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Dear FINE Member,

We are pleased to share timely Family Involvement News with you! And, with a new school year here for some, and approaching for others, we’d like to call attention to two of our most popular transition to school research-based briefs:

• Ready for Success: Creating Collaborative and Thoughtful Transitions into Kindergarten
• Getting Parents "Ready" for Kindergarten: The Role of Early Childhood Education

Please feel free to forward this information to friends and other education colleagues.

Best wishes,
Harvard Family Research Project FINE Team
 

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT POLICY

A Vision for Better Education: Areas of Surprising Agreement
The majority of children in the United States attend public schools, and parents rely on these institutions to prepare their children to succeed in the future. At the June 2014 National PTA Convention, Secretary of Education  Arne Duncan addressed more than a thousand parents, teachers, and students, sharing his views on public school education, assessment, safety, and other important issues in preparing students to be lifelong learners. He highlighted his key take-away point as follows: “To prepare our children for the real future that they’ll face, public education has to change. It has to evolve. And there is growing agreement in this country about what we need to do.”

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT RESEARCH

Experimental Evaluation of the Value Added by Raising a Reader and Supplemental Parent Training in Shared Reading
In an effort to develop a comprehensive, effective, scalable, and sustainable early childhood education program for at-risk populations, researchers explored the value added by two supplemental family-involvement programs, Raising a Reader (RAR) and RAR augmented by Family Nights. RAR alone demonstrated no added value, but the combined program particularly benefited children who started preschool lagging behind in school readiness, suggesting that this comprehensive model offers hope for closing the achievement gap. Research findings illustrate the importance of parent training in shared reading practices in order for children to benefit from home literacy programs.  

Silicon Valley Parent Story Project
In order to determine what it is like to be the parent of a young child—birth through age 8—in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, California, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s Center for Early Learning administered the first-ever regional study to get a better understanding of the early learning landscape, the region’s most prominent challenges, and the opportunities for helping the region’s children succeed. In particular, the survey sought to find out how parents supported the growth and development of their children and how they perceived the effectiveness of the programs that worked with their children. Most parents reported positive perceptions about available support systems, school environments, and the quality of available child care, although the study did reveal concerns and barriers across afterschool and care centers among low-income and Latino families. 

Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors
Educators, program administrators, practitioners, and others might well benefit from reading this executive summary and discussion brief of a Child Trends evaluation of Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors, one of the largest programs in the United States working with low-income Latino parents of preschool-aged children. The study explored the effectiveness of Abriendo Puertas’ 10 parent education programs and discussion sessions, and found that parents participating in these programs adopted parenting practices that enhance key child development areas associated with academic success.  

Parent and Family Involvement in Education, From the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2012
This report, based on the findings of the Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey, sponsored by the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2012, focuses on parent and family involvement in K–12 students’ education during the 2011–12 school year. The survey included families of children enrolled in public or private school as well as families of children who were home-schooled. Findings include details about school communications with parents, rates of parent involvement in parent–teacher organizations, the percentage of students doing homework outside of school, parent expectations about school completion, extracurricular activities, and information about parent motivation for home schooling and children’s experiences with home schooling. 

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT IN OUT-OF-SCHOOL TIME LEARNING

Anytime, Anywhere Summer Learning
According to this video and accompanying text, “summer slide,” or the loss of academic progress during summer months, tends to be most noticeable in children from low-income families. This video features a collaboration between the New America Foundation and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center in which field experts discuss the problem of learning regression and potential solutions to minimize the summer learning gap, especially for low-income families. Technology and digital connectedness may offer helpful resources to support families who are particularly at risk. 

Q&A Corner: Sarah Pitcock, CEO at the National Summer Learning Association
Summer learning offers children numerous important opportunities through new learning experiences and activities, according to Sarah Pitcock, CEO of the National Summer Learning Association, who has dedicated much of her career to the subject.In this Q & A, Pitcock answers a number of questions about the evolution of the summer learning movement, including the changes that the field has undergone in the last 10 years and the changes that she foresees in the next 5 years. 

Stopping Summer Slide: Tips for Parents and Teachers
In this pair of articles, Edutopia authors Heather Wolpert-Gawron and Terry Heick provide manageable suggestions to help students avoid the “summer slide.” Wolpert-Gawron addresses ways that parents can help children, and Heick presents teachers with tips to help children keep up with their learning in the English language arts through summer activities. Tips for teachers include staying in touch with students during the summer, providing reading material for students to use during the off-school weeks, and encouraging students to be actively engaged in a community through such activities as book clubs and blogging. Suggestions for parents include encouraging children to join clubs, read more, visit museums, and commit to an activity through which they can learn and practice useful life skills. 

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT AND DIGITAL MEDIA

Educational Apps Top Many Schools’ Lists of Recommended Resources
Schools traditionally have given parents recommendations, including engaging in such activities as using flashcards and reading daily, to reinforce learning at home. With many schools adopting the use of tablet computers, educators’ recommended resources increasingly include mobile applications that students can use to practice math, reading, and other skills. Schools are taking a variety of steps to help families encourage learning skills at home through the use of apps. One school provides lists of teacher-approved apps in a monthly newsletter to parents, and another school shared its favorite apps on its Facebook page this summer. In a related example, a school shares similar information via social media and on school and district websites. This article also includes a selection of educational websites and apps that school technology experts have recommended.

As always, we invite your feedback on the topics we explore and encourage you to pass on this issue to interested friends and colleagues. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to join the conversation and stay informed!