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Tomasito's Mother Comes to School/La mamá de Tomasito visita la escuela is an online bilingual storybook about family involvement at school that you can use with children and families. The fully illustrated, printable storybook consists of a children's story and informational guide for adult family members—written at a level accessible to most families—as well as story discussion questions. You can use it in a range of educational settings including school classrooms, family literacy programs, after school programs, and ESL programs.

Family Involvement Ideas in the Storybook

Research tells us that family involvement in education boosts children's learning. But, for educators, engaging families in their children's education can be a challenge. This fun and educational storybook can help you meet the challenge of getting families involved in their children's education.

Through the story, illustrations, and family guide, the storybook presents the following family involvement themes:

• Family involvement in school is important for children's learning and for their success in school. The storybook offers examples of some of the different ways families can get involved at U.S. elementary schools and communicate with teachers, while acknowledging the variations that exist across schools. It conveys the importance of teachers and families working together as partners to help children learn. The storybook offers support, encouragement, and validation to all families for their involvement in their children's learning.
• Parents face challenges to getting involved in their children's education. The storybook talks about some of the challenges that families face in communicating with teachers and provides suggestions for surmounting those challenges. Both of Tomasito's parents support their children's education at school—for instance, by attending parent–teacher conferences. But the mother wants to become even more involved—in this case, by dropping by the classroom to chat with the teacher about what her son is learning. Challenges that she faces and overcomes include resistance from her son and language differences with the teacher.
• Children have an impact on the home-school relationship. Second-grader Tomasito is learning to negotiate the different worlds of home and school. The storybook shows him self-consciously taking steps toward growing up by seeking some independence from his mother. Mindful of the opinions of peers, he at first resists his Spanish-speaking mother's attempts to visit with his teacher. But after a change of heart, he plays an important role in bringing the two together. The storybook portrays the impact that children themselves can have on the home–school relationship—how by their behaviors and actions they can draw their two worlds together or push them apart.
• Parent-teacher communication is important for children's learning. The teacher in this storybook knows the importance of family involvement in education, and she actively reaches out to and welcomes families. As she tells Tomasito, she wants to build a relationship with his mother. Because she understands the important role the child plays in the home–school relationship, she works with him to make a positive connection with his family.

Using the Storybook to Communicate With Families

Whether you are an elementary school teacher, an after school program instructor, or an educator in another setting where children learn and grow, the storybook can help you achieve a number of goals:

• Convey information to families about school involvement opportunities. You can use the story and accompanying family guide to provide students and their families with examples of different school involvement activities and ways to communicate with teachers—such as parent–teacher conferences, volunteer opportunities, and even informal chats. The storybook also can help you explain some of the ways that families' involvement in school can help their children learn more.
• Share with families expectations about their involvement at school. The storybook can help you communicate to families—particularly immigrant families—your hopes and expectations for their involvement in the U.S. educational system. The family informational guide uses Tomasito's story to highlight three lessons about family involvement at school: Schools and families work as partners to help children learn, families can get involved at school in many ways, and it's important for parents and teachers to communicate.
• Share information, messages, and encouragement with all families—but especially immigrant Latino families. While Tomasito's challenges in negotiating the worlds of home and school will appeal to many readers, the storybook should particularly resonate with Spanish-speaking immigrant Latino families. The family informational guide is specially intended to support and empower immigrant Latino families in connecting with their child's school. You can also use this storybook to support immigrant families from other cultures in connecting with U.S. elementary schools.
• Forge a connection with classroom families. If you are a classroom teacher, sharing this story about a warm and welcoming teacher can be one way to show your students' families that you care about communicating with them about their children's learning in order to help their children succeed.

Ideas for Using the Storybook in Your Classroom or Program

Tomasito's Mother Comes to School/La mamá de Tomasito visita la escuela is one of many children's storybooks with family involvement content. You can use it—or the other commercially available books featured in the Family Involvement Storybook Corner—in a variety of ways:

• Share Tomasito's story in your classroom or program. By reading Tomasito's Mother Comes to School/La mamá de Tomasito visita la escuela together with the children in your classroom or program, you can begin discussion, reflection, and activities about family involvement. For ideas about ways to use family involvement storybooks in the classroom, see the general tools in the Storybook Corner.
• Send the storybook home for children to share with their families. This printable online storybook is specially designed to go easily from school to home. You can share the storybook with families as part of back-to-school activities, general family involvement information, or just regular classroom homework. If families have access to the Internet, you can send them the link to the online storybook. Or you can send home to each family a printed-out copy of the story, along with the supporting family materials, in English or Spanish (or both languages). There's also a bookplate at the beginning of the storybook to record the student's name—with enough space for you to write a note to families.
• Send families a letter about the storybook and family involvement. You can also send home this family letter, available in both English and Spanish, from the author of Tomasito's Mother Comes to School/La mamá de Tomasito visita la escuela. This letter offers families three simple steps for using the different sections of the storybook at home.

Related Resources for Educators

If you find the storybook to be a helpful teaching tool and would like more information about related resources, here are some places to get started:

• Tomasito teaching case. Explore the complex family involvement issues underlying this story with this teaching case, based on the same research that inspired the storybook. The case delves into the different perspectives of the teacher, mother, father, and child on whom the storybook's Tomasito and his family were based. Designed for use in pre- and in-service settings to help educators gain a comprehensive and ecological understanding of the child, this teaching case explores the role of the child in the parent–teacher relationship, as well as issues of language and cultural differences between teacher and parent.
• Resources for engaging Latino families. For more information about engaging Latino families in children's learning, as well as a tool kit for using the published storybook Tomás and the Library Lady to promote family involvement in education, visit the Storybook Corner Reference Desk for a variety of resources.

Go back to Tomasito's Mother Comes to School.