The poverty statistics for children in this country have reached alarming rates with a staggering 16 million children living at or below the poverty line in 2016. The reasons for these conditions are varied and don’t always require families to be out of work. Many of these parents are working, but their wages are too low or their unemployment status too unstable to maintain enough income to cover daily living expenses. For families who aren’t gainfully employed in some capacity, work opportunities are sparse and making an income is a challenge. Other factors, such as inadequate housing, community services, support systems in place, and violent, neglected neighborhoods, contribute to the growing poverty rate in American cities.

A child’s education and well-being are both negatively impacted by impoverished conditions. Academic outcomes are far less successful on average than with children who have access to resources. Their health is also affected, as children in low-income and poor families are more likely to be exposed to cigarette smoke and lead. These families are also food insecure, so children suffer malnutrition. All of these components come together to provide a very steep uphill climb toward academic achievement. Children who do not have access to simple resources for life are also severely disadvantaged when it comes to educational resources. Simple things, such as books, are not available for these children to read, and there are fewer books in the homes of impoverished families. Additional resources from school supplies to adequate transportation for a child to get to school play a role in the obstacles that impoverished families need to navigate.

With more people living in cities than ever before, the disadvantaged have a very difficult time surviving in an environment where so much of the population has migrated. Parents who don’t have sufficient educational preparation to find a good job rely on social services to help, but children living in these conditions have a tough time trying to rise above their situation. In some cases, a high value was never placed on education, so parental involvement is low. For others, parental involvement is a challenge because the parents do have jobs but work long hours to put food on the table. This can also present a similar difficulty for children to pursue an education.

The Latino Family Literacy Project is passionate about being part of the solution against poverty, and has developed an award-winning parent program specifically for Hispanic parents that includes the use of award-winning books.

The Latino Family Literacy Project understands the importance of parental involvement and provides staff training to use a bilingual family reading program. This program will guide teachers to work with students and parents from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to improve reading skills at home. If you’re interested in finding out more information about this program, please plan on attending a workshop or webinar, or schedule one in your area. They offer both online webinar training and in-person workshops. If you would like to preview a few of the books used in the program, please visit Lectura Books Youtube page.

For the latest information regarding parental involvement, visit our Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Univision Contigo – Clave al Exito – “Key to Success” is media company Univision’s educational online resource designed to help Spanish-speaking parents get involved in their child’s education. The platform serves an access point for helping parents communicate with educators and learn how to help their children read and excel with their studies.

Be a Learning Hero – Another valuable source for vital information and tips for parents on how to stay up to date with all of the growing changes happening in the education system in the United States. With so many new shifts in the current paradigm, it can be tough to navigate so many developments and this website is dedicated to helping parents stay on top of every new change to become more effectively involved in schooling.

The ENLACE Initiative – A program under management by the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA), the ENLACE initiative was created with the sole purpose of helping Hispanic families find the resources they need in order for children to complete high school and pursue college. It serves students in grades K-12 as well as students enrolled in college and universities both public and private.

Lectura Books – Publishes bilingual books to meet the language needs of Spanish speaking parents and their children.

Family Phonics – A program to use with parents who need to learn basic phonics and phonemic awareness, so that they can help their children with English phonics.

Family Stories Curriculum – published by The Latino Family Literacy Project. Requires staff development for effective implementation of a Parent Involvement and family reading program.

The post Parental Engagement Resources for Hispanic Parents appeared first on The Latino Family Literacy Project.

Successful parental engagement for ELL students starts with getting the parents actively involved. Unfortunately, this can be a much tougher obstacle to navigate than one might expect. There are a variety of hindrances in the path to engagement with parents of ELL’s, most of them rooted in a reluctance on the part of parents to connect with teachers due to language or cultural barriers. Others may decline to participate due to their legal status, afraid to come to the school out of concern for being undocumented. The route towards effective, open communication takes initiative on the part of educators and school personnel to invite these parents into the fold and provide a welcoming environment for them to comfortably engage in the learning process of their children. Many of them may not have a very clear grasp of the English language, so they already feel at a disadvantage.

This is why it’s so important for schools to find ways to get parents of ELL’s to become further engaged with the class curriculum, not just by way of parent/teacher conferences and formal meetings, but instead through routine, casual interactions. Designing a framework to achieve this comes through creating opportunities for parents and children to work together to further not just the student’s grasp of the lessons in English, but to encourage the parent to engage in working towards improving their own understanding of the language. Hispanic parents reading with their children in their native tongue can prove just as beneficial as practicing the use of English together, in and out of the classroom setting. The goal here is to discourage parents from thinking that the home and the classroom are both very separate places, but instead foster a routine that makes education a collaborative effort on the part of parents and teachers alike.

Lectura books provides award-winning bilingual books that are a great tool for teaching English Learner students. The multicultural stories of each book help to engage the parents of ELL students. This encourages more reading and speaking of English at home.

The post Home-School Connections with Parents of ELL Students appeared first on The Latino Family Literacy Project.