How often do you communicate with the parents of your students? Is there something that is hindering the communication? Often it is language barriers or lack of parent involvement that hinder the home-to-school communication. As teachers we need to overlook these things and do our best to ensure that we are making every effort to reach the families of our students. Weekly newsletters can be emailed or printed and sent home. Videos and pictures can be uploaded to a class website for parents to view.
In my classroom I have a lot of similar barriers as other teachers. Many of my students go home each afternoon and speak languages that I do not know. I have parents who do not initiate or respond to communication. I cannot let this bother me. I send home a detailed newsletter every Friday. This newsletter always includes photos and/or videos of our classroom learning in action. I ask for parent volunteers to come in and use www.signupgenius.com to keep track of who and when. This is a great resource for parents to use as well. When I will have parent volunteers I put together a visual of what their job will be and send this to them. This video always includes my classroom, what they will be doing, and what they can expect to see. I want for them to feel confident when they walk into our room and so I provide them with as much information about our routine as I can.
What about THOSE students. The ones where you feel like the communication is always negative. I have those too. The ones you spend 50% of your time redirecting and teaching them how to behave. 9 times out of 10 the parents think their child is perfection and you are wrong. The other doesn't care that their child is acting inappropriately. This is my struggle. How to keep these parents informed, but without it being negative all the time.
How do you communicate with your parents? What is your struggle with communication?
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