Running head: FAMILY INVOLVEMENT PLAN 1

Family Involvement Plan

Alexandra E. Craft, Rebecca Dumestre, Claudia Hurtado

Louisiana State University

EDCI 3382
FAMILY INVOLVEMENT PLAN 2

Introduction

Family involvement plays a key role in a childs academic success and overall well-

being. National accreditation standards identify it as a necessary component of high-quality early

childhood programs for birth to five years (NAEYC, 2007). When talking about family

involvement, one must not only consider the childs biological parents but also any other adult

that plays a significant role in the childs life. This may be the significant other of a biological

parent, grandparents, aunts/uncles, foster parents, or step-parents. Moreover, family engagement

is viewed as a continuous process that involves these important people in the childs life in the

total education program, including planning, implementation, and assessment (Bredekamp &

Copple, 2009). By doing this, families and teachers create a positive relationship with one

another and come to a shared understanding of childrens development, behaviors, and the many

different challenges they face. When these alliances occur, families and teachers learn together,

mutually supporting each other, and sharing a common goal: to make life more meaningful for

the children (Kostelnik, 2015, p. 231).

There are six types of family engagement that are all well-accepted and desired. These

include parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and

collaborating with the community. Parenting is described as the teacher facilitating skill

development both at home and at school for the child. Communicating is when the teacher

communicates effectively and often with families and the families respond. Volunteering is seen

often in early childhood settings where the teacher asks families for help in facilitating an

activity or class party. By volunteering, family members are benefiting themselves by getting to

know the teacher and other families and benefitting their children by helping to facilitate a fun

activity for them. Learning at home is seen when the teacher provides strategies to families to
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help further or assist their childs education at home. This could be seen in assisting the child

with homework, monitoring homework, and coordinating family learning opportunities. Decision

making is defined as teachers preparing family members for decision-making roles at all levels:

program, district, and state. In doing this, the teacher is helping the families become active

members of the community and advocates for their childrens education. The last type of family

engagement is collaborating with the community which consists of teachers supporting families

in building interpersonal community by providing community resources that support childrens

learning. All of this has transpired because teachers have discovered that children, parents, and

programs benefit immensely when family members take an active role in childrens education

(Kostelnik, 2015, p. 232).

Observed Family Involvement Plan

In the Preschool II classroom, family involvement is a priority. Ms. Erin informs the

families of activities and lessons for the upcoming week every Sunday night through a

Preschool II Parent Newsletter. She engages in two-way communication by informing families

at least two weeks ahead of time about field trips and parents reply with a signed consent form

and have the option to attend the field trips with their children. Ms. Erin also asks the parents to

help organize parties throughout the year for different seasons or holidays. She invites the

parents to bring food, within allergy limits, read books, and conduct activities with the children.

In doing this, Ms. Erin creates a positive relationship with her students families and maintains it

throughout the school year.

Mrs. Amanda uses many different ways of communicating with parents in the Preschool

III classroom. Mrs. Amanda communicates with parents frequently when they drop their child

off in the mornings. She sends out a weekly newsletter each weekend highlighting what the
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students have learned that week and what they will be learning the next week. Parents are

encouraged to participate in the classroom by attending field trips and parties. Parents who may

not be able to attend these activities can participate by signing up to bring in supplies that are

needed for different lesson plan activities. Another way Mrs. Amanda keeps parents involved is

through two apps, Daily Note and Kaymbu. Daily Note provides parents with information such

as how much their child is eating during meals or if there is any sort of accident. Kaymbu is a

way for the teachers to document pictures of the children that can then be sent to their parents.

Ms. Erin in Preschool II also uses these apps to keep parents informed. Mrs. Amanda is very

accommodating with the parent schedules when it comes time to have parent-teacher meetings.

She is willing to conduct them over the phone is the parent is unable to attend any of the

designated time slots. Overall, Mrs. Amanda works hard to ensure that parent involvement is a

top priority.

In the preschool IV classroom, Ms. Sarah teacher takes active steps to promote family

involvement in the classroom. Every week, Ms. Sarah sends out a newsletter with the lesson

plans for the week and classroom announcements via email. These weekly updates help keep the

families informed of what is going on in the classroom. In these emails, She may ask parents to

come for a field trip, or if they can donate materials to the classroom. She makes time to be

available to parents face to face during pickup and drop off times. Parents usually take this time

to talk to her about any concerns or help they can provide to the classroom. She also schedules

meetings outside of this time to talk with parents. Ms. Sarah reaches out to parents via two apps

on an Ipad Daily Note and Kaymbu. As stated previously in this paper, these apps provide ways

for my mentor to communicate to parents if a child was hurt, how much they ate, or document

what their child is working on. She will also take the take to call a parent if a child was hurt or if
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they want to reach out. The parents are always invited to come for field trips the children take

and are encouraged to do so. So far there have been 2 field trips, and a good number of the

parents have taken the time to come. Parents will also send materials to the class for the students

to create with, or materials that relate to the lesson the children are learning about. Parents are

also invited to visit and participate in the class. Grandparents are also welcomed to the

classroom. Ms. Sarah planned activities for grandparents day and on Fridays one of the

childrens grandparents comes to read stories to the children. Overall, Ms. Sarah works hard to

ensure that the families feel welcome and included in the classroom.

Family Involvement

Our placement school is the LSU Early Childhood Education Laboratory preschool. The

school is a Reggio Emilia inspired tuition based school in urban east Baton Rouge. The

preschool is part of the LSU College of Human Sciences & Education and is located on LSU

campus. The school consists of one hundred and seventy-five students. The ages of the students

in the school range from six weeks to five-year-olds.There are two infant classes, two young

toddler classes, three toddler classes, and four young preschool classes.. The preschool classes

consist of about sixteen children and are made up by: mostly four-year olds, a few three-year

olds, and some five-year- olds.

The preschool IV classroom consists of sixteen four-year olds. There are nine boys and

seven girls. In this classroom, there are currently no IEPs in place; however, one child receives

accommodations for some possible developmental delays. Another child currently has a behavior

management plan in place for aggressive behavior. Twenty-five percent of the children in the

class are bilingual and speak many languages including Vietnamese, Korean, Hindi, and

Japanese. For the most part, the class is very diverse and the makeup of the class includes
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Caucasian, Asian, and African American. One of the children has recently moved to the United

States from Singapore this past summer. To our knowledge, all the families in the classroom

come from middle to upper-class homes. We have not observed any major familial problems

within the families, and all the children in the class are happy and healthy.

These families bring tremendous strength to the classroom. Their support of wanting to

know how their children are doing and their encouragement of their childrens learning is an

incredible resource for our mentor teachers. These families provide ways to improve classroom

by volunteering, donating materials, or by being informed of their childs progress. This support

allows our teachers to be able to plan field trips or other activities for their lesson. This support

provides the classroom with materials needed for the teacher to do more with a project. This

interest in what the children are learning is essential to the classroom. The interest can prompt

parents to ask about the childs day or engage with their children over what they are learning.

This added time and practice helps the children learn the material and be more prepared for the

next day. These families provide support to our placement classrooms, and without this support,

the classes would not be where they are today.

Having the support of the families in a classroom is a huge asset for a teacher to have. In

order to gain this support, teachers must have a plan that involves many different strategies that

encourage family involvement. First, the teacher has to start by establishing a relationship with

the family. This can be done before school even starts with one on one meetings between the

teacher and the parents, caregivers, and any other member of the family that is committed to the

development of their child. This initial meeting can set the tone for the rest of the year. It is also

important that a teacher gather information from families. This can help a teacher to better

understand the children in the class. One way to gather information would be to send home a
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Getting to Know You questionnaire that parents and children could fill out and return to the

teacher.

In order to maintain family involvement, the teacher needs to keep families informed.

This can be done in many different ways. Weekly emails can be sent home to inform the parents

on what their child has learned in school and what they will be learning in the future. If family

members do not use their emails, then the teacher can make accommodations such as sending

home a hard copy of the newsletter. Being flexible as a teacher is a necessary skill possess.

Providing flexibility will not only benefit the families but will benefit the teacher as well.

Families will be more willing to be involved in their childs classroom if they know the teacher

is willing to work with them.

By providing families with information, teachers are setting up a channel for two way

communication. A great time to communicate with parents and families is during drop off in the

morning and pick up in the afternoon. This allows the teacher to directly communicate face to

face with family members. Another way to establish a good communication system is by using

different apps. For example, Daily Note is a great way for parents to connect with the teacher

throughout the day. Teachers can provide parents with notes such as how much food their child

is eating during meal times or if their child fell and scraped their knee. Teachers can also use

Daily Note to send pictures to parents. We have observed that the parents at the preschool enjoy

using Daily Note as a way to keep up with their childs day to day activities. In addition to apps

like Daily Note, teachers can establish communication through email.

In order to integrate families into the program, teachers can allow parents to volunteer in

the classroom during different parts of the day. For parents who may not be able to participate in

volunteering, the teacher can set up a way to let parents know what supplies are needed in the
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classroom. Those parents who can not volunteer can still participate by sending in supplies.

Parents can also volunteer to chaperone for field trips. Another way to encourage integration is

having seasonal parties in the classroom. Parents can work with each other to organize and

provide for these fun events that promote a great sense of community within the classroom.

Finally, providing family education is an important aspect to remember when getting

families involved. The main point of getting families involved is to ultimately benefit the childs

learning and development. Teachers can provide families with specific, individualized resources

that can be used at home to improve their childs development. Resources could include

information on fun activities for children to practice letter identification at home. Providing

parents with this information allows the child to develop their skills both at home and in school.

Working Through Challenges

Alexs research project, Using Least to Most Assistive Prompting to Increase Student

Compliance during Transitions, can easily be implemented both at school and at home. Using

the least to most assistive prompting hierarchy with children creates structure. This hierarchy

consists of whole group prompts, individual verbal prompts, individual demonstration/model

prompts, individual physical prompts, and praise statements. When using the hierarchy, one must

present the prompts in the correct order previously stated for it to be considered effective. Both

teachers and parents can use this intervention to help increase child compliance. Parents and

teachers should also remember to model the desired behavior so that the children see what is

expected of them and praise the children when they make a good choice.

Rebeccas behavior intervention implements Verbal Praise and Planned Ignoring to

Increase Appropriate Behavior During Whole Group Instruction. This intervention is used to

decrease the inappropriate and disruptive behavior of one specific child. The child that exhibits
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the inappropriate behavior does so in order to gain a response from the teacher. The teacher uses

verbal praise when the child exhibits the target behavior. When the child exhibits the

inappropriate behavior, the teacher uses planned ignoring. Pairing these two strategies together

can help the child to understand that his negative behavior will not receive the responses he

wants. Both teachers and parents can adapt this intervention to discourage attention seeking

behavior. Parents can get involved with this intervention by using these strategies with their child

at home.

Claudias behavior intervention studies the use of the Least-to-Most Prompting

Intervention to Increase Compliance in Accord to Teacher Directives in a Preschool-Aged Child.

The goal of the intervention is to increase compliance in regards to teacher prompts. This

intervention uses an eight-step sequence of steps the teacher can take while prompting a child to

complete a task. The steps include: teacher proximity to the child, eye contact, verbal prompt,

modeling, hand over hand, and praise. For the intervention to succeed, the teacher must follow

the steps and give the child opportunities to complete the task alone. The teacher should always

remember to try to give with a praise toward the child when the task is complete. This is an

intervention that parents can also use at home and as a way to way to guide their child. The

intervention can also provide parents with a way to work with their child to increase compliance.
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References

Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (Eds.) (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early

childhood programs: Serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, DC:

NAEYC.

Kostelnik, M.J., Soderman, A.K., & Whiren, A.P., Rupiper, M.L. (2015). Developmentally

appropriate curriculum: Best practices in early childhood education (6th ed.). Boston:

Pearson.