Jump to:Page Content
You are seeing this message because your web browser does not support basic web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing and what you can do to make your experience on this site better.
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.
|
Read about how organizations—including early childhood programs, schools, afterschool programs, museums, and libraries—play a key role in helping families access resources, build social networks, and create learning mindsets.
With Head Start’s 50th anniversary right around the corner, Kiersten Beigel from the Office of Head Start shares the vision for family engagement and ways that different federal agencies can join together to realize it.
When organizations invest in developing the competencies of its professionals to engage families everyone benefits. To help accomplish this we share five of our favorite resources on professional development in family engagement along with tips on why they work.
Plan for your upcoming parent-teacher conferences and beyond! Use our list of five of our favorite resources to support ongoing conversations about each student’s progress.
How can you create a resource to help families of young children successfully transition to afterschool? What questions should be addressed? This video looks at one city’s approach to helping connect families and their young children to afterschool enrichment opportunities.
Maryland is embedding a new family engagement definition statewide as a foundation of policy and infrastructure. Through comprehensive partnerships, the state brings to scale family engagement approaches and launches new initiatives.
What are the benefits and challenges of sharing assessment data with preschool families? How can you do so effectively? A preschool teacher writes about her experiences, and provides valuable tips on how to share data with families in preparation for kindergarten.
How can you turn daily bedtime and mealtime routines into learning opportunities for young children? How can commuting, shopping, and other everyday activities offer vibrant learning moments for children? Read about the Let’s Play app to learn how!
How do families spend time supporting their children’s informal and formal learning beyond the school day and across settings? Find out how educators and institutions are helping families promote their children’s learning experiences anytime, in school and beyond.
Through a resourceful museum-preschool-family partnership involving cultural institutions across the city, an organization in New York City is providing rich anywhere, anytime learning opportunities for young children from low-income households. Learn how the Literacy Through Culture program hopes to increase families’ enthusiasm and appreciation for learning in a variety of contexts and build strong parent–child interactions around fun learning activities.
Through innovative and engaging family activities, the Maryland Library Partnership is playing a crucial community role by promoting learning anywhere, anytime and reaching out to parents to help them with their children’s learning, improve literacy, and close the vocabulary gap between low-income learners and their peers.
What steps can programs take to help families successfully transition to school and afterschool? How can families make informed choices about afterschool opportunities? What information do families need in this process? This video demonstrates how Cambridge, Massachusetts, is addressing these and related questions to help connect families to afterschool learning and enrichment opportunities prior to school entry.
Creative anywhere, anytime learning experiences take center stage at Imajine That Museum and Educational Play Space, where families bring their children to play, socialize, and learn together as a family. Read this exciting Q and A with Susan Leger Ferraro and Fran Hurley, about how Imajine That provides an array of innovative learning opportunities to enthusiastic families.
Explore the world of anywhere, anytime learning with us! Read how researchers and practitioners are helping to close the opportunity gap by creating innovative spaces, developing strategic collaborations to ensure children’s success, and engaging families and children as partners in meaningful learning experiences, both in and out of school.
Three experts reflect on their work in engaging families in a digital learning environment. We asked them to address the question, How can institutions offer relevant and useful guidance to parents and families about scaffolding their children’s digital media use?
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.
HFRP director Heather B. Weiss examines how families and others involved with children and youth can ensure that children obtain the access, supports, and opportunities that they need to get the full benefits of digital media for learning.
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.
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.
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.
This teaching case explores the complex issues surrounding the transition to kindergarten and the importance of family engagement in the process. Three expert commentaries and discussion questions are included. An interactive version is also available.
Free. Available online only.
In this Q&A, Chip Donohue talks with HFRP about early childhood educators’ participation in online distance education courses and discusses how the topic of family engagement is being integrated into these classes.
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.
What you say to families and do with them matters! In this Q & A with Brandi Black Thacker and Guylaine Richards, we learn about how the Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Simulation can be used as a professional development tool in Head Start/Early Head Start programs and beyond.
Incorporating the use of HFRP research-based teaching cases and theoretical perspectives, this revised book looks at family engagement issues from the early years through pre-adolescence.