As a teacher I find that parents seldom visit the school to find out how their children are doing academically or otherwise. I will find them visiting the school at the end of the term to collect students’ report books. Fifty percent of the time they are busy on these occasions because they have to go to work, visit the grocery or some other errant that they have to do.
As a school we need our parents to be fully involved in their kids’ performance and therefore we need to create avenues to encourage parental involvement. In the article strategies for engaging parents in home support of reading acquisition by Sharon Darling from International Reading Association (2005) she dealt with research that shows where parents and teachers partner together to support their children reading and academic performance and in such partnership students who performed below standard did exhibit demonstrable gains.
As teachers we want our students to strive to be their best. We always need to seek out ways to get our parents involve in students academic performance at school. I see the use of blogs and Wikis as tools which can be use by teachers in helping parents to be active in their children school life without having to make frequent visit to the school. Such web2.0 tools open avenues for parents to receive correspondences from school, projects that students have to do, know when students have home work and other related activities that will help them better understand what is taken place in the classroom.
The only problem with this is that all parties must have internet access and be willing to use it for such purpose.
Lynette, I believe that parental involvement in education cannot be emphasized enough. It must always be remembered that learning is a partnership with the parent, teacher and child. Undoubtedly, parents should be encouraged to get involved in their children’s education via forums like the P.T.A, Open Day or sessions organized to empower them to enhance their children’s educational performance. I also agree that the Web 2.0 technology is an excellent avenue that can be used to keep in touch with parents who sometimes are so busy trying to support their children financially.
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