Ideas for Working Together with Parents

Every study of the impact of parent involvement on student achievement tells us that parents are vital to student success. TeachersFirst has collected these resources to help build mutual understanding and cooperation with parents.

Remember that parents are rarely familiar with the vocabulary we routinely use in schools (“Edu-ese”). A “content area” to them could be a place where people are happy! You, as the teacher, must be “bilingual” even in English. If the parents are non-English speakers, the challenges are even greater. Here are some resources to help you work together and share ideas, no matter what the situation.

Customizable Parent Handouts: These personalized "Take Home" fliers are deisgned to help parents help their students. You can personalize each of these fliers with your own name so they look like you created them especially for your class. Topics include homework, reading tips, and more. Especially useful are the "Supergrams" for reinforcing positive happenings in your class. Tell parents what their child is doing RIGHT!

E-Ready Parent information on Special Education: The E-READY parents' section gives easy access to information about parenting a child with special needs.

E-Ready Parent Information on Gifted Children:  This section offers a number of tools which can help parents better understand what the term "gifted" really means, and how giftedness can affect a child's education.

TogetheRead: Share family reading and activities around a monthly theme using this outstanding series. Interwoven into each TogetheRead theme are questions and activities based on reading strategies for effective readers. Parents and children of all ages can select books from the annotated lists, read together, and do related free or low-cost activities. Written in language understandable to parents and without education "jargon" so familiar to teachers, these themes will help any child become a a better reader and enjoy sharing family time.

TeachersAndFamilies: TeachersFirst’s partner site for parents, this site features parenting ideas, preschool activities, web resources, and family fun in support of healthy children and effective learning. A large portion of the site is free to anyone. TeachersAndFamilies members can access an even wider set of parenting articles and resources. Membership is very affordable and supports the educational efforts of our not-for-profit parent company, The Source for Learning.

Ideas to involve dads: See what other schools are doing to promote dads' involvement

Parent Handouts and Resources
Share these web resources on your teacher web page or copy the printables to encourage parent involvement and help them know how best to support their students.

For Parents of ESL/ELL students

On college/ career planning

On homework and studying

Supporting reading at home

To share at conference time

Have a parent success story? We invite our members to share successes in the TeachersFirst Stop blog (members only)in our Teachers Share area.

Not a member? Join now, for free!

Not sure what membership means? Read our Why Join page.