Drafting Family Members for the Classroom Team
from NCTE INBOX 6-17-08

As Scholastic's 2008 Kids & Family Reading Report explains, family involvement matters to the kids' and teens' literacy growth. These NCTE resources provide ideas to increase family involvement in your classroom:

"Transforming Our Orientation toward Families" (E), the first chapter from NCTE's new Becoming Teammates: Teachers and Families as Literacy Partners, describes author Charlene Klassen Endrizzi's gradual shift toward more and more family involvement in students' classroom education. The ReadWriteThink lesson Involving Students and Families in Ongoing Reflection and Assessment (E) provides one model of what family involvement can look like.

The English Leadership Quarterly article "Opening Quality Lines of Communication: Seeing My Students through the Eyes of Their Parents" (M) discusses how one activity at the beginning of the school year helps connect with families all year long.

Including families in the activities of the classroom can have benefits for everyone involved. The English Journal article "Including Parents in the Fun: Sharing Literary Experiences" (S) describes a reading and writing activity that invited families to correspond and connect over language arts texts.

"Inscribing the World: An Oral History Project in Brooklyn" (E-C) describes a university-elementary school oral history project that engages families in an exploration of the legacy of the school and the families whose children attended it.