Connecting Home & School

In this online assignment, you will investigate and apply research-based principles of home-school partnerships in early literacy. Teachers examine their beliefs on how parents contribute to students’ literacy and their own roles in engaging parents as partners in student motivation and learning. They discuss their own interactions with parents and explore ways they might build on existing practices.

Learning Objective:

At the end of this online assignment, you will better understand:

how language and culture influence home literacy
challenges and opportunities in building home-school partnerships
differences between home literacy and school literacy

Relevant Chapter/Article: Home & School Together – Helping Beginning Readers Succeed (Attached in 3 parts )

Guidelines/Directions:

Step 1: What do you already know?

Print and complete the Connecting School and Home Chart .

Save your Connecting School and Home Chart to revise at the end of the session.
Step 2: Read the Home & School Together – Helping Beginning Readers Succeed (in 3 parts).

Step 3: Review the important terms listed below Step 5.

Step 4: Revise your chart: Return to your Connecting School and Home chart. Add any new thoughts, ideas, or questions based on your readings and review of important terms

Step 5: Upload your completed “Connecting School and Home” chart. (via picture or scan or retyping information in Word)

Review these important terms:

Background Knowledge
Background knowledge is the collection of ideas and concepts one has for a given topic or situation based on experiences and/or reading. The background knowledge of English Language Learners may differ from that of mainstream learners.
Emergent Literacy
Emergent literacy refers to the young child’s developing knowledge of how print works before formal instruction begins. Once referred to as “reading readiness, emergent literacy supports the understanding that young children begin to develop knowledge about and use of literacy well before formal schooling begins. Children’s emergent literacy behaviors are developed as a result of early experiences with print in the home, in preschool programs, and in kindergarten. Children may enter kindergarten with a wide range of experiences with print. The basic components of emergent literacy are oral language development, concepts about print, alphabet knowledge, and phonemic awareness.
Funds of Knowledge
Coined by professor and researcher Luis Moll funds of knowledge refer to those historically developed and accumulated strategies (e.g., skills, abilities, ideas, and practices) or bodies of knowledge that are essential to a household’s functioning and well-being. They are the inherent cultural resources found in communities, and are grounded in the networking that communities do in order to make the best use of those resources (Conner, 2002). In their studies of bilingual literacy with Latino families in Tucson, Arizona, Moll and colleagues demonstrated the importance of communities of learners within large cultural and familial networks. They suggest that the integration of these local funds of knowledge in education forges strong links between parents, educators, and children, and the validation of this knowledge allows families to bring more to their children’s education.
Home Literacy
Family or home literacy encompasses the ways parents, children, and extended family members use literacy at home and in their community. Family literacy may be initiated purposefully by a parent or may occur spontaneously as parents and children go about the business of their daily lives. Family literacy activities may also reflect the ethnic, racial, or cultural heritage of the families involved. (Adapted from Morrow, Paratore, and Tracey. Family Literacy: New Perspectives, New Opportunities.)
Portfolio Assessment
Portfolio assessment is the collection and interpretation of evidence of student learning including both the processes and the products of learning (Johnston, 1992). Evidence for the portfolio is gathered over time to provide a more complete picture of a child’s literacy development. Contents of a portfolio could include sample running records, pages from writing journals, written responses to reading, story retelling forms, spelling tests, reading record logs, and student self-assessments. A new portfolio can be constructed each year, or a summary, or “showcase” portfolio can follow students from year to year. Teachers and students may collaborate to select pieces for the portfolio. They are especially useful in parent-teacher conferences to show a child’s progress over time.