LINCOLN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Parent Presentation Paul Martin

PARTNERSHIPS  Creating a positive environment by using the correct parenting style and establishing good relationships within the child’s meso system will promote positive development. “A child’s academic progress depends not just on activities that take place in classrooms but also on parent involvement in school life and on the extent to which academic learning is carried over into the home(Berk, 2013).

MIDDLE CHILDHOOD  Physical developmental milestones:  ▪ improved motor skills enables participation in organized sports  ▪ Onset of puberty (girls 10-11) (boys 11-12)  Language developmental milestones:  ▪ understands the meaning of about 10,000 words (6-10 years-old)  ▪ comprehends over 40,000 words, including many abstract terms  Cognitive developmental milestones:  ▪ Ability to use multiple strategies at once increases (6-10 years of age) concrete operational  ▪ encoding, in the form of attention, becomes more thorough and better adapted to task demands (Berk, 2013).  Warning sign of atypical development:  ▪ Increased body fat percentage (obesity)  ▪ limited self-regulation

MICRO/MESO SYSTEM “The innermost level of the environment, the microsystem, consists of activities and interaction patterns in the child’s immediate surroundings”(Berk, 2013). The mesosytem, encompasses connections between microsystems, such as home, school, neighborhood, and childcare center.

MICRO/MESO SYSTEM  All relationships are bidirectional within a microsystem. Therefore, parenting styles will affect your child’s development.  Connections that occur within your child’s mesosystem can be beneficial or harmful.  Example: Juan is a first grade student who is learning to speak English as a second language. Although Juan’s parents speak very little English themselves, they participate in all school activities that promote language development and literacy. Juan’s parents also meet face to face with his teacher daily to get feedback. Juan has a friend (Miguel) that speaks English fluently. Juan and Miguel spend time playing together after school.  In my opinion, Juan will continue to learn English and become fluent because of his strong micro/meso systems.

THE PROFESSIONAL.  It is the responsibility of those of us whom you trust with your child to involve you with his/her learning.  How will we go about getting parents involved?  The answer is -  Epstein’s 6 Types of Involvement  1. parenting  2. communicating  3. volunteering  4. learning at home 5. decision making 6. collaborating with community

PARENTING  Parents are the most important influence in child development. Therefore, having good parenting skills and providing a supportive environment is key to your students learning.  Our job: help families establish home environments to support student learning.  More than half of all the students at Lincoln Elementary are second language learners. Therefore, I suggest that we offer parent training courses in English three evenings per week. This idea will not only enable our parents to provide home assistance to their student, it will strengthen the home/school relationship between both parties that are very important to the students meso system.

PARENTAL SUPPORT = STUDENT SUCCESS

COMMUNICATING  Effective communication between home to school and school to home is also very important. Some of the benefits of effective communication includes: the student being informed of his/her progress, clear understanding of student/parent/teacher responsibities and expectations and “increased ability of teachers to elicit and understand family views on children’s programs and progress”(unicef.org).  One suggestion to improve communication between home and school at Lincoln Elementary is to employ language tranlators to assist our second language learners.

VOLUNTEERING  Allowing parent volunteers is a great way to promote parental involvement and participation.  One suggestion to improve and sustain the number of parent volunteers at Lincoln is to create a parent room or family center for volunteer work. Creating a family center will encourage more participation because it will provide a less restrictive environment for the parents and students. Parents would probably feel more comfortable in this setting.

- JOIN THE COUGAR CLUB – PROUD PARENT VOLUNTEERS

LEARNING AT HOME  We can make learning at home much easier by establishing routines and providing the necessary information to the parents.  Provide calendars with updated scheduled curriculum so that parents can monitor and discuss school work at home.  Provide summer learning packets so that parents and students stay engaged in learning throughout the summer break.

DECISION MAKING  Encourage PTA participation and support any other parent group that may have positive affects on student learning  Enforce an open door policy and install a suggestion box outside of the main office. All suggestion should be read and discussed at PTA meetings

COLLABORATING WITH COMMUNITY  Provide information to families in regard to supportive services that are available in the area.  Provide information to families to inform them of community activities.

CONCLUSION  In conclusion, I am confident that the combination of utilizing correct parenting styles in addition to parental involvement will have positive effects on student learning. Creating a positive environment by using the correct parenting style and establishing good relationships within the child’s meso system will promote positive development.

REFERENCES  Berk, L.E., (2013). Child development. (9 th Ed.).  Epstein’s Framework of Six Types of Involvement. retrieved from Types_of_Involvement(2).pdf Types_of_Involvement(2).pdf