Home-school Connections Research Articles

Seesawing (dis)connections: Digital parent involvement in a culturally diverse school community

As digitisation of home-school connectivity continues apace, nuanced understandings of the digital capabilities of parents are essential. Yet, there has been considerable homogeneity in the representations of parents, and deficit understandings of digital parental involvement with schools, especially in schools serving diverse and disadvantaged communities. The study reported here addressed these limitations of the extant research by asking how families in a case study school oriented to digital technology, how cultural and linguistic resources impacted home-school connections, and how a learning management system impacted digital inclusion in a diverse school community. Parent interviews were facilitated by interpreters, enabling participation of a culturally and linguistically diverse parent cohort. Parents’ and teachers’ diverse perspectives were analysed. Informed by Actor Network theory, connections between humans and humans, and between humans and hon-human actors (digital and material), were mapped onto a network diagram. Findings show considerable digital engagement and aspiration on the part of parents, which was frustrated by English-only communications from teachers despite Seesaw’s multilingual affordances. We report teachers’ disappointment with low parental uptake of the digital learning management system, and the deficit thinking which led them to assume a lack of digital skills or knowledge. We suggest that such deficit thinking should be challenged by a critical approach which might involve teacher-parent dialogue. Although a learning management system is a technological actor, that actor must be understood within the full context of school-home connectivity, in which schools serve communities and have a responsibility for cultural and linguistic inclusion.

Does Teacher and Peer Racial/Ethnic Match Play a Role in Preschool Absenteeism?

ABSTRACT Research Findings: A significant number of children are regularly absent from preschool inhibiting their early learning and development. Yet, there has been little exploration of the conditions under which absenteeism may be lower. One such condition may be teacher and peer racial/ethnic match (REM), which may improve home-school connections and promote better attendance. This study examined the extent to which REM with teachers and peers is associated with absenteeism and whether these associations vary for White, Black, and Latine children. Our descriptive findings confirm that absenteeism rates in preschool are high, and that racial/ethnic match is unequally distributed, with Black and Latine children being less likely to have a match with their teachers than White children. Our inferential findings showed that teacher and peer REM were not associated with preschool absenteeism, and there were no differences for White, Black, and Latine children. Practice and Policy: Although there were no associations between REM and absenteeism, children benefit from diverse teachers in other ways, and it is critical to continue to invest in increasing representation among teachers of color in preschool. Moreover, the fact that over 10% of children were chronically absent from preschool underscores the need to investigate factors that influence attendance.

Home-School Connection: Investigating Parental Involvement in the Academic Learning of PrimarySchool Students

The objectives of the study were to analyze the perspective of parents about their involvement in the academic learning of their children studying at the primary school level. A quantitative research design was used to conduct this study. A descriptive survey method was used to collect the data. The population of the study was parents of the students of government primary schools of tehsil Rajanpur. It included male and female primary schools in rural and urban areas in this tehsil. Disproportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select 648 parents of primary school children. Self-developed research instrument, i.e., a five-point scale, was used for data collection. The data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. The study found that parents were highly involved in parenting and home-based learning activities. However, their involvement in the community-related activities and decision-making was relatively low. It is suggested that parents participate in classroom, school, and co-curricular activities. Training sessions may be conducted for teachers and parents on various ways of collaboration in the educational settings in order to better understand and improve the student's learning progress.

Home–school connection framework: Elevating multilingual familial engagement capital to build bridges

AbstractSchool readiness research points to familial assets as tools for enriching home–literacy and home–school partnerships. This research informs an urgent call for reimagining educator preparedness relative to bridging students' lived experiences at home and school. Developing a multidimensional approach to effectively partnering with multilingual families that centers families as knowledge holders has potential to interrupt persistent opportunity gaps for ethnoracially and linguistically diverse learners. This conceptual paper presents a reconceptualizing of educator preparedness through what we call a home–school connection framework. This framework situates seven principal tenets—asset‐based culturally sustaining foundations, bilingual and bicultural mirrors, authentic cariño (Curry, 2021; Kwon, 2020; Martínez‐Álvarez, 2020; Valenzuela, 1999), reciprocal collaboration, anti‐bias awareness, community valuing of multicultural literature, and familial capital. This framework is applied in practice across each tenet. Preliminary findings suggest the importance of shifting dispositional stance away from educators serving families and toward educators purposefully partnering with families honoring familial engagement capital to inform multilingual multiliteracies in educational spaces.

“I Should Only Use One Language”: A Case Study of Spanish-Speaking Emergent Bilingual Students’ Translanguaging Experiences in a Middle School Science Classroom

Despite the linguistic diversity in the United States, English-only norms persist in educational settings, placing culturally and linguistically diverse students at a disadvantage. Translanguaging, as a linguistic application of culturally relevant practice, utilizes students’ first and second languages to enhance understanding and communication. Guided by core questions and thorough qualitative analysis, this case study delves into middle school emergent bilingual students’ engagement and experiences with translanguaging in the science classroom within a monolingual school setting. Findings indicate that translanguaging positively impacts students’ comprehension and engagement in science learning, facilitating access to content and strengthening home–school connections. However, students’ attitudes toward translanguaging are influenced by the lack of institutional support and societal language ideologies, leading to mixed opinions about its effectiveness and preferences. The study emphasizes the importance of listening to students’ voices and advocating professional support to establish multilingual educational environments to maximize the advantages of translanguaging practices.

Mitigating the COVID-19 Induced Learning Loss in Rural Primary Schools: How Do Teachers Prepare English FAL Learners for Self-Directed Learning in the ‘New Normal’?

In the post-pandemic era, the ongoing discourses are centered around finding innovative ways to sustain teaching and learning as well as reversing COVID-19-induced learning loss, especially in critical areas, such as reading in English First Additional Language (FAL). As a contribution to these discourses, the current study explored how teachers prepared rural English FAL learners for self-directed learning to mitigate COVID-19-induced learning loss and to sustain learning in the ‘new normal’. The study followed a qualitative approach and adopted phenomenology as a research design, while the Capability Approach was used for theoretical framing. Three teachers of English FAL in one primary school were conveniently selected to participate in the semi-structured focus-group interviews. A thematic analysis revealed that teachers prepared English FAL learners to use self-directed learning by apprising learners of their active role in learning English FAL, identifying learners’ weaknesses, strengthening the home-school connection, and encouraging collaboration and problem-solving. These findings imply that self-directed learning could be a useful strategy for mitigating COVID-19-induced learning loss and improving reading skills in rural primary schools.

해외거주 유아를 위한 스마트폰 앱 활용 가정 연계 한국어교육 실행연구

Objectives The purpose was to explore the changes experienced by parents and young children residing overseas through examining the execution process of Korean language education with a focus on smartphone app uti-lization and fostering home-school connections.
 Methods Following Elliot's (1991) action research model, a 15-week Korean language education program was conducted for ten preschoolers and their parents at a Korean school in City B, State A, USA. Data were collected through observations of children's behavior and language during class, parent-child interactions, teacher-parent conferences, peer teacher workshops, and Korean language proficiency assessments.
 Results In the first implementation, ‘Korean language education centered daily routines for young children’ and ‘home-school linked education encouraging parental participation through smartphone apps’ were conducted. The second implementation focused on ‘one-on-one support-based Korean language instruction’ and ‘intensive home-school linked education using portfolios’. Through these processes, the children progressed from ‘increased interest in Korean’ to ‘formation of confidence and improvement in Korean language ability’, while parents devel-oped ‘trust in Korean language schools’ and eventually ‘experienced the benefits of active participation in Korean language education’.
 Conclusions Korean language education for overseas-residing young children can facilitate emotional develop-ment, including improved self-confidence and self-identity formation, not only enhancing Korean language profi-ciency but also when communication and participation frequency with parents through home-school collabo-rations are increased.

Research on early literacy in Reggio and Montessori classrooms: A scoping review

This article presents the findings of a scoping review of 26 empirical studies that examined early literacy in Reggio Emilia and Montessori classrooms. A five-stage framework for conducting scoping reviews was used and led to the review of the selected studies. In addition, a thematic content analysis was conducted resulting in four main themes associated with the studies: 1. avenues for literacy learning, 2. home-school connection, 3. early literacy advantages, and 4. enriched literacy environments. The study contexts, research methods, and other relevant study characteristics are also reviewed and discussed. The results shed light on the research that has been conducted on early literacy in Reggio and Montessori environments. In addition, patterns across the two contexts are discussed and suggestions about future research are offered.

Exploring Parents’ Technology Attitudes and Practices in the Context of School-Issued One-to-One Devices in Kindergarten

School districts are quickly adopting one-to-one mobile device programs for children as early as kindergarten, but evidence of successful device integration is mixed. One important area to consider is the home-school connection, i.e., the role of parents and the home environment in supporting or hindering children’s school-based technology use. Previous research has looked extensively at teacher-related barriers and facilitators of classroom technology use, as well as parent-related barriers and facilitators of home technology use. However, the home and school spheres are highly interconnected, especially for young children. Therefore, this survey-based case study explored the relationships between children’s at-home technology use, their parents’ attitudes towards technology, and their in-school tablet use utilizing a sample of 258 parents of kindergartners in a racially and socioeconomically diverse district that had recently adopted a one-to-one tablet program. Results highlight the ubiquity of kindergartners’ home device use and parents’ general optimism towards both home- and school-based digital devices.

The Teaching Strategies to Improve Students of Immigrants in STEM Learning within the K-6 Setting

With the growing population of immigrant students and the demands of STEM professionals in the U.S. labor market, the quality of STEM education (Science, technology, engineering, and math) for students with immigration backgrounds need to be addressed. This study focuses on how to support children of immigrants who are aged from kindergarten to sixth grade in their STEM learning within American classrooms. By reviewing 27 articles from 2003 to 2022, the research develops strategies to support this group's students in their STEM learning from the following perspectives: family engagement, linguistic culturally responsive teaching, and project-based integrated STEM learning. Firstly, the family engagement approach shows that the home-school connection provides a consistent STEM learning environment for the students. Secondly, the linguistic culturally responsive teaching reflects students’ STEM identities and incorporates their interest in STEM learning. Lastly, the project-based integrated STEM learning strategies accommodate students’ individual needs in their STEM learning and deepen their comprehension of each STEM subject.

The home–school connection, the development of Spanish repertoires, and the school adaptation process in Latino children: a dynamic ecological understanding

AbstractThis paper aims to contribute to research and policy that supports Latino children in early education regarding their transition into the school system and their bilingual development. It presents the results of a one-year longitudinal ethnographic study of four Latino children starting school at a transitional bilingual kindergarten in the Boston area. The analysis identifies dynamics and trends at the micro and meso levels that show that Spanish use and development in Latino children cannot be fully understood and supported if we consider it an individual ability instead of an organic and intrinsic component of broader dynamic socialization, emotional, and academic processes (such as the transition to school) of which English is also a part and in which parents and teachers participate. Recommendations for designing and implementing comprehensive programs to engage Latino families and educators to support transitions, bilingual development, and academic performance in young Latino children are presented.

A “Post” Pandemic(s) Village Check-In: Pulse Checks and Recommendations for a Hard Re-Set in Education

Utilizing the lens of the “pandemic as portal” (Roy, 2020; Souto-Manning, 2021) and the need for a “hard re-set” (Ladson-Billings, 2021) of our current education system, this literature synthesis engages with head, health, and home to consider what a new normal could look like as we take a “village check-in” of each area. For head, we consider the systemic barriers to equitable academic achievement that have long been in place for Black and Brown students. When considering health, we look at the impact of the pandemic on teacher well-being and how this may impact their ability to teach effectively and equitably. Lastly, in a pulse check of home, we look back at the unequal past, while orienting forward towards opportunities for re-imagining home-school connections as we negotiate what a new normal can look like “post” pandemic(s).

‘It’s dynamite!’: The role of popular music and the home–school connection in the special music education classroom

When teaching children with disabilities, the home–school music connection can be the key to keeping our students engaged and motivated while increasing students’ self-regulation and positive interactions with peers. This article aims to shed light on classroom experiences with popular music of two third-grade students with sensory processing disorder and on how ‘music sharing turns’ influenced their overall engagement and ability to self-regulate in music classes. Music sharing turns, a weekly music ‘show and tell’, provided opportunities to bring popular music and activities they enjoy at home into the classroom. The results show that the participants were easily engaged and experienced greater self-regulation and awareness of others during music sharing turns. Music sharing turns also provided a predictable environment for peer interaction with opportunities to take on leadership roles within the classroom while remaining open-ended in a way participants could make their own.

Digital Service-Learning: Creating Translanguaging Spaces for Emergent Bilinguals’ Literacy Learning and Culturally Responsive Family Engagement in Mainstream Preservice Teacher Education

Although the number of emergent bilinguals (EBs), also known as English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. K-12 schools is growing at an increasing rate, K-12 mainstream teachers remain predominantly white and monolingual and receive little training for working with such learners. In addition, many states mandate “English-only” policies that prevent EBs from accessing grade-level content and academic language. Given digital inequalities, remote learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic may put them even further behind academically. Moreover, EBs may not have adequate at-home parental support to develop language skills in literacy. Recent studies (García & Li, 2014) have indicated that translanguaging offers great potential to close the academic achievement gap and facilitate home-school connections by embracing EB students’ home language and culture. This article discusses a qualitative participatory action research study that examined how monolingual elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) constructed a translanguaging stance and enacted it in a digital service-learning (DSL) setting in an undergraduate ESOL methods course at a southeastern university in the U.S. The article also offers insights into curriculum development and implementation as to preparing monolingual mainstream PSTs to support linguistically and culturally diverse students and families through translanguaging.

“I woke up to science”: Teacher narratives of growth in a culturally sustaining preschool STEM program

The study reported in this paper was conducted as part of a collaborative research project designed to develop a culturally sustaining approach to science, technology, and engineering education in preschool classrooms. Readiness through Integrative Science and Engineering (RISE) is an integrated approach to providing professional development support to Head Start teachers. Our strengths-based sociocultural approach is centered on best practices in preschool science, technology, and engineering (STE) pedagogy and intentional engagement of families through a home-school connections (HSC) perspective. Two forms of narrative analysis were integrated to generate multidimensional profiles of teachers that were then categorized into three groups representing variation in the teachers’' pathways to understanding and appropriating the RISE approach.

Exploring the impact of the COVID-19 safety measures on learner-centred teaching in rural English FAL classrooms

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has disrupted the process of teaching and learning in unprecedented ways. There has been a shift in the way lesson presentation takes place in many classrooms. In particular, the COVID-19 safety measures (social distancing and wearing of masks) threaten learner-centred teaching in rural English FAL classrooms. As a result, there is a need to explore the impact of the COVID-19 safety measures on learner-centred teaching in rural English FAL classrooms. To achieve this aim, the study raises these questions: how do COVID- 19 safety measures disrupt learner-centred teaching in rural English FAL classrooms? How do rural English FAL teachers implement learner-centred teaching while adhering to the COVID-19 safety measures? The study adopts a qualitative research design and uses Document Analysis and Online interviews to generate data from eleven participants. Following thematic analysis, data revealed that the COVID-19 safety measures negatively impact learner-centred teaching in rural English FAL classrooms. The challenges include: ineffective monitoring and scaffolding, difficulty engaging in concrete and cooperative learning, limited opportunities for creativity, and distorted communication. In response, the paper recommends various strategies to lessen the impact of the COVID-19 safety measures on learner-centred teaching in rural English FAL classrooms. These include: strengthening the home-school connection, creating a supportive classroom environment, incorporating fun activities in collaborative learning activit

Teachers Using Social Emotional Learning: Meeting Student Needs during COVID-19

Unique challenges arose for teachers during COVID-19 to be effective not just academically, but also in providing social-emotional support. Through a case study of 23 novice teachers prepared by our college we examined teachers’ perception about the use of social-emotional learning (SEL) in their teaching, strategies for impacting student learning and development, and challenges faced due to online or hybrid teaching modalities. Results indicated that teachers felt a great need to focus on fostering supporting relationships with students, building trust, creating a positive classroom climate, acknowledging the trauma students had been through, and building strong home-school connections. Their biggest concern was increasing student engagement and motivation and reducing stress in the academic setting. Fostering a sense of classroom community and peer interactions was especially important when more than half the class was online. Teachers incorporated interactive methods and hands-on learning to make instruction engaging for students, focused on soft skills, and used formative assessments to address student learning needs. The study showed that SEL is critically important in the context of COVID-19 to include trauma-informed pedagogies, teacher self-care, and need for SEL related professional development.

A home-to-school approach for promoting culturally inclusive family–school partnership research and practice

In this article, parental role construction is framed from a sociocultural perspective. Applying this perspective foregrounds the need for researchers and practitioners to gain an insider’s understanding of how families themselves construct their roles in supporting children’s education. By doing so, the field can reimagine family–school partnerships that are inclusive of normative family practices across ethnoculturally diverse families and develop interventions that build on cultural heritage, community strengths, and families’ funds of knowledge. In this article, a home-to-school, strengths-based conceptualization of family engagement that challenges deficit-based and school-centric orientations toward families is described. Evidence from three innovative research projects will be discussed that shows by being curious about how parents construct their roles and support their children at home (both directly and indirectly), researchers and practitioners can gain useful information to co-create more culturally inclusive and welcoming school environments, as well as more meaningful home–school connections.

Dual Language Books Go Digital: Storybooks Canada in French Immersion Schools and Homes

In response to Canada’s growing ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, educators in French immersion classrooms are increasingly responding with enhanced cross-linguistic initiatives, and dual language books are promising resources in the promotion of multilingualism (Zaidi, 2020; Zaidi & Dooley, 2021). This paper details a research project we completed in a 2019 classroom-based qualitative case study in a French immersion school experiencing an increasing enrollment of linguistically diverse students. The researchers sought to determine if Storybooks Canada, a free digital platform with 40 dual language books in multiple languages, could help promote literacy engagement and strengthen home-school connections. Five teacher participants identified a range of features that make the platform a useful resource for promoting literacy engagement, text comprehension, learner autonomy, meaning-making, and instructional differentiation. These included (i) the multilingual features, (ii) the ability to project stories on a large screen, (iii) the audio component, (iv) the illustrations, and (v) the different levels of text difficulty. While teachers made almost exclusive use of the French language features of the site, for classroom purposes, they supported cross-linguistic uses of the platform in the home context, with a view of strengthening home-school connections.

Text to talk: Effects of a home-school vocabulary texting intervention on prekindergarten vocabulary

This paper presents the results of an intervention study focused on understanding how a 5-month, vocabulary-focused texting program called Text to Talk can enhance home-school connections concerning vocabulary and preschool children's language learning. Classrooms (49) were randomly assigned to intervention or control status in an urban preschool program in the eastern United States. Intervention teachers delivered Text to Talk, a curriculum-aligned program that provides weekly texts for teachers to send to families that include vocabulary words and related activities from books being read in the classroom. Children's target word knowledge and receptive language skills (PPVT) were measured at baseline and follow-up, with treatment effects on target word knowledge (d = 0.17). Treatment families reported much higher use of texting as a source of communication with teachers, but otherwise rates of home-school communication in person, phone, and with paper were unchanged; family self-report of general home learning activities was also unaffected by treatment status. Implementation analysis showed moderate to high fidelity among teachers and families, with greater family fidelity associated with larger treatment impacts. The findings suggest that a family-focused texting-based program, aligned with the school curriculum, leads to improved taught-word knowledge among children from under-resourced communities.