Component on effective communication with families

Young children’s home learning environment is strongly related to children’s well-being (Bradley & Caldwell, 1980: Bradley et al., 1988; Maccoby, 1992; Dunn, 1993). The aspect of family involvement in the MMSR relates to the families’ role to support young children’s socio-emotional, linguistic, and cognitive development. The kind of parenting that has shown positive associations with these outcomes includes encouragement in exploration, as opposed to highly restrictive parenting, language rich environment, and sustained nurturing (Clarke-Stewart et al., 1979; Pettit et al, 1997).

The MMSR stresses the role of the early childhood teacher in reinforcing these behaviors in the home environment in two ways:

		Implementing family-teacher conference strategies which establish an on-going partnership between the child’s teacher and family.
		Use of WSS® assessment information to analyze and share children’s work, provide a learning profile for each child, and guide families in addressing specific areas and in recognizing the child’s strengths.

Since the conferences require an evaluation of student work and checklist ratings using specific guidelines and rubrics, teachers work with a conference strategies recording form emphasizing six specific steps to plan and implement a successful conference. The focus of this planning process includes ways to ensure that all families attend the conferences and to solicit input from families.

The staff development modules also include the focus of analyzing and sharing assessment information with families. The purpose for this is twofold:

		Families have an opportunity to share and reflect on their insights about their children
		Teachers have an opportunity to solicit families as partners in recognizing areas of strengths and in addressing specific needs of their children.

This partnership is essential during the first year(s) of schooling in prekindergarten or kindergarten to provide for a successful transition to the primary grades. Field experiences indicate that families are looking for such guidance and that teachers benefit from the support of families. In order to facilitate sufficient planning time, local school systems may use a portion of the MMSR Staff Development Grant for teacher planning and substitute costs.