Hello Lit Ladies!
Bean and Dagen Chapter 6
Principals as Literacy Leaders
“The work that principals do, although it has some
direct effect on student achievement, has larger indirect influences through
the ways that their leadership influences teachers.” (104) Although the role of
the principal is more organizational than simply in a school, this role indirectly influences student achievement and
directly influences school and community relationships and individual teacher
instruction. All of these relationships help mold the role of the principal as
an instructional leader.
Responsibilities and roles of the principal include
setting the mission and goals of the school, developing a culture of trust and
collaboration, and actively focusing on instruction. These roles and
responsibilities indirectly influence teacher to teacher relationships and
student achievement.
“James”, in his
assistant principal role, paints a picture of this journey by modeling the
process of principals striving to become more of an instructional literacy
leader. He began by listening to teachers to gain understanding as to what was occurring
at school with the students and staff. He then wanted to set direction for the
staff, therefore developing a mission and goal that the staff would share
together. In order to build support though faculty involvement he decided to
utilize distributed leadership using PLCs and ILTs (instructional leadership
teams). He then focused on managing the instructional program through planning
effective professional development and including experts outside the building.
Finally, James utilized formative and summative observations to show that
teachers continued to strive for shared mission of the school and he used data
to guide instruction and diagnostic data to key in on helping struggling
students. “His effectiveness as a leader, like that of a principal, is
multidimensional. We believe that the most important step he took was to become
aware of what those dimensions are.” (120)
Think about your situation
and discuss:
What does distributed leadership
look like at your school?
How does your principal fit in
with the characteristics of an instructional leader?
How could you, as a reading
specialist, support him/her?
WSQ 16 Working with Parents and
the Community
“Parents don’t care about their children’s education
or lack the ability or knowledge to support their children’s learning.” (216).
I know I personally have stated this time and time again. But as this chapter
points out, “...[Parents] situations, perspectives, and abilities may affect
their capacity to support their children in particular ways.” (217) This
statement helps me focus on the fact that no matter a parent’s background or
situation, they want to see their children succeed in school.
The expectation of parents to be involved in their
child/children’s education is at an all time high due to majority of states
adopting the CCSS in which involved parents are better able to comprehend what
is being taught. However, there is a line between involved and uninvolved
parents. Many uninvolved parents of our nation’s children have cultural,
linguistic, and economic differences. These differences include children of
poverty from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, children of immigrants who may or
may not be undocumented, parents who did not graduate from high school and diverse
home languages. Other challenges include teachers who may not understand or
have misconceptions about the families they serve. Teachers must “explore their
own beliefs and attitudes about non-white and non-middle-class people.” (216).
Administrators and teachers must recognize that
“one-size-fits-all” does not fit all families. Differentiated parenting states
that teachers have to get to know parents and collaborate with them to learn
their individual and family needs. This will be easier to create a plan for
parental appropriateness - a plan for parent involvement that realistically can
be attended to, given the family’s daily routines. Parental self-efficacy is in
which “parents who are capable of reading may lack the requisite knowledge and
experiences to effectively engage in shared reading.” Parents believe they know
how to read, but feel self-conscious because they feel they are not “reading”
the proper way and may feel that they don’t know what teachers practice every day
- appropriate reading materials/levels, modeling how to read, talking with
children as they read, etc. Parents fear they may, “get it wrong.”
Outreach strategies to communicate with parents are
some ways we may already be familiar with such as: encouraging an open door
policy for family to visit at any time, offering a range of times for families
to attend school functions, including parents’ home language on material that
goes home, and developing a school Family Resource Center. Funds of knowledge
is the school taking effective outreach to the next level. This is done by
positioning parents as rich and valuable resources. Ways to achieve this
outreach would be by making home visits and talking with parents and children
about family routines and events outside of school.
Finally, home-school collaboration includes connecting
parents to services that may be before or after school. Such services may be
that the school offers before and/or after school care, which could include
tutoring. External agencies that schools could refer parents to for continued
home-school support could be community stakeholders such as the local library
or the YMCA.
In this chapter, I have
highlighted in bold print, some terms to discuss/compare in your blog
discussions: differentiated
parenting, parental appropriateness, funds of knowledge, parental
self-efficacy, parental involvement, outreach, external agencies. What do some
of these look like at your school?
Please look at the reflection
questions in WSQ page 221 and Bean page 257 for those that have each chapter
and choose one that strikes a chord with you that we can discuss in our blog on
Thursday. Any questions, 1-3, would make good questions to discuss as you share
what your chapter says.
Also, be sure to make
connections across the chapters. Happy Blogging!
Response to Bean and Dagen: Chap 6
ReplyDeleteWhat does distributed leadership look like at your school?
How does your principal fit in with the characteristics of an instructional leader?
How could you, as a reading specialist, support him/her?
My school principal is new this year. In previous years our superintendent also served in the principals role. Due to this movement the instructional leadership has been left, in large part, to the senior teachers and subject area leaders within the school. Developmental opportunities are limited to workshops lead outside the school building and are the responsibility of the teachers to organize a group to attend.
The above-mentioned issues lead me to believe that our principal is not yet exhibiting the characteristics of an instructional leader. The teachers are working very hard together to develop a plan for instructional improvement (or continued improvement) and are never really addressed by the principal at all. So far, things are running smoothly but I do wonder, as teachers are more often leaving the profession, if this approach will be sustainable.
I really feel a reading specialist would help our principal become more involved as an instructional leader by making suggestions on school missions based on current student data. This would also aid in setting high expectations and maximize student learning and growth. Also, a specialist would help to encourage meaningful professional development opportunities.
In response to WSQ: Chap 16
In this chapter, I have highlighted in bold print, some terms to discuss/compare in your blog discussions: differentiated parenting, parental appropriateness, funds of knowledge, parental self-efficacy, parental involvement, outreach, and external agencies. What do some of these look like at your school?
Differentiated parenting shows up on many ways at our school. For one, not all of our families have Internet access from home or even computers. Teachers and parents often come together and determine what kids of acceptations to assignments or what alternative measures need to be taken at school to ensure the student is not missing out on any instruction or communications. This constant communication between parents and teachers helps determine what is appropriate to expect from parents as far as their ability to support their child’s continued learning at home. Sometimes, parents have all the physical tools they need but fear to help their children with schoolwork for the fear they are “teaching them wrong.” For this, and the other parent struggles we have year round tutoring, free of charge for the families. One thing that I think my school fails to utilize is the external agencies. I know that there are many programs in the library and throughout the community that support student learning and volunteers that they utilize for tutoring, but I am not sure my school does a great job at exposing parents to those options or guiding them on how to take advantage of community support.
I believe our schools are similar in regards to differentiated parenting! Our parents worry about teaching the wrong as well. Our families don't always have technology either. I try to send home paper things like books and notes due to this. I wonder how we can advertise more about the external agencies because my school doesn't do much with those either. Those external agencies can be so helpful for families!
DeletePaige I completely agree with what you said about parents fearing that they are teaching them wrong. I remember when I was in school, my dad would always ask me to bring home my books so that he could see how I was being taught in class. He didn't want to teach me a different way, because he wanted me to be able to understand what was going on in class. A lot of parents have these same fears. For the parents in my class, I try to provide them with the tools, and explain them at conferences so that they can feel prepared to use them. I also explain that I am always available for questions about those things, so that they don't feel "dumb" for asking. School is much different than when I was going to school, and when they were going to school so it's important to make them feel comfortable.
DeletePaige,
DeleteI agree with your statement about your school not utilizing external agencies. We do have external agencies such as PAL(office duty police officers who volunteer with athletics) and Prairie Dance Theatre (an in school dance program). Both which do help to improve academics. But I would like to partner with agencies that could help our students academically. We did offer after school tutoring but it depends on if teachers sign up to be tutors. The last few years have resulted in low teacher sign up therefore only a few grades were offered tutoring.
How do you guys feel about schools that have laptops for every child? Do you think this is a solution to the problem? While reading these chapters, I was thinking a lot about how Norman schools and wondering if they have similar issues with parental efficacy. I wish our school had the means to support such a program! on the other hand, if the students need help with technology that might even create more self-doubt in these parents who are (like me) behind the learning curve.
DeleteBean Chap 6: School, Community, and Family Partnership
ReplyDeleteBean begins this chapter with an important African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
Early learning is often the job of the parent. Children who are born into language rich environments are more likely to succeed at school than those who are not so exposed; exposure to stories, conversations, interaction with texts, etc. Parents who are involved, invested, and able to contribute in their child’s success obtain higher test scores, have better attendance rates, and are more likely to complete and continue their schooling. Head-start programs can aid in ensuring children get off on the right foot in their learning journey. These programs work together with elementary schools in order to prepare their little children for the standards they will be held to as they enter kindergarten. Additionally, head-start programs work together with local elementary schools and join in on professional developments along side the general education classroom teachers. This eases the child’s transition into school and creates a guide by which the early childhood teachers can align with.
Other important partners in children’s educational journey include librarians and community/faith based supporters. Librarians are very helpful in finding the appropriate and motivational reading materials for any child. Often, they also are aware of tutoring opportunities and various activities that children and parents can attend to support learning outside of the school building. Similarly, community and faith based organizations can help tutor students and prepare supplemental reading material.
Reflection Question:
Why would some parents feel uncomfortable about meeting with a teacher? How could this discomfort be alleviated?
I know a lot of parents at my school feel very uncomfortable about meeting with teachers. They feel inadequate more many reasons. Many of them cannot read, are drug addicts, or had a bad school experience themselves. All of those lead to them not wanting to be at their child's school. To alleviate that I try to get to know them on a personal level and establish a good connection. If I am really nice and talkative with them I find that they are more willing to come in and talk. Getting to know them on a personal level has helped a lot. They trust me more and feel much more comfortable.
DeleteI agree with Bre! I think that parents feel that they are going to be judged for their appearance, parenting style, academic level, etc, so they steer clear of school. I definitely try to show parents that I'm very open and am there with the best interest of their child in mind, and am not trying to judge them in anyway. I think that their fear is something they are only going to get over when you are inviting and nurturing to their child, because then they know that you are on the same page together.
DeleteI feel parents would be uncomfortable meeting teachers for several reasons. Maybe the parents themselves did not have positive relationships/experiences with their own teachers growing up. Maybe parents did not positive relationships/experiences with their child's previous teacher(s). Maybe the parents were only contacted by the teacher(s) for behavior issues. In this day and age in which technology is easily accessible, technology can also at times seem impersonal. As a teacher I am guilty for avoiding face-to-face conversations with some of my parents at times. However, face-to-face or a simple phone call versus an email, a paper, or text could help ease the uncomfortableness of parents. Our principal always reminds us at the beginning of the year that positive phone calls home now will come in handy with not so positive phone calls later down the road.
DeleteI can always tell when a parent is nervous or uncomfortable coming into the classroom. I can completely relate to this feeling and I am a teacher! I suspect parents feel this way for a number of reasons. They are worried that their child's behavior and perceived intelligence level is a reflection of the home they are being raised in. Also, many parents who are nervous to come to the classroom have negative memories of their own educational experience. They may feel completely helpless to help their child with homework that is required. The list goes on and on. However, I try to alleviate parents nerves by contacting the parents before back to school night to tell them how excited I am their child is in my classroom. I definitely limit homework that might require parents strive to recall their learning (we stick to reading minutes only for homework). Additionally, I make it a point to send out positive messages about their child as often as possible. It is much easier to visit with the teacher when you know they are seeing the value in your precious baby.
DeleteResponse to B&D Chapter 6:
ReplyDeleteIn terms of distributed leadership, I feel as if my principal might take on too much on her own. Luckily, this year, we have gotten full time assistant principal that has been able to share some of the workload with her. Now, from my viewpoint, it seems as if the job responsibilities are shared, but my principal still plays a part in everything that happens at our school. My principal does a great job at focusing on instruction, while also allowing us to address the emotional issues that affect a lot of our students. She makes teachers feel that their voice can be heard, and they can trust her. Much like James, she takes time to participate in our PLCs, so that she can be a part of what is going on instructionally throughout the school. She, along with our assistance principal, observes each of us in a formal and informal way. They do walkthroughs, and also schedule formal observations. In terms of how I, as a reading specialist, could help her, I think the best way would be to take more of an active role in creating and finding professional development opportunities for teachers in reading. Our current reading specialist is great, but sometimes she doesn’t take the most active role in helping teachers, unless they specifically ask her.
Response for WSQ Chapter 16:
Differentiated parenting is apparent throughout our school. We serve a very diverse population, with the majority of our students being of a lower socioeconomic status. Because of this, teachers throughout the school find accommodations for students in order to meet their needs at home and at school. For instance, some parents need things in paper form because they do not have access to a computer at home. Other parents speak little to no English and need their papers translated for them. I try to always make sure that I am giving my parents as many tools as possible whenever I am giving them a way to help their child at home. Through different applications on my phone, I am able to communicate with parents throughout the day, in both English and Spanish. The app allows for translation, which I use often for some of my parents. In terms of external agencies, we have some resources to give our parents, but many do not ask for them or know we have them. They are not the most accessible resources, and many teachers are unaware of them.
Kaitlyn, what app is that where you can translate what you say to parents!? That sounds amazing! :)
DeleteIt's actually just in the Remind app! There's a place to select for it to translate directly in the app. The only downfall for me is that you can't translate back to English once they respond because I obviously do not understand what they are saying most of the time. It's beneficial though because these parents really want to learn and know what's going on in school, so I try to find ways to include them in whatever possible.
DeleteKaitlyn,
DeleteMy principal is a "hands-on" person. She has her hands on everything that happens at my school! We have a low population of students so an assistant principal would never be an option. However, I feel as a reading specialist, she would allow me to take on more of that role to release her to focus on all of the other "hats" she wears. She would still be involved, but literacy leadership would definitely become a shared responsibility in which she wouldn't mind sharing. She is present at all of our PLCs and develops our in school PD sessions. But a reading specialist would benefit her in having someone who is able to constantly focus on all aspects of reading.
That sounds like a perfect addition to her team! Obviously it would relinquish her responsibility to the things associated with reading, but she wouldn't be have to remove herself entirely. She would be comfortable knowing that it was in your hands, and that she could be inserted whenever necessary. I think that's what my reading specialist should be doing, but I feel as though the years my principal was an instructional coach really keep her from totally removing herself from things like that.
DeleteMichelle,
DeleteIt's sounds like we have much different principals, but the solution to many of our problems is the same. Our administration is almost completely hands off (almost to a point of frustration for the teachers).There really is no planned academic professional development. All of the growth opportunities are completed on our own time outside of our school setting. It would really benefit our teachers, and ultimately our students, if we had a reading specialist to guide some professional development and develop a path, or school mission, geared toward academic growth and success.
B&D Chapter 16 - Developing Effective Home-School Literacy Partnerships
ReplyDeleteSo much evidence supporting how a strong and positive between parent involvement and school makes a child more successful in their academic career - even higher test scores, higher motiviation, higher rate of graduation, and higher college grades.
So many people say no matter how hard they try to get parents to help or come to school they can’t get any cooperation.
They might not come because of other reasons, not because they don’t want to.
Some parents had a bad experience in their school career that makes them not want to. They might be afraid they will teach their child the wrong way because they don’t think they have the right skills.
“Successful parent involvement is grounded in deep understanding of three fundamental factors: (1) a match between parental role construction and the task teachers as or expect parents to perform… (2) parents’ beliefs in their ability to effective support their children (self-efficacy) and (3) the match between the forms of involvement expected of parents… and parents’ available or accessible resources” (Bean and Dagen 322-3).
Parental role construction: refers to the parents’ beliefs about if they need to be involved in their child’s education.
Parental self-efficacy: the parents’ beliefs if they can successfully help their child with their school work correctly or not.
It has been found that the parents’ aspirations and expectations they have of their child’s educational success has a strong relation with academic achievement.
There is evidence between the choice of parental involvement and their SES.
Low SES parents are typically less involved due to time, money, and lack of resources to help their child. The opposite is true for higher SES parents.
Question:
What are the obstacles to family involvement in your school? What are some ways you might try to overcome those obstacles?
A lot of the obstacles to family involvement in my school stem from the fact that most of the parents at our school work nights or do not speak English. For parents that work nights, or work days, we try to have activities occur at different times. We offer parent teacher conferences after school, and in the morning so that more parents can attend. We also offer things before school that parents can come to, as well as some things after school. I think that our school could do more to combat these problems, but scheduling around parents' work schedules can be difficult. In terms of language barriers, I think that the most beneficial resource we have at our school is two ELL teachers who come to most events. This helps us with those parents that do not speak English, whenever they come. They often do not, and it comes from not knowing about the event and fearing that they will not be able to communicate with people there. In order to inform them about the event, we could simply provide all of our papers in Spanish for those families so that we could appeal to more of them. Some parents can speak English, but cannot read it.
DeleteBre,
DeleteI feel there are several obstacles to family involvement at my school. We have barely had a PTA in years. Even the years we had some PTA members it was because of our faithful few parents who went above and beyond to be engaged in their child's schooling. I really don't have ideas for how to combat this. Teachers are also members of the PTA but because there are few teachers who live close to school or have outside obligations, few stay for the meeting. We have weekly Fantastic Friday programs in which a class in performing. Every class from Kindergarten to 6th perform at least twice a year. (PreK performs in May). but this too has low parent attendance. Fantastic Friday is held every Friday morning from 8:30 to 9am. Maybe we could offer a Fantastic Monday program in which the class who performs on Friday, could perform on Monday afternoon to give parents an opportunity to see it who missed it due to work. We have noticed success with our read and treat night. We have conferences on a Thursday evening after school and the following Friday morning to accommodate the work hours of parents. I feel it truly boils down to the relationships formed between the school and the families to get parents involved.
Some obstacles we experience in our school with regard to parental involvement are the LONG hours the parents work. This shows up in two ways at my school. Either the parents are business men and women who focus much of their day, night, and weekend on their career. Therefor, children really given many resources but are left to fend for themselves the majority of their home time. Additionally, they are having to spend the weekday mornings and evenings in our before/aftercare programs. OR Our parents are very poor, live in the country where internet use is sketchy at best. Many of our children in district do not have a computer at all let alone internet access. Again, these parents work very long hours in an effort to make ends meet. These children are also in our schools before/aftercare program for many hours a day.
DeleteResponse to B&D Chapter 6
ReplyDeleteDistributed leadership at my school is very interesting because of the size of my school! We have one principal who oversees everything. We then have one assistant principal that deals with mostly discipline. We used to have a second assistant principal since my school has over 900 kids but she was cut due to funding. Since that happened my principal uses our Title 1 coach as another assistant principal to help. My principal fits the characteristics of an instructional leader because she is a good role model for her teachers, she has set the tone of what she expects the school to be, and fosters a culture of collaboration. We do a lot of PLC’s at my school! I could support her as a reading specialist by going into the classrooms, observing, and letting her know what I see. I can help her by helping teachers implement different things in the classroom that she wants to see.
Response to WSQ 16
At my school most parents have a low self efficacy when it comes to helping their child. We find that a lot of times the parents either had a really bad school career when they were younger or they can’t read themselves so they don’t want to teach their child the wrong way. They want better for them. We also find that there is a lot of different styles of parenting. There are some parents who are always in the classroom and ready to go. Then there are some who are more hands off. It just depends! Both chapters (B&D 16 and WSQ) touch on parental involvement! I believe it’s like differentiated parenting. SES affect both a lot and it comes in many different forms. They both can vary.
Parental involvement is key to students’ success. This is something many of us, and is the focus of this chapter. Parental involvement has been proven to improve behavior, test scores, and attendance, among other things. Bean cites Epstein’s work in identifying six different types of parental involvement: parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community. These six principles can help us help parents, but Bean cautions us to focus on what students bring to the classroom rather than on what they do not. Bean discusses five different agencies that reading specialists can work with: preschool providers, libraries, community and faith-based organizations, universities and colleges, and volunteers and paraprofessionals in the schools.
ReplyDeletePreschools can work with schools to identify what is being expected of kindergarteners, and can also attend professional developments with their teachers. This reciprocal relationship makes it easier for students to transition, because they can be prepared for what to expect. Reading specialists are the ones who can form that relationship and bridge the gap between preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers. Librarians and reading specialists can work together to create meaningful lessons that address the standards and themes that teachers are working on. Reading specialists can also work to collaborate with local libraries in order to establish reading programs, both during the school year and summer. Reading specialists can work with community and faith-based organizations in order to help them develop tutoring programs before school, after school, or over the summer. They can help these tutors know what needs to be addressed, and what help students are already receiving in school. They can also provide materials that align with curriculum used in the school in order to support the tutor. Communities that are near universities and colleges can reap the benefits of a mutually beneficial relationship. Students in looking to enter the field of education can use the schools in order to learn from teachers, and the schools can use students to tutor and work with their struggling readers. It allows students to fulfill requirements while also helping the school improve students’ reading. Reading specialists can also coordinate volunteers and paraprofessionals that are interested in helping students in their school. They are responsible for training them, scheduling them, and monitoring them, as well as the progress of the students they are working with.
Reading specialists also have the responsibility of working with families directly. This requires them to be knowledgeable about all of the families and a little about their background. They often explain the expectations for academics and behavior that the school has. They create an environment that welcomes families and makes them feel comfortable coming to the school.
Response:
2. What activities and programs does your local library offer that enhance reading performance of students in the school? How could your school partner with the local library?
Our school provides weekly library readings for each grade level. During their library rotation, they are presented with a lesson focused on some element of research, read a story (or an excerpt for the older children to strike their interest) and time to check out a book.
ReplyDeleteThe Norman Library comes each year to pump up the summer reading challenge. I wish this sort of assembly would happen more than once each year. The children love it, and they really do feel motivated to go to the library more after the celebration. Also, it might be fun if they came to our school library to teach something new and exciting...maybe support us while we are trying to prepare resources of an report! :)
Thanks, ladies, for your thoughtful responses to each other and your sharing of ideas.
ReplyDelete