y. Other characteristics
provision of multiple levels of parent participation--any contact is seen as
different modes of contact that respond to different parent skills, e.g., home
visits are good for those who lack experience in working in groups;
helping parents move from one type of involvement to another, e.g., from home
visits to school settings;
sensitivity to the literacy levels of parents;
flexibility in scheduling and location; and
use of ways to create closer bonds with families, such as contracts or support
The Willard Model School Parent Center in Norfolk, VA, one of 12 elementary
school parent centers, is an example of the range of services this strategy can
provide. Parents help select the workshop topics, teachers brief parents at the
center every nine weeks on the upcoming curricula, the center provides a game
and computer loan library, and its coordinator and teachers visit parents in
their homes. During 1990-91, about 80 percent of the parents attended at least
one workshop; 71 percent attended two or more. The centers are financed by the
school system and Chapter 1.
Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS), a program developed by the
Center on Families, Communities, Schools, and Children's Learning at The Johns
Hopkins University, makes homework interactive with parents (Epstein, Jackson,
& Salinas, 1992). The program has developed 160 prototype interactive
homework assignments linked to the curriculum for Baltimore inner-city middle
school teachers. Parents help children with such assignments as oral family
histories, science experiments in the kitchen, or reports on health topics.
In Indianapolis, families interact with schools via a local cable channel
that broadcasts a homework hotline; children and families can get visual answers
to questions about homework assignments (Epstein, 1992). To counteract low
attendance at school meetings, some schools are using tape recordings,
videocassettes, or answering machines in schools or classrooms which can send
and receive timely messages. Others organize volunteer work for parents to do at
home or on weekends.
PROGRAMS FOR MULTILINGUAL FAMILIES
The most promising
programs to reach multilingual families do not locate the problem of low
literacy support at home with the parents. The National Clearinghouse on
Literacy Education asserts that strengthening the achievement of children is a
reciprocal one--enabling parents to understand schools while enabling school
personnel to understand and take into account how non-English-speaking families
view their situation.
While the programs have great variety, they all tend to build on family
strengths, emphasize collaboration among early childhood and adult educators,
and place value on the families' traditional cultures as well as on the new
culture and language. Often, the programs deliberately incorporate a
tables-turned aspect--children who are more proficient in English become their
parents' teachers. For example, the Pajaro Valley program for Hispanic families
in Arizona (Ada, 1988) uses storytelling among parents and children in the
native language and in English.
Despite the growing amount of research on parent
involvement in high-poverty urban schools and number of practices to choose
from, it is too early to say what works in the long-term and why. Iglesias
points out that the present parent programs "are a conglomerate of different
approaches which differ in their goals, formats, and durations with little or no
regard to the interaction of parent characteristics and programs." So far, few
programs seem to have produced much reliable knowledge about the special needs
of very young parents, and the interventions that both create long-lasting bonds
between such parents and their children's schooling and help the parents develop
better coping and parenting skills. What does seem clear, however, is that
inner-city schools must go beyond traditional strategies that depend on parents'
initiatives and see themselves as educators of families.
Ada, A.F. (1988). The Pajaro Valley experience:
Working with Spanish-sp