This chapter discusses the importance of family-teacher partnerships to support children's literacy development. It covers topics like recommended activities for families, such as reading together and telling stories; the goals of family involvement programs; effective communication strategies between families and teachers; and the negative effects of excessive television viewing on children's language acquisition. The overall message is that families are children's first teachers and should be viewed as partners and resources in the literacy learning process.

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Chapter 17
The Family—Center Partnership

2. Chapter Highlights
A. Family Characteristics
B. Family and Child Literacy
C. Trust
D. Recommended Family Guidelines
1. Stimulating speaking abilities
2. Building print awareness and skill
3. Home experiences promoting literacy
4. Promoting child listening skills
5. Promoting child interest in reading
6. Family Storytelling
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3. Chapter Highlights (cont.)
E. Child Self-Regulation
F. Home Reading and Writing Areas
G. Family Literacy Programs
1. Multicultural projects
H. Television and Children’s Language Development
I. Home-School Communication
1. Planned meetings
2. Fathers and language development
3. Topics of interest
4. Written communication
J. Family Resources
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Objectives
 Describing effective parent-teacher
partnerships for language arts
 Understanding types of communication with
families
 Identifying ways parents can strengthen
child’s language growth

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Important Reminders (1 of 2)
 Parents are child’s first and most important
teachers.
 The home is the child’s first school.
 Avoid unfair assumptions.
 Employ a wide variety of strategies to
develop partnerships with families.

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Important Reminders (2 of 2)
 Family viewed as:
having useful knowledge of a variety of topics
experts concerning how to best support child
 Ask questions to gain information about
family literacy goals, home literacy materials,
literacy preferences.

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Literacy at Home
 Influenced by three things:
Setting
Models
Planned and unplanned events

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What Do Successful
Parents Do to Build Language?
Listen and respond to children
Interpret language attempts
Share the world with children
Share compassionate relationship
Discuss feelings with child

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What Are the Goals
for Family Involvement?
 Let’s brainstorm.
 What personal characteristics are important?
 What might be some needs of families?
 What might be some needs of teachers?

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Parents Are Partners in
Literacy Development (1 of 2)
 How can families help to:
Support literacy?
Stimulate speaking abilities?
Build print awareness?
Provide experiences outside of home?

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Parents Are Partners in
Literacy Development (2 of 2)
 How can families help to:
Promote listening?
Promote interest in reading?

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Effective Techniques for Families
 Parent storytelling
 Games with rules
 Home reading and writing centers
 Using library services

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The Key to Success
 The successful family literacy programs
consider the needs of families as well as what
they can offer
build parent esteem and confidence
assist with access to community services
encourage parental involvement with
children’s school activities
strengthen home-school connection

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Television Viewing
 8 in 10 infants to six-year-olds watch
television two hours a day.
 19% of children under the age of 2 have
televisions in their bedrooms.
 American Academy of Pediatrics
recommends no TV for children under 2
when the brain is in rapid development.

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Negative Effects of Excessive
Television Viewing (1 of 2)
 Aggressive behavior
 Decreased imagination
 Problems with appropriate emotional
responses
 Poor reading comprehension
 Pronunciation problems
 Listening problems

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Negative Effects of Excessive
Television Viewing (2 of 2)
 Visual imagery problems
 Inability to decipher meaning from what is
viewed
 Decreased metalinguistic awareness
 Decreased conversations with families
 Decreased problem-solving opportunities

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Forms of Communication
with Families (1 of 2)
 Informal conversations
 Bulletin boards
 Informal notes
 Newsletters

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Forms of Communication
with Families (2 of 2)
 Planned meetings
Conferences
Methods and materials review meetings
Family-teacher study meetings

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Explaining Phonemic Awareness
 Essential for learning to read
 Preschoolers aware of sounds, rhymes, silly
words
 Speech is made up of individual sounds

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Phonemic Awareness
Activities
 Clap to music.
 Clap to syllables.
 Sing rhyming songs.
 Play rhyming games.
 Find things that start with /t/.
 Have books and games available.

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Let’s Role Play!
 How would you work with a hard-to-reach
parent?

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Families Are a Great Resource!
 Appreciate them.
 Value them and their uniqueness.
 Solicit their help as volunteers.
 Be approachable as a teacher.