Cultivating Home and School Partnerships
Cultivating Home and School Partnerships
Cultivating Home and School Partnerships
Partnerships
Kelly Champ
ESL-433N
February 18, 2018
Dr. Oren Cox
What is a home and school partnership?
Home and school partnerships are collaborative relationships
built off of mutual trust and respect amongst students’
parents and/or family members and teachers/staff of the
school.
With the child in mind, these adults communicate about,
support and share responsibility for his/her education.
Why are partnerships important?
These partnerships are important because:
- it builds stronger relationships with students
- motivates parental cooperation and volunteering
- leads to higher academic achievement, attendance rates, and
assignment completion
- develops understanding of cultural influences, background
experiences, and environment
- offers insight and different perspective about individual child’s
strengths, challenges, and abilities
- creates a line of open communication for all
- parent-child relationship is strengthened through quality time
spent together
Statistics in California
From Reading and Beyond’s (2011) “ELL Parent Involvement” video:
Latino students have become more than 50% of the total population in
California schools.
Every 26 seconds a Latino student drops out of high school in the United
States.
In 2008, only 23% of Latino high school graduates met A-G course
requirements.
In 2008, only 61% of Latino students graduated high school in California.
Even for native English-speaking students, there are many different cultural
implications that can both help and hinder a student’s educational experiences.
It is important for a teacher to be able to directly recognize the needs of ALL of
his/her students and understand their experiences in order to create relevance of
the curriculum and explicitly connect in diversified and meaningful ways.
Cultural Factors Influencing Non-native
English-speaking Students
Some of the cultural factors may be both similar and different that those of native
English speakers. These include:
• Family perspective and possibly, uncertainty, about learning the English language
• Established social norms in home country may not be as common as in United
States
• Ideas surrounding body language, eye contact, and other behaviors may differ
• Communication styles (formal/informal, academic and conversational)
• Background experiences
• Cultural expectations for learning, behaviors, and establishing respect and
student-teacher relationships
• Preferred learning styles
• A teacher’s philosophy surrounding education and his/her teaching style
Instructional Issues to Consider
According to Echevarría, Vogt, and Short (2017), they write,
“Accomplished SIOP teachers determine students’ baseline
understandings in their subject area and move them forward, both in
their content knowledge and in their language skills through a variety
of techniques” (Echevarría, Vogt, and Short, 2017, p. 21)
Predictability of routines and signals to ease anxieties
Common Core and other standard requirements
Students’ prior knowledge and background experiences
ESL/ELL delivery techniques and strategies (i.e. modeling, step-by-step,
written instruction, repeating and responding, etc.)
Differentiated instruction
Current Reading and Writing Initiatives
Lecture vs. hands-on instruction
Instructional Strategies to Overcome
Instructional Issues