An Introduction to Parent Listening

Abstract

The objectives of B. M. Stierer's research are: to appraise the scale of the practice of using parents as reading helpers in the classroom; to examine the significance for teachers and parents; and to describe schemes. The merit of parent listening is that it provides the core around which a programme can be constructed for children at any level of reading competence. The time-honoured means of parents helping their children to learn to read is by listening to them reading. Some teachers have frowned upon parental 'interference' on the grounds that parents use teaching and correction methods that run counter to a school's methods. For teachers, too, the 'parents' listening to their children' approach can be dovetailed into and run parallel to a school's reading scheme; it can be comfortably absorbed into routine provision which is simply extended 'outwards' to home.