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Fuga, M. T. (2016). An investigation of the impact of parent and community involvement in middle schools in north carolina that successfully serve latino english language learners (ELLs) (Order No. 10125475). . (1808241703). Retrieved from http://navigator-cup.passhe.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1808241703?accountid=26980

Summary: This article provided an investigation on English Language Learners and the impact of parent involvement. The article viewed immigrant students as “not educated and have poor English language skills.” Meeting the needs of students involve maintaining a very strong connection to the parent and teacher. The main purpose of the study was to research the connection between families and communities of ELL’s.

Evaluation: The communication between the parent and teacher should happen frequently. The parents have the decision in what we teach. It is up to us, as teachers, to decide how we want to teach it. The parents know their students, in some cases, better than the teacher does. Teachers should work with all faculty to help those students.

Reflection: I would recommend this article because it is a good resource to encourage involvement with ELL’s and their parents. This article shows educators and how they can put strategies to use. The strategies provide a bridge that allows teachers to have more time suiting the ELL’s learning needs. ELL parents want us to include time into our instruction. If we utilize learning strategies and keep communication between ELL parents and teacher’s active, then we as teachers can provide a fantastic learning environment.

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Robertson, K. (2015, December 01). Tips for Successful Parent-Teacher Conferences with Bilingual Families. Retrieved November 25, 2018, from http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/tips-successful-parent-teacher-conferences-bilingual-families

This resource discusses tips for teachers to help ease the stress of parent-teacher conferences for bilingual families. It talks about that parent-teacher conferences can be very stressful for bilingual families because they as the parents or guardians may not have very much education themselves and feel uncomfortable in an educational environment. It is important for the teacher to try to make the families aware of what the conference will involve by making personal contact and that attending the conference does not mean their student is in trouble. The teacher must also address any language barriers that there may be during the meeting such as arranging for an interpreter.

I think this resource is helpful for teachers who might not have had to hold parent-teacher conferences with bilingual families before. The resource goes very in-depth about finding an interpreter, training one if necessary, setting up a schedule for interpreters, etc. which is all information I would have not been aware of before reading this article. It also discusses what to do during the conference itself, which as someone who has never completed a parent-teacher conference before, let alone with a bilingual family, this was very informative. I also like that it included to send a thank you note home after the conference as that will keep the relationship between the teacher and family open.

I would recommend this resource to others because parent-teacher conferences can be very stressful for a first time teacher regardless of the situation, let alone having to have a conference with someone who may not speak the same language. I think even veteran teachers could benefit from this article because it gives very detailed steps as to what to do before the conference, during the conference and after. The article may give veteran teachers a refresher or even new ideas that they can do to ease the families’ concerns. I will definitely be using parts of this resource just for information regarding parent-teacher conferences in the future, and would use all the information if I have a bilingual family.

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Nick Valetti-Family Involvement Harper, S. N. (2009, August 18). Parent involvement in early childhood: A comparison of English language learners and English first language families. Retrieved November 26, 2018, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09669760.2010.496162?src=recsysSummary:  This article describes the study that evaluated parents’ communication and their knowledge their children’s abilities in reading and math among parents who spoke English as a first language and those who were English language learners. The article goes on by saying forty two kindergarteners along with their parents and the teachers, also participated with this study. The results were as expected, that parents with children that spoke English as their first language communicated more often with the teachers. This was the first study, as the articles goes on mentioning how further analysis found that the relationship between parents’ involvement or communication, from the parents rating their children’s abilities in math and reading but not predicting their children’s scores. Evaluation: I like this article because it shows data from an actual study of how parents view their children’s abilities in reading and math, depending on whether or not English was their first language. As teachers, we are always looking for data on our students, trying to see if they have comprehended what we have taught, and are making progress. Seeing an article like this is important because you are getting a firsthand view of what parents really think. This helps us as teachers to help find a greater understanding on how something is learned, for example for the article, math. Reflection:  I think this article would be a great resource because we as teachers get an actual study of how parents communicate with their children’s teachers, as well as their child’s abilities in math and reading. I think it really shows not only how most parents view their child’s abilities, but how and if they communicate with their child’s teacher. We as teachers always want to grasp a greater understanding on how our students learn, and how their parents view their learning as well. This article gives us a glimpse of how some parents, regarding their child’s first language was English or not, data on parent involvement with their child in those specific areas of study. I think teachers can use this to further help their own understanding on how all parents communicate and their own involvement with their children in your classroom. 

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Nick Valetti-Family Involvement Harper, S. N. (2009, August 18). Parent involvement in early childhood: A comparison of English language learners and English first language families. Retrieved November 26, 2018, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09669760.2010.496162?src=recsysSummary:  This article describes the study that evaluated parents’ communication and their knowledge their children’s abilities in reading and math among parents who spoke English as a first language and those who were English language learners. The article goes on by saying forty two kindergarteners along with their parents and the teachers, also participated with this study. The results were as expected, that parents with children that spoke English as their first language communicated more often with the teachers. This was the first study, as the articles goes on mentioning how further analysis found that the relationship between parents’ involvement or communication, from the parents rating their children’s abilities in math and reading but not predicting their children’s scores. Evaluation: I like this article because it shows data from an actual study of how parents view their children’s abilities in reading and math, depending on whether or not English was their first language. As teachers, we are always looking for data on our students, trying to see if they have comprehended what we have taught, and are making progress. Seeing an article like this is important because you are getting a firsthand view of what parents really think. This helps us as teachers to help find a greater understanding on how something is learned, for example for the article, math. Reflection:  I think this article would be a great resource because we as teachers get an actual study of how parents communicate with their children’s teachers, as well as their child’s abilities in math and reading. I think it really shows not only how most parents view their child’s abilities, but how and if they communicate with their child’s teacher. We as teachers always want to grasp a greater understanding on how our students learn, and how their parents view their learning as well. This article gives us a glimpse of how some parents, regarding their child’s first language was English or not, data on parent involvement with their child in those specific areas of study. I think teachers can use this to further help their own understanding on how all parents communicate and their own involvement with their children in your classroom. 

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Oussama Alaoui Ismaili- Family Involvement

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Oussama Alaoui Ismaili- Family Involvement

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Breiseth, L., Robertson, K., & Lafond,S. (2011). A guide for Engaging ELL families: Twenty strategies for school leaders. Retrieved from http://www.colorincolorado.org/sites/default/files/Engaging_ELL_Families_FINAL.pdf
This article provides different resources for ELL families to connect with their children’s school environment in order to help in the teaching-learning process. It stresses the idea that both parts; school and family, should collaborate to reach a common objective which is making Ell’s success a priority. In the same vein, the writers try to approach teachers and school personnel from the real situations those parents are living and give ways and suggestions to create a welcoming environment for families such as: Make sure parents know how to get into the building, Post signs in multiple languages and create a parent room (such as a lounge or classroom) with bilingual information and magazine subscriptions, a bulletin board, a lending library, and a computer…

The paper key statement comes as follows:  Imagine the feeling of leaving your child in the hands of people with whom you can't communicate. They don’t use your language. Breiseth, Robertson and Lafond here have used this reflective statement to focus on the idea that school personnel are in a greater position to create a culture of success within their school community. As with ELL students, an important aspect success is family engagement.  It might time consuming for teachers; however it has a good taste when they find what works for their ELL families. The result might be felt as a lottery win.

I chose to recommend this resource because this type of teacher’s professional and human mindset becomes a crucial cultural dynamic aspect in helping families feel comfortable, trust and comprehend that ESL programs are done for their children and not a way for segregation. That it to say, it gives room for some parents to also volunteer depending on their availability,  to coordinates and be an intermediate between school and the family community. As said, change starts from within; it is a big investment to help families integrate in the educational process.

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Engaging ELL Families: 20 Strategies for School Leaders. (2017). All About Adolescent Literacy. Retrieved from http://www.adlit.org/article/42781/

Summary –

Schools who are both experienced and inexperienced with ELL students and their families are lacking the resources and opportunities to offer the best environment for your students. Learning about their culture and traditions and integrating them into the school will create a welcoming environment and help build personal connections with ELL families. It is also extremely important to make information readily available and accessible for everyone. This can ensure that parents remain involved and informed in their students’ school lives. Encouraging parents to get involved in school programs and other roles will create a welcoming environment for ELL students and show them that you care and are making an effort. Whether you have a large or small population, implementing just a few of the strategies from this article can help engage ELL families.

Evaluation –

This article is a good source for educators to be able to make the extra effort to engage the ELL families in their community. The article provides a multitude of strategies that could be integrated in a school district in order to cater to the ELL community in their school. Along with providing specific strategies, the article also offers ideas, ways, and examples of how to implement them which can help educators to actually put these strategies into effect. This source is something that could be shown or taught to all educators and leaders in schools with any amount of ELL students. This article would help spread awareness and understanding of the issues and solutions to the issues that ELL parents face with school involvement.

Reflection –

I would recommend this article to others because it is a good resource to encourage involvement and to show educators how they can put these strategies to use. The lack of involvement from ELL parents only increases the separation between ELL students and students who have English as their native language. This also makes it harder for ELL students to adjust so the strategies provided in this article provide a bridge that allows students to have a nurturing and encouraging learning environment. I would recommend this article to others because I feel that it is essential for strategies like these to be used in schools regardless of their ELL student population. So often we see a lack of diversity and culture in our school districts and this is something that needs to change despite the fact that a school could have 3, 30, or 300 ELL students. Strategies like the ones in this article could help change this and involve the entire community rather than a select few.

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Donnell, J. O. julie. odonnell@csulb. ed., & Kirkner, S. L. . (2014). The Impact of a Collaborative Family Involvement Program on Latino Families and Children’s Educational Performance. School Community Journal, 24(1), 211–234. Retrieved from https://proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=96513399&site=eds-live&scope=site

Summary: This article focuses on the many benefits students have from parental involvement in their schooling. Being “involved” is more than just the in school part, it is also at home as well with helping out with homework and discussing what they’ve learned that day. However, many Hispanic parents are not as involved in schools as much as they should be. This is for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that many parents may not feel that they have the social skills necessary to do such a thing, and with the majority of school faculty speaking English, it can be a very uncomfortable situation for an ELL parent.Teachers must be aware of diverse families in order to make all parents feel comfortable.  The article then begins to explain a study that proved that parental involvement was a factor in increased grades for students.

Evaluation: This article is a great resource for future teachers like myself to read because it highlights the importance of ELL parental involvement and discusses how teachers can help with making all families feel welcomed. It contains a lot of surprising statistics regarding the difference in involvement between ELL families and English speaking families. This article emphasizes some existing barriers between ELL parents and schools and suggests ways to overcome them. Also, the article contains a very interesting study that followed students over a few years and measured their level of parental involvement with their grades and concluded that there is a relationship between them. I would definitely recommend this article to everyone, but especially teachers who may be excluding ELL families without knowing they are doing it. This article contains a mix of emotional details about ELL families and also contains many factual statistics about the real facts.

Reflection: This article was really interesting and touching to me because it made me understand how it feels to be an ELL parent. Most of them want to be involved in their child’s schooling but the many barriers such as language and education level makes it too hard for them. I will keep this article in mind when I have my own classroom and I will work on including every parent to the best of my ability. This article opened my eyes to the challenges that ELL parents face. Something as simple as a parent-teacher conference can be a huge challenge for an ELL parent and many will not even put themselves in those situations because they are afraid or feel useless. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this article and the study included in it.

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The Room 241 Team. (2013). Five Ways to Engage Parents of ELL Students. Retrieved from https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/five-ways-to-engage-parents-of-ell-students/
Summary: This resource talks about the importance of parental involvement in the education for ELLs. It mentions ways and suggestions for educators to better accommodate the family of the ELL. Providing them some of the simple tools listed will increase the families understanding of what their child is doing in class, and therefore increase the likelihood that the student will be able to get help at home and understand the material. The source also provides various links at the bottom of the page to helpful pages about things from tips to teaching ELLs certain skills, to sample lesson plans for ELLs. Overall this resource can provide help to an educator who may be seeking help in increasing the involvement of the ELLs family.

Evaluation: This webpage is a very good source to look at if you are an educator who has an ELL in your classroom. Even if you are not currently worried about the level of involvement of the ELL’s family in their learning it still provides some helpful ideas of things that you can do to help your student and their family out. There are also ideas to help alter your lessons to introduce more of the ELLs culture into their learning. This will help them better understand the material, and get them more active in their learning. 

Reflection: This is a resource that I would recommend to anyone who has an ELL in their classroom. It is a quick read, but provides some helpful ideas to increase the involvement of both the parents and the ELL. Even if you do not have an ELL in your classroom you can take some of these skills and translate them to try and better fit the needs of the native born students. Overall this is a very useful source that can provide an educator with several tools that they would find useful in a day to day classroom environment. 

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Langdon, H. W., & Saenz, T. I. (2016). Working with interpreters to support students who are english language learners. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 1(16), 15–27. Retrieved from https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=8&sid=e4492392-51c8-4a83-9afa-0b6dd038a194%40pdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=127234268&db=ccm

Summary:

Interpreters play a valuable role in the education of ELLs as assistants to both students and parents. An interpreter is involved in any sort of specialized instruction, modifications, and adaptations made for the student.  It is a great responsibility to be an interpreter for ELLs and families because the interpreter is obligated to represent what the ELL and family speaks or writes in true form without additions, substitutions, subtractions, or other alterations to the language. Also, there is great complexity to the work of a translator as they are required to interact with the student by providing language support for unfamiliar or difficult words, delivering instruction as the teacher intends, and participating in the assessment of ELLs. An interpreter must not only learn words in the native language of a student but also how those words create meaning and function; this is the difficulty many people do not recognize for interpreters, as languages can vary based on regional dialect and similarity to other languages. The article also describes the process of how Angela, an ELL with the native language of Vietnamese, is given specific instruction and strategies in partnership with the interpreter, general education teacher, and parents.

Source Evaluation:

I believe this source is very useful in helping teachers recognize the collaborative efforts required between all professionals involved in the learning of an ELL. This article specifically deals more with the function, capabilities, and role of an interpreter for ELLs and ELL families. Included are examples of how an interpreter assists parents by informing them of how their child is educated, how the child is supported and monitored, and clarifies policies for parents. It is also a source that could be referenced by current interpreters and ELL specialists who may have difficulty or are seeking development of their approaches to supporting ELLs. There are real concerns and issues presented in the article that are paired with practical procedures which are evident in ELL education and ELL parent communication today.

Reflection:

This is a source that has helped me to see how valuable it is for interpreters and ELL specialists to provide quality services to ELLs. It is an on-going challenge to offer these services to ELLs that will meet their academic, social, and interpersonal needs, so it is important for specialists to fulfill their requirements with excellence as dependable resources for ELLs. I now recognize the multi-faceted role of an interpreter as a leader for language and communication in places where educational jargon and English are unable to clearly express information. There should always be a clear conveying of what is taking place in the classroom for ELL parents and I want to make sure I embed time and resources into my instruction that can be useful for all parents and students. Since many ELL parents have misconceptions of how their children are educated, I believe it is important for teachers to consider how they can overcome misconceptions and consistently keep parents informed.

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Panferov, S. (2010). Increasing ELL Parental Involvement in Our Schools: Learning From the Parents. Theory Into Practice, 49(2), 106–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841003626551
Retrieved from- https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=cd4e9252-5ba7-4f49-843d-be43e8839080%40sdc-v-sessmgr06
Summary- This article talks about the importance of parental involvement in schools for their children as themselves. It begins by 2 families and parents sharing stories on their personal experiences with being and having their children be ELL students and how they coped in school. They shared their implications in school as well as their successes and how they were able to get the support they needed. The article then goes on to talk more about implications in schools for ELL parents and their effects as well as ways to improve these and create a better wave of parent-school communication. The main idea of this entire article is that parents are an advocate for their children’s schooling and literacy development, so let them have an opportunity to be involved.

Evaluation- This article is a great source to use when looking at and researching ways to get your parents more involved in schools and even in your classroom. Not only does this article provide the reader with typical implications that are seen in schools but also ways they can improves these problems and make it, so a parent can be more involved. The article also gives the reader insight on how parental involvement truly affects families and parents in the short stories. These stories show the reader that these events do happen, and we need to improve our parent-school communication in order to get rid of the problem. This would be a great article to use for teachers who are having difficulty with parent communication or involvement to use or look at.

Reflection- I would use this resource as a source to look at in the time I need advice on how to get parents more involved in my classroom or help improve the communication link between us. This article provides some great strategies at the end that are useful for any teacher, new to teaching or teaching for 30+ years. I could practice some of these strategies for my ELL parents as see which one’s work and which ones may not work. I would also recommend this to others as they might find the article interesting or helpful as well. They could utilize some of the strategies if they are struggling with parental involvement or if they need to know why parental involvement in schools is important.

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Shumow, L. (2009). Promising Practices for Family and Community Involvement During High School. Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing. Retrieved from https://proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=470143&site=eds-live&scope=site

Summary: This article deals with ways that family and the community can influence an ELL students involvement in High School. They encourage that involvement before adolescences be more prominent than after High School. It also discusses how family involvement increases the students achievement along with whether or not they decide to further their education. Along with whether supervised verse unsupervised and in-school verse out of school activities are the best in encouraging the students to participate. It helps the teachers in selecting activities
which will promote the most outcome for their event.

Evaluation: This article stresses that finding ways to involve children especially before adolescence is the best way to increase their involvement overall. It is based off of real life situations and also discusses solutions to those problems. The solutions are backed up with research to help secure the information. This article breaks the text into multiple sections or chapters, making it easier for the reader to find topics or ideas they are looking for. All in all, this article is a great source with research backing it up.

Reflection: I would recommend this article to my peers along with any other teachers. This article lays out the basics of family involvement and explains why its important to have in the community and High School settings. It relies on research and psychology to help back up its claims and uses theory in order to come up with solutions. The article provides solutions to certain issues so it can help with student success in making them better students and assuring they will further their education. Lastly, I feel like teachers struggle with involving their ELL students in with the native English speakers so if the teacher could get together and work on the issues as a whole they could really make a change with their students involvement.

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Arias, M. B., & Morillo-Campbell, M. (2008). Promoting ELL Parental Involvement: Challenges in Contested Times. Online Submission. Online Submission. Retrieved from https://proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED506652&site=eds-live&scope=site

Summary- The resource I chose talks about the challenges that ELL parents face when trying to become informed and involved in their child’s school. Some challenges that ELL parents face are the inability to understand English, the unfamiliarity with the school system, and differences in cultural norms. To increase the communication between teachers and ELL parents, the article suggests initiating home visits by teachers, sending out bilingual newsletters, providing a multilingual telephone homework line, and scheduling monthly meetings at a local community center. By doing this, ELL parent involvement is more likely to increase. It is so imperative for the parental involvement for Ell students because research supports that it increased the student’s achievement, attendance, and reduces the dropout rate.
Evaluation- This resource stresses the importance of promoting the parental involvement in ELL students lives. It talks about effectively engaging ELL parents by using traditional and non-traditional approaches, barriers of ELL parental involvement, and approaches to maximize parental involvement. It evaluates the top 5 barriers that ELL parents face regarding the engagement with schools: school based barriers, lack of English language proficiency, parental educational levels, disjunctures between school culture and home culture, and logistical issues. This article really evaluates the difference between traditional and non-traditional approaches. Traditional models of parental involvement typically suggest for how parents can support their child’s academic achievement within different contexts. Whereas, non-traditional models are based on developing a reciprocal understanding of schools and families. Lastly, the article talks about the importance of supporting families, promoting communication, and advocating for families. This article does a very good job of really evaluating and explaining all of the following topics.

Reflection- The reason I chose to use this article is because it talked about different ways to promote the involvement of ELL parents. I think that it is so important for parents to be involved in their child’s school life. Research proves that by increasing parental involvement, ELL students have a higher achievement and attendance rate, while decreasing the dropout rate. I also thought that the suggestions the article made were very interesting. I never thought about sending out bilingual newsletters. I think this is a great idea. I would definitely recommend this article to others because it is based on research and shows how teachers can directly get involved with parents of ELLs. This resource gives a lot of examples and ideas to increase the involvement. It is a very valuable read that teachers you a lot about parental involvement of ELL students.

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Vera, E. M., Susman Israel, M., Coyle, L., Cross, J., Knight-Lynn, L., Moallem, I., Goldberger, N. (2012). Exploring the Educational Involvement of Parents of English Learners. School Community Journal,22(2), 183-202. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1001618.pdf.

Summary: This article investigates the effect parents have on their child’s schooling, but more specifically English Language Learners (ELLs). It briefs the reader on research that was conducted around 239 parents from 28 different cultural backgrounds of ELL children. This research uses the basis of Epstein’s framework of parental involvement, but challenges some types of involvement based on a parent’s linguistic proficiency and cultural beliefs. This article outlines the procedure and results to five guiding research questions. Overall, the results show that language barriers, lack of knowledge in the U.S. education system, and not wanting to interfere with a teacher doing his/her job are the main reasons for ELL parents not becoming more involved in their child’s schooling. It is also found that monitoring, communicating with their child about school, and reading with their child were the most common ways ELL parents were involved with their child’s schooling. This article outlines the statistics of each guiding question. This research brief shows areas in which parental involvement can be improved, and helps educate teachers on the limitations that exist, so that they can strive to get parents more involved in their child’s education.

Evaluation: This source uses research-based statistics to show why ELL parents are not as involved in their child’s schooling, compared to native English speakers. This article describes the procedure in which the research was conducted, and all of the guiding questions that are being looked into. When talking about the results, it breaks down how each type of statistic was found, and talks about the formulas that were used. It is broken down into several sections, such as abstract, research procedure, and results to make it easy for the reader to follow and understand. Overall, this article is a reliable source of information, and is a good reference for teachers.

Reflection: This source helps teachers understand why ELL parents are not as involved in their child’s education. It mentions struggles that almost every non-native English speaking family struggles with. I chose this resource because it gives strong evidence and statistics to support claims to why family involvement is vital in an ELL student’s schooling. This article suggests ways based on research in which teachers can help parents become more comfortable. This will lead to further student success, inside and outside of school. I would recommend this article to any teacher, so overall they are more comfortable working with ELL students and their families, and understand the struggles they face in getting involved.

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Hughes, R., Reumann-Moore, R., Rowland, J., Lin, J., Philadelphia Education Research Consortium (PERC), & Research for Action. (2016). Working Together to Support English Language Learners: School-Family-Community Engagement. PERC Research Brief. Research for Action. Research for Action. Retrieved from https://proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED571777&site=eds-live&scope=site

This source is a research brief outlining various strategies to get ELL families and the community involved with the school. The research based on the English Language Learners in the Philadelphia K-12 public schools. The brief discusses engagement and uses an engagement framework designed by Joyce Epstein. The authors outline Epstein's framework and apply the information learned in their research to exemplify each strategy. This brief is only the beginning to start the conversation of how to enhance school-family-community relationships in regard to English Language Learners.

This source is research-based strategies on helping ELL parents and families being involved in the school and community. The authors emphasize "engagement." Teachers should be engaged in ELL learning, ELL students should be engaged in their own learning, and ELL parents and families should be engaged in ELL learning. The source describes a school community as encompassing administrators, teachers, students, families, and community members. The research shows that in order to fully meet the needs of ELLs and to ensure that they are achieving. This collaborative engagement should be meaningful and benefits students and the school community in many ways. The source uses an organized structure, Epstein's engagement framework, to outline how schools can engage ELL families.

I would recommend this source to my peers because it is clear, concise, and research-based. It explains what engagement means and why it is important for the whole school community. Many teachers are daunted by the idea of helping ELL families become involved in their child's education due to the many barriers that may arise. This research brief provides strategies to do just that and their rationales. This source gives the what, the how, and the why of ELL family engagement.

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Annotated Bibliography

Chen, C. T., Kyle, D. W., & McIntyre, E. (2008). Helping teachers work effectively with English language learners and their families. School Community Journal, 18(1), 7–20. Retrieved from https://proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=508061288&site=eds-live&scope=site

Throughout the United States, many teachers feel unprepared to work with English Language learners and their families; however, many educators want their students to be successful, so they are turning to professional development programs, such as the Sheltered Instruction and Family Involvement project, or SIFI. The goal of SIFI is to provide teachers with research and evidence that demonstrate the impact that family involvement has on students’ academic achievements. This program looks at the family involvement plans that are already in place, if any, and alters them in order to increase and improve the techniques. There were many obstacles along the way, such as lack of transportation or conflicting schedules with the parents, minimal support from the school district, limited time possessed by teachers, language barriers when translators are not available, and more. Despite these challenges, the experience helped the educators to feel more comfortable collaborating with the ELLs and their parents. Most of those strategies will not only help the ELL students, but all of the students as well. Some strategies included planning language objectives and standards with the lessons and sharing these lesson plans with the family; learning to use families’ backgrounds, cultures, and strengths within the classroom; valuing home visits; building trust and maintaining contact outside of parent-teacher conferences and report cards; positive phone calls; and more. Relationships with family members will help teachers to understand their students better, build a safe as well as engaging learning environment/community, and differentiate the instruction more effectively.

This resource seems reliable because it references data from the U.S. Department of Education as well as the U.S. Census Bureau. This article also includes a lot of research, and it explains the way in which it was conducted with surveys as well as pre-tests and post-tests. The resource also mentioned the SIFI project, and included the research that program uses to express the impact of student achievement as a result of family involvement. It also includes many perspectives, ideas, and concerns from various educators. The resource is broken down into different sections, such as the abstract/introduction, demographics, professional development programs, project emphasis on family involvement, methods and data collection, practices and teachers’ views, changes in perspectives, contacting families, impact on instruction, issues and challenges, overcoming those obstacles, and a conclusion with references.

I chose this resource because it mentions many obstacles and challenges that future teachers are concerned about with regards to ELL family involvement; for that reason, I would recommend this article to others. For instance, some of my classmates mentioned conflicting schedules, and the article addresses ways to overcome that issue, such as sending home a survey in order to determine the most opportune time to host events as well as varying those times in order to accommodate more families. This article includes many more scenarios where teachers learn to overcome the challenges, and I think it is very interesting because it includes a lot of direct quotes from educators in the field, which is beneficial to hear multiple perspectives and viewpoints. This resource addresses ways to increase communication, involvement, and academic success for English Language learners, but these ideas also will positively impact the other students in the classroom, too. This resource would be beneficial for others to read because it highlights various strategies to improve your involvement plans, while also addressing concerns. It is important that educators are confident in their abilities to work with their students’ first teachers: their family.

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Breiseth, L. (2016). Getting to know ELLs’ families. Educational Leadership, 73(5), 46–50. Retrieved from https://proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=voh&AN=112867390&site=eds-live&scope=site

This article describes how important it is for educators to connect with the families of English language learner (ELL) students and build strong relationships with them.  The articles discusses eight ways that teachers can build these relationships with the ELL families.  The teachers can be creative communicators in finding the best manner to communicate, whether with phone, e-mail, or using an interpreter.  Another way teachers can build relationships is by finding ways to meet the parents in a setting they feel most comfortable in.  It is helpful for the teacher to obtain a sense of the students’ home situations because it can help the teacher to get to know their students better. Teachers can also build relationships with parents by sharing student success stories with the parents to keep them involved in the student’s progress in the classroom.

This sources brings light to the misperceptions that ELL parents do not care about their children’s education since they do not participate in school events. It provides evidence of the other factors that contribute to the reason these parents are not actively participating in school events.  It also includes a variety of situations in which the teacher can connect with the parents of ELL students.  The article goes into detail about specific examples for ways the teacher can get to know the ELL’s families.  The article provides several additional resources educators can use to discover more ways to get know the families of ELL students.

This source provides applicable examples any teacher is capable of using in the classroom to engage with the ELL families.  It highlights creative and out-of-the box ideas to use that would make the parents feel most comfortable and accepted in the classroom.  Not only are these techniques useful for teachers to use to communicate with ELL families, but these techniques can be applied for the families of any student.  It also helps educators become aware of the challenges ELL families face and how to best bridge the gap to build the positive relationship with each family.  This source should be recommended to others because of the usefulness and array of strategies discussed.

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Sibley, E. erin. sibley@bc. ed., & Brabeck, K. (2017). Latino Immigrant Students’ School Experiences in the United States: The Importance of Family--School--Community Collaborations. School Community Journal, 27(1), 137–157. Retrieved from https://proxy-calu.klnpa.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=123984618&site=eds-live&scope=site

Summary: This source specifically looks at immigrants of Latino heritage and their adjustments to ESL programs. The article highlights some of the things that cause student disadvantages in immigrant situations such as lack of access to kindergarten and other learning programs. Also, the importance of family involvement and immigration related stressors for families and students.  Parent pre immigration status and characteristics also affect the student and their learning environment. Statistics of immigrant students are briefly discussed such as graduation rates, policies and the impact immigration has on our workforce in the US.

Evaluation: This article evaluates the difficulties immigrant students and their families encounter. The points focus on immigration status of parents and the negative and somewhat positive impact those circumstances have on students. Parent involvement in education is a huge part of success and is discussed thoroughly in this article. Even from an early age students are at a disadvantage in most cases compared to US born students and the care and instruction they receive. This article while lengthy suggest many different perspectives on ELL parents and students based on facts from research. The article also suggest options for increasing involvement and cohesion for students and families and the aspect of ever changing situations for ELL families.

Reflection:

This article was extremely helpful in comprehending the struggles ELL families and students face while transitioning to the US. Specifically the article focuses on school, family, parent  and community relationships for successful  integration into society in many aspects. Often simple tasks are taken for granted like going to the grocery store, this would be a hard task if you could not read or speak in English. The article also had a lot of research based facts and information that the author state will change over the years as immigration rates increase and change schools and communities. Most importantly the article was exceptional in providing ideas and opportunities to involve parents in their students learning, school and community along with themselves.  Overall, this article would be beneficial for educators and community members alike to be able to comprehend the stressors and triggers for ELL students and families in their everyday adaptation to our culture.