The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
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All Publications & Resources WORKING WITH TEACHERS AND FAMILIES
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COMPLEMENTARY LEARNING CONNECTIONS
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Parent-Teacher Conference Tip Sheets for Principals, Teachers, and Parents
Parent–teacher conferences are an important component of ongoing home–school communication and family involvement in children's education. This set of tip sheets—for principals, teachers, and parents—can help ensure that conferences achieve their maximum potential.
Bridging Worlds Interactive Case: Meet Tanya Robinson, Kindergarten Teacher
In this section of the Bridging Worlds Interactive Case, we meet Tanya Robinson, Maya’s kindergarten teacher. Tanya is concerned that children and families are not kindergarten ready.
Featured Teaching Case: After School for Cindy
Harvard Family Research Project’s Teaching Cases support teacher training and professional development by highlighting challenges that schools, families, and communities may encounter in supporting children’s learning. In this month’s FINE newsletter, we feature After School for Cindy, which explores the roles that family members, school staff, and community organizations play in one child’s out-of-school time and demonstrates the importance of family engagement across learning contexts.
Tips for Administrators, Teachers, and Families: How to Share Data Effectively
This new set of tip sheets helps administrators, teachers, and families identify the best ways to share student data in meaningful ways, on a regular basis, to strengthen family–school partnerships and promote student learning. The tips can be used to guide the formal conversations that take place during parent–teacher conferences, but they are especially designed to help promote less formal, ongoing conversations about student progress among teachers, families, and students throughout the year.
Bridging Worlds Interactive Case: Meet Esther Lasher, Head Start Educational Director
In this section of the Bridging Worlds Interactive Case, we meet Esther Lasher, the educational director of the Grant Head Start Program. Esther works to smooth the transition to kindergarten by planning with multiple community and school representatives.
Helping Head Start and Early Head Start Programs Create a Culture That Embraces Data
A new interactive online learning module, Data in Head Start and Early Head Start: Creating a Culture that Embraces Data, developed by the National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations, helps Head Start/Early Head Start leaders understand how to use data to inform their decision making.
Bridging Worlds Interactive Case: Supporting Data
In this section of the Bridging Worlds Interactive Case, we examine some school-level data to develop a better understanding of the factors influencing Maya’s difficult transition to school.
Bridging Worlds Interactive Case: Piecing It All Together
In the final section of the Bridging Worlds Interactive Case, we piece it all together. We think about the principles guiding smooth transitions to school, assumptions people in the case make, and how difficult issues might be resolved.
Featured Teaching Case: Suspension at Aurora Middle School
Harvard Family Research Project’s Teaching Cases support teacher training and professional development by highlighting challenges that schools, families, and communities may encounter in supporting children’s learning. In this month’s newsletter, we feature Suspension at Aurora Middle School, which highlights the shared responsibility of community groups to resolve home-school difficulties.
A Human-Centered Approach to Family Engagement
A human-centered design approach – an approach that is based on observation, empathy, optimism, collaboration, and experimentation – opens new possibilities for educators to motivate and sustain family engagement.
Family Involvement News: September 2013
We are committed to keeping you up to date on what's new in family engagement. View our list of links to current reports, articles, resources, and events in the field.
Family Involvement Storybook Corner
A unique source for information on using children's storybooks with family involvement themes to engage families in their children's education and encourage family–school–community partnerships, all while supporting literacy.
Quilting Stories of Innovation in Family Engagement
A collection of innovative family engagement practices with a link for you to share with us your family engagement story!
Q & A With Lori Takeuchi: Research Findings From Learning at Home: Families’ Educational Media Use in America
Lori Takeuchi, Joan Ganz Cooney Center Research Director, discusses the Center’s report findings on families’ and children’s educational-media use, including families’ selection of educational media for their children and ways that practitioners can support families in their choices. Takeuchi notes some of the following findings: when parents use media alongside their children, the educational value of the experience is enhanced; educational-media use varies based on the age of the child; and children are applying what they learn from educational media to nonmedia activities.
Family Involvement News: February 2014
We are committed to keeping you up to date on family engagement news. The following resources highlight the latest tools and discussions from HFRP and review recent findings in the areas of family engagement policy as well as family-school partnerships.
Research Spotlight: Families and Digital Media in Young Children's Learning
These resources look at issues related to digital media and learning in early childhood and focus on such topics as children’s media use in the 21st century, family perspectives on children’s media use, and research-based guidance for practitioners and parents.
Family Involvement News: April 2014
We are committed to keeping you up to date on family engagement news. The resources in this section highlight the latest tools and discussions from HFRP and review recent findings in the areas of family engagement policy, strategies, and research, along with family engagement and digital learning.
Family Engagement for High School Success: Final Grant Report to AT&T
As part of our evaluation work with United Way Worldwide on the Family Engagement for High School Success Initiative, HFRP worked with 15 local United Way chapters and their surrounding communities to develop comprehensive family engagement strategies through partnerships with schools, students and their families, and the local community, in support of boosting high school graduation rates and academic achievement. This grant report details the planning process with the 15 grantees and the lessons learned during the process.
Promoting Educational Equity Through Family Engagement: The King Legacy
To honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of freedom and justice, we highlight key messages from our contributors about transforming family engagement to promote educational equity.
Taking the Lead in Family Engagement: A Message to Our Followers on Presidents’ Day
Presidents’ Day is a time to reflect on the importance of leadership. Learn how policymakers, researchers, and practitioners are leading the field of family engagement.
Bibliography of Transition Research
What is the evidence base to support family engagement in the transition to school? You can check out the articles in this bibliography to read about why transition to school matters for children, families, and communities.
Q & A With Comienza en Casa: Using Technology to Smooth the Transition to School for Migrant Children and Families
In this Q & A, the developers of Comienza en Casa │“It Starts at Home,” talk about supporting migrant families to ensure their children have smooth transitions to school through the use of real-world and digital activities.
Diverse Communities
This issue of the FINE Forum provides some promising approaches to preparing teachers to partner with diverse families and communities.
Resources for Promoting Child Development
Celebrate the Week of the Young Child by learning about Head Start’s ongoing commitment to supporting early childhood educators in implementing a comprehensive, two-generation approach to child development and well-being. As Head Start reaches its 50th anniversary, learn about its exemplary resources.
Academic Achievement
This issue of FINE Forum explores new forms of and strategies in family involvement, all of which share a common goal: expanding and deepening family and community roles to help students meet high standards.