Helping to build a learning community

By Alan Bailey

In this article, the second of a series examining the ways in which parents can help at the school, we consider parent help in the primary grades.

While kindergarten provides the foundation to a student’s progress through school, the primary grades, grades one and two, are where the building bricks of emerging in-charge learners slot into place, as the students begin to focus increasingly on their individual learning needs and achievements.

Parents need to be involved in the building process, both at school and at home, helping the kids see where bricks need adjustment, and perhaps spotting where a little more mortar is needed. And primary is the stage where students really work intensely on learning to read and write fluently.

The start of the school day is particularly important, both as a time for parents to check in on what their children are doing and as an opportunity to talk to the teacher, if there are any issues requiring discussion, said primary teacher Leigh Whitaker. Parents can also visit with each other, figuring out what tasks need to be done and offering mutual help.

“One of the nicest things is having parents coming in the morning, into the building, into the room, and just helping the kids get settled in,” said primary teacher Kass Friend. “It makes a huge difference in how their day goes.”

Parents can, for example, ask their children to show them their writing journals, documents that the students work on continuously but which never go home.

“That’s a nice way for parents to keep in touch and to also let their child feel supported,” Kass said.

The exact help needed as the school day progresses depends on the skill area, reading or math, for example, that is the focus of that particular day. When the focus is on reading, it is particularly valuable for parents to act as reading coaches, listening to individual students and providing a new pair of ears for the student to read to.

That is especially important for beginning readers, Kass said.

The teachers provide parents with notes about the various reading strategies that the students are using – certain kids may be working on particular strategies.

“You teach them a strategy and then kind of scaffold their practice, so they’re reading books at just the right level,” Leigh said.

Parent coaches can also prove invaluable in assisting students with their writing skills.

“We also have writing coaches that come in at the writers’ workshop time,” Leigh said.

Parents can help students develop their story ideas as part of the writing process, Kass said.

“They often have an idea of what they want to talk about but they don’t know how to get started, or they’re not sure what to say,” she said.

And just commenting on what a student has written can provide much needed encouragement.

“It’s invaluable to have somebody say ‘I hear what you’re saying here. Oh I get what you’re telling me,’” Leigh said.

Parents can also help with math coaching, asking students how they figured something out, or perhaps asking them to take a second look at a solution that’s not quite correct.

In the classroom, whatever class is in progress, a parent helper can move around, asking individual students about what they are doing, particularly if there is unfinished work or work that needs more attention. Just asking simple questions such as “What were you doing here?” can help a student navigate a problem, perhaps finding that “Ah ha” moment of understanding, Leigh said.

But when helping in class, parents should avoid the temptation to provide students with solutions, Leigh said. Instead, the students should have the space to explore problems for themselves.

“Guide them, don’t show them,” Leigh said. “Lead with questions – don’t just pound out an algorithm and tell them the answer.”

Help can and should extend beyond the classroom, with parents encouraging their children to read to them at home, for example.

“We can’t give them enough reading practice in school every day,” Kass said. “They really need to spend some time at home reading.”

Kids love to be read to, with family book time providing an excellent opportunity to introduce more advanced material, perhaps extending a child’s vocabulary.

And working through some of the more mechanical aspects of learning, such as math facts and Dolch words, can usefully be done at home or in the car, thus freeing up class time for activities where the teacher can add most value to the students’ learning experience.

Another vital aspect of parental involvement in the primary grades is the preparation of materials for use in class.

“We are so lucky in the school that parents come in and do the copying, and do the cutting, and sort the beans, and do a whole range of seemingly minor tasks,” Leigh said. “I would like to know the number of hours we get to spend working with the kids, to do the enrichment projects, that parent help affords us. I know it would be a very big number.”

Parents who’ve only sent their kids to Chugach Optional may not realize just how enriched the school’s curriculum is, thanks to parent help in class preparation, she said.

Perhaps nothing illustrates this aspect of Chugach education more than the rain forest program that the primary teachers organize every couple of years. It’s a huge project where the parents come in and totally transform the room with festoons of paper undergrowth, luxuriant trees and exotic wildlife – the kids become so jazzed and excited about it, Kass commented.

It would not be possible to do this activity without parent help, Leigh said.