How Culturally Familiar Books Foster Reading with Hispanic Parents

Children connect with stories and themes that they know. If something is recognizable to them in a book, they will often relate to it in a way that draws similarities to the people and events in their own lives. Through this familiarity, reading becomes more enjoyable and serves a stronger purpose towards promoting successful literacy outcomes. Teachers who work with … Read More

How Educators Can Reach Out to Hispanic Parents

Parental involvement is a crucial part of a child’s educational road map. But this can be tougher to achieve for parents of English learner (EL) students. Communication is a large component of effective engagement and it’s up to educators to ensure that a positive discourse is reached between the school and the parents of EL students. There are a variety … Read More

Measuring Parent Engagement for Success

Parent engagement helps students to succeed academically and helps schools to serve students more effectively. Encouraging, assessing, and measuring parent engagement are all important elements of a successful parent engagement initiative. Parent engagement can be measured in various ways; through parent surveys and questionnaires, measurements of attendance counts at family-school events, and assessments of the number and quality of these … Read More

Parental Involvement and the Impact on School Success

There is a little debate that a parent’s engagement in a child’s learning is highly beneficial. A number of studies have shown the extent of the positive impacts that healthy parental involvement can provide with marked improvements in attendance, behavioral patterns, and social skills, as well as better grades and test scores, resulting in higher graduation rates. But distinguishing the … Read More

English Learners are an Asset Says Secretary of Education

In a recent video address to the National Association of Bilingual Education‘s annual conference in Chicago, Acting Secretary of Education John King said that English learners are an asset to our nation. Speaking in both English and Spanish, he also said there are many benefits in the new ESSA legislation. King said that, “Under ESSA, states have the opportunity to … Read More