strong knowledge of the curriculum, providing information in accessible language, and developing skills to support learning outside school underpin successful family engagement in literacy and other academic pursuits.