Provide a rationale for your parent involvement model, including an exposition of the theories and research that support the concept that families are young children’s primary teachers, and that family and community involvement are critical to successful early learning.
The role of parents in aiding the development and growth of their children, is immense. Literature supports this notion and the facts are based on assertions that are grounded. The involvement of the parents in the child development has been analysed under three major categories- school based involvement, home based involvement and the parent teacher relationship (Waanders, C., Mendez, J. and Downer, J., 2007). Many parent involvement models have been proposed in order to establish the relationship between the children in their early childhood years and the role of parents in grooming their lives. The involvement of the parents with children is considered effective in terms of yielding positive outcomes. There are many reasons why parents get involved, like to develop a personal construction of the role of the parents in the education of their child, to develop positive sense of efficacy for helping their children progress and succeed in school and lastly, to fulfill the demands of the schools and the education system that ask for their involvement in the process. Numerous education policy statements as well as the practice guidelines have provided notable consensus about the parents being the children’s first and the most enduring educators (OEDC, 2012). The term partnership is used to describe the relationship between parents and the ECEC (Early Childhood education care) professionals. The major principle underlying the working in partnership theory is that there is equal contribution of each of the parties in the growth and development of the children. According to the Dutch context of the educational partnership, four main aims have been specified- pedagogical, democratic, organizational and enabling (Kernan, M., 2012). The pedagogical aims deal with the interaction between the teachers/ listeners and the parents, sharing their knowledge about the child. The democratic aims give the equal right to all the parents to participate and judge the decisions and policies of school and also participate either formally or informally in the decision making process about the aims and the developments of the school. The organizational aims enable the parents to provide practical help to organize and implement the activities in and outside school. Lastly, the enablement aims ensure the involvement of both the parents and the professionals, establishing a mutual relationship that caters to the benefits of the child (Kernan, M., 2012).
The role of parents and families in the learning outcomes of children, has been studied and much research has been conducted to evaluate the impact of parental involvement and their support in the early learning of the children. The major focus of the research has been the cognitive outcomes (literacy and the language) and the social emotional outcomes (attitudes and behaviour). According to Desforges and others, the parental involvement helps in influencing and therefore, shaping the child’s self concept as a learner and through setting high aspirations. Some other researchers have also contributed to the findings and concluded that there are three form of parental capabilities: personal dispositions like warmth, sensitivity and their attitude ; equal and easy access to education services and resources and access to education-related institutions (Lee and Brown, 2006).
The most common form of parental model that is found in literature is the one in which the outcomes can be assumed to be governed by selective factors that are strongly related to parents including the sociodemographic variables or parental attitudes. Certain factors that are related to the school often play a major role and these factors include the status variables and the process variables. However, this traditional or conventional model falls short in one major aspect- why do the parents get involved in the education of their children and secondly, how does this involvement yield positive outcomes?
The major aims of parent involvement model that we wish to develop here are to involve the parents actively in the process of education of their children, to provide activities and various opportunities that will help the parents to become a part of the school, to provide parent education and the parenting growth tips and other relevant opportunities for getting to know about good parenting, to help the parents of al the children understand the progress of the students and also provide them and offer them ways to receive help in their efforts to improve the progress of their child. And lastly to improve the skills of communication both at home and at school.
The expected outcomes of the presented model will be strictly focused on the social, emotional and behavioural aspect of child’s development. The behavioural aspect can be studied by studying the involvement of the parents with the homework of the child and other co curricular or classroom activities. This will aid in the academic progress of the child. Secondly, if the parents will get involved with the early years of development of their child, the emotional stability and the social functioning of the child can be enhanced. By allowing discussion of the behavior of the child both in the classroom as well as at home, the behavioural problems will be discussed and the negative impact of the environment of classroom and the teachers can be significantly reduced.
Schools are a form of communities that have no bridge to the neighbourhood. Families, on the contrary, reside in the neighbourhood. Often there is little connection among the families, the neighbourhood, schools and each other. But since all these entities affect each other in one or the other way, they need to collaborate at some level. This would eventually help in minimizing the problems and maximizing the results. The collaboration between the family and the school does not only mean simply working together but coordinating together.
The basic decisions of the parent’s involvement are generally influenced by the role of the parents and the construction of this role, the sense of efficacy of the parents that is involved in helping the child, the general school based invitations for the involvement of the parents and lastly the general child invitations for the involvement of the parents. Although the major aim of the model is to explore the fact that the involvement of the parents should be encouraged, the intent is to explain the process of involvement and evaluation of its influence according to which the parental and educational practice (Nokali, N., bachman, H. and Drzal, E., 2010).
The parent involvement model comprises of five main levels. The first level of the model deals with the decision of the basic involvement of the parents and this decision is governed by the role construction of the parents, their sense of efficacy in helping the child, the invitations for the involvement by the school and the child invitations for involvement. The second level of the model deals with the parents’ choice of involvement forms and this is influenced by many factors like the skills and knowledge of the parents, other demands on the time and energy of the parents and the specific invitations from the school and the child. The third level of the model deals with the mechanisms that are used for parents’ involvement on child’s school outcomes. There are three major methods that can be used- modeling, instruction and reinforcement. The fourth level of the model describes the tempering or the mediating variables like the parent’s use of the strategies that are developmentally appropriate and the balance between the involvement of the parents and the expectations of the school. The last level of the model deals with the outcomes for the students including the knowledge and skills and self efficacy for the success of school. Another component of the model is the sociological factor that influences the family school interactions and the use of this component to provide a psychological perspective on the parents who participate in the schooling of their children.
The second level of the model accepted that once a choice to end up included had been made, logical variables (e.g., time and vitality, observations of particular welcomes for inclusion from the kid and the tyke’s instructor) affected folks’ decision of inclusion structures. Level 3 of the model recognized systems of parental inclusion’s impact (i.e., demonstrating, fortification, and guideline) on the other hand the particular means by which folks influence kids’ school results. Level 4 guessed that these systems are compelling to the degree that there is a “decency of fit” between the folks’ activities and (1) the youngster’s formative requirements and (2) the school’s desires for inclusion. The model climaxed in a fifth level, understudy results (i.e., abilities and information, sufficiency toward oneself for school achievement). Built thusly, the model was a hypothetical “guide” that associated existing collections of information and made parkways for building new information.
The parental involvement can be of many types. Parenting is one of the kinds. It helps the families to establish and maintain the environment resembling home and therefore help in supporting the children as students. The next type is communicating with the children on school as well home level. This helps the parents in knowing the development of their children and helps them access the academic progress of the child. Volunteering is another type that ensures that the parents participate in the discussions, meetings and other recruitments that involve the talk on their children’s development. Next type is the learning at home type of involvement in which the parents are guided on how to involve themselves with the students/ children at home. This can be done in form of engaging or helping the children with their homework or other co curricular activities or decisions. The next type is the decision making approach for involving the parents. This helps in including the parents and allowing them to participate in the decisions of the school, either by electing or appointing parent leaders or by electing representatives of the same. The last type of involvement is the collaborating with the community type. This type deals with the process of integration of resources and the services from the community that can be used to strengthen the programs by the school, the family practices and the learning and development of the students.
The families that are culturally different and are diverse in their attitude and behaviour, have difference in involvement in the education. For an instance, children of poor farm workers generally face failure of school due to numerous risk factors that hamper their chances of receiving education. Certain factors like educational ideologies, social inequalities, educational structures and the interactions that are interpersonal influence the educational outcomes of the migrant children. The model that is being developed here aims to promote equal and positive outcomes fro the culturally diverse children as well by means of family intervention programs which are based upon the understanding, respect and appreciation for the dynamics, beliefs and values of the diverse families. Some of the strategies that have been incorporated are bilingual community liaisons, transportation, weekend as well as evening activities, provision of care of the child, refreshment for the school based activities, designing of a curriculum that reflects the values, culture, experiences, interests and the concerns of the migrant families, flexibility in the instructional programming, organized and co ordinate second chance opportunities for the training and education (Anderson, K. & Minke, K., 2010).
In order to commit to a high quality early childhood education with the help of involvement of th e parents it is important to strengthen the family approach. It is essential to provide quality care and education through the practices that are developmentally appropriate. For an instance, it is easier to communicate about the difficult issues in the family if the teacher-family relationship is good. The approach of reciprocal relationships is also a well served approach for the same purpose (Patall, E., Cooper, H. and Robinson, J., 2008). During early childhood if the early childhood professionals are able to develop good relationships with the family, they are in better position to understand the positives and the family stress. Eventually, they can offer appropriate information and provide their support more effectively. The development of this reciprocal relationship would mean that the parents are capable of recognizing the signs of abuse and also identifying the situations that may put their children at the risk and consequently aim for providing proper support to their families. The approach also helps the parents in understanding and responding to their children’s challenging behavior and building on the strengths of the families and the children (Olson, M., 2007).
For the parents who actively get involved in the school of their children, there are many benefits along with the benefit of positive student outcome. But parents living under the poverty zone are less likely to participate in the events of the school or in their child’s education. Such parents need to run errands, catch up on their sleep or care for their other small children or even care for the elderly parents (Vesler & Orozco, 2007). Even th upbringing of the parents and the level of education that they have received determines how confident they are in participating in the education and academics of their children. The problem of poverty even affects the children as these children may fail or develop educational delays or not be able to graduate or may have lower marks or aggregate percentages, higher rates of absenteeism or tardiness or even dropping out of the school. Another barrier to this model is the attitude and habits of the parents (Green et al., 2007). Parents who are the victims of drug or alcohol abuse often become the cause of academic failure of their children. Another barrier is the barrier of the language. English, being the base language, is used as the medium of communication in most of the educational institutions. But some parents may not be able to speak fluent English and this hampers their active participation and involvement (Nokali, N., bachman, H. and Drzal, E., 2010). Notwithstanding the dialect hindrance, a few folks’ societies energize them not be ended up excessively included in school what’s more feel to do as such is impolite (Velsor & Orozco, 2007). There may be social issues that clash with clothing regulation limitations. Social issues might likewise keep families from partaking in occasion exercises focused around family values and convictions. Now and again, there may be folks who see the school as a threatening situation and feel that they are victimized by school staff, in this manner staying away from the school (Velsor & Orozco, 2007).
There are various strategies to overcome the communication or language barriers that prevent the successful implementation of this model. The communication system- two way, can be implemented using a home to school and school to home network. The flow of communication can be ensured by keeping the contact of the parents up to date. The regular use of the school and classroom newsletter should be encouraged so as to ensure that information is conveyed to all the parents. Encouragement and setting up of group meetings with the therapists, techers, counsellers, parents, administrators and the teachers should be made. The special visitors can conduct home visits and perform the administration related work whenever necessary. Ofcourse, by implementation of such measure and many more the language barrier can be eliminated from this model, but motivation and encouragement of the parents to actively participate in the developmental framework of their children, should be the major focus of the model (Hornby, G. and Lafaele, R., 2011).
References
Anderson, K. & Minke, K. (2010). Parent Involvement in Education: Toward an Understanding of Parents’ Decision Making. The Journal of Educational Research, 100(5):311-323.
Green, C L., Walker, Joan M., Hoover-Dempsey, K.& Sandler, H. (2007). Parents’ motivations for involvement in children’s education: An empirical test of a theoretical model of parental involvement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3): 532-544.
Hoover-Dempsey, K. and Sandler, H. (2009). Parental involvement in Children’s education: Why does it make a difference? Parental involvement, 311-322.
Hornby, G. and Lafaele, R. (2011). Barriers to parental involvement in education : an explanatory model. Educational review, 63(1): 37-52.
Kernan, M. (2012). Parental involvement in early learning. Internationa Child Development Initiatives (ICDI).
Nokali, N., bachman, H. and Drzal, E. (2010). Parent Involvement and Children’s Academic and Social Development in Elementary School. Child Dev Author manuscript, 81(3):988-1005.
Olson, M. (2007). Strengthening families- Community Strategies that work. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Patall, E., Cooper, H. and Robinson, J. (2008). Parent involvement in homework: A research synthesis, 78(4): 1039-1101.
Waanders, C., Mendez, J. and Downer, J. (2007). Parent characteristics, economic stress and neighborhood context as predictors of parent involvement in preschool children’s education. Journal of School psychology, 45(6): 619-636.
Velsor, P., & Orozco, G. (2007). Involving low-income parents in the schools: Community
centric strategies for school counselors. Professional School Counseling, Jl(1), 17-24.
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