Forward Thinking Assignment The Teacher-Parent Connection: Bringing Reading Home By: Stacy Anderson

Explanation of the Program My goal for the Teacher-Parent Connection website was to provide a site where parents can receive information and strategies to help their children with reading at home. The website contains research-based reading activities that parents can do with their child. The Teacher-Parent Connection website also allows for parents to get in contact with teachers in regards to reading issues.

Rationale Parental involvement in a child’s education is essential for literacy development (Baker, 2003). The Teacher- Parent Connection website provides the link between educators in the schools and parents at home. It provides a plethora of research-based reading topics that parents can utilize at home. The website contains comprehension strategies, vocabulary activities, lists of quality multicultural books, and other resources for parents and children. The comprehension strategies that were focused on spawned from the four strategies identified by Palinscar and Brown (1984). Through the website, parents can model and help their child develop predicting skills, questioning skills, visualization skills, and summarizing skills. All of these strategies help to improve comprehension of the text. Vocabulary is influential to “comprehension, fluency, and achievement” (Bromley, 2007), yet many children struggle with vocabulary development (Blachowicz, C. L. Z., Fisher, P. J. L., Ogle, D., & Watts-Taffe, S., 2006). It seemed necessary to include vocabulary activities at the website. This makes parents aware that learning vocabulary is difficult and extra exposure is helpful. Some basic vocabulary activities are included that parents can do with their child. Guidelines for choosing quality multicultural literature, as well as lists of certain books, are provided at the site. There are many good multicultural books, but you have to know how to find them. It is important for parents to be able to weed out stereotypical, biased, and culturally inaccurate literature. Overall, the Teacher-Parent Connection site provides a strong resource for parents. It addresses the many reading issues that children face and offers activities to improve them. Parents utilization of this site will bring research-based reading instruction to the home.

Body of Knowledge Click the icon for a flyer explaining the website. This flyer could be given to parents to make them aware of this resource. Now it is time for you to get involved! Visit the Teacher-Parent Connection Website. Click the Internet sign below to begin.

Explore the website and see what it has to offer. How could you contribute to this reading program? After exploring the website, there will be time for questions. Pedagogy

What do you think? On a sheet of notebook paper, tell me what you think about the website. Please, include any comments and/or suggestions. If you would like to participate in this wonderful outreach, please speak with me afterwards or me at:

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