# data[].attributes.body
I support positive reading outside the classroom in a couple different ways. One way that I did it this year was I had a student be in charge of the reading log of the week and he had to tell who read or not for the day. The students did not want him to have to "tell" on them and that influenced them to read! Another way is I love to get brand new books for my kids. I have done Donor's Chose and I often have my kids go to other classroom libraries. I also like to have parents sign the reading logs and have the parents set up home reading incentives.

# data[].attributes.body
One strength that I see in families that come from a low income background is that have a strong sense of community. They are willing to come together in times of happiness and in times of need. One of my favorite days at school is Thursday because we have a free program that brings fruits and vegetables that families in the community can come and pick up. The amount of families that benefit from this service is very large and the students are so grateful.

# data[].attributes.body
Our school participates in accelerated reading (AR). I set quarterly AR goals for my students to achieve for their independent reading. If they reach these goals they can earn various prizes (can of pop, candy bar, extra recess...). Also, each quarter they are AR field trips they can go on if they reach their semester AR goals. These trips are to Navy Pier and a Cubs game. The students get very excited about these and work hard to attend. They can read whatever books they like as long as they are at their reading level. I do my best to keep our classroom library stocked with the newest popular series for the kids to chose from. Many of the parents enjoy chaperoning the two AR field trips, and so they take an active role in ensuring their child meets their goals. I send home weekly updates on our class "Remind" app of where the students are at so parents are aware. Some students (if they obtain permission) read their books with their parents. This program seems to be a successful way our school encourages reading outside of the classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
One strength mentioned in the article for families with low-income was social support. I am proud to say that the school I teach at is very strong at providing this support for our students from low-income households. Last year I had a student of mine "move" back into the district. I phrase it that way because they were homeless and were taken in by the minister and his wife here in town. The parent split up earlier and the kids moved to California to try and start a new life with their dad. His employment opportunity there fell through, and he was struggling to support all four kids by himself. The kids mother suffered from a drug addiction, and they had lost contact with her over the past few months. When people from the community heard what their family was going through, people pooled together to help get them back here. The church helped provide them housing. The school put together clothing/school supply drives to get the kids the things they needed. Parents brought over meals to the family. It was overwhelmingly touching. I had one of the boys in my class and at the end of the year he came back in after the bell rang on the last day and gave me the biggest hug and said "Thank you so much for the clothes and shoes you brought me. And for always treating me the same". He was such a sweet boy. My heart broke for him for the situation he was going through at home, but I am so happy he felt loved and supported at school. I teach at a rural, low-income school district, but the people at the school and in the community have some of the biggest hearts I have ever seen.

# data[].attributes.body
I support positive reading experiences by providing age appropriate reading material at my student's levels every week. I involve parents by having them sign reading logs. Our district has a program that provides our low-income students with brand new books at the end of the school year so they read all summer.

# data[].attributes.body
One strength I have seen with a lot of our families from low-income backgrounds is that they utilize community or school resources to always make sure that their kids are well taken care of. My students always have the necessities even when their parents are really struggling. Personally, to support these families, I have bought food and clothes. My school helps to buy Christmas presents and school supplies. There are a lot of resources that come from churches and different groups to help families in need in the county.

# data[].attributes.body
I try to support positive reading experiences for my students by offering a library in my classroom of a variety of reading materials for the students.  I have a check out system for if they want to take a book home with them that they started reading in class.  Since the books are old, there are quite a few books to choose from, and I am constantly getting books from garage sales for cheap,  if the student forgets to bring it back, or loses it, I don't make them replace it/pay for it. I know many of them don't have the opportunity to go to the library/buy books, but they are all wanting to read and grow stronger in the area, so I want to help them in any way I can.  I also provide online links to free books that they can download on their laptops so that they can  have the books right at their finger tips. For my students who have trouble reading books because their English isn't very strong, I try to always find the audio version of the book online/the book translated in their native language. This way they can have a better understanding of the material and be able to do the activities.

I unfortunately don't do a very good job of involving parents and families in the reading process. I am interested and willing to learn different ways to get parents involved in my future classes.

# data[].attributes.body
One strength of low income families is the support that they provide to each other as a whole.  I know that many of my students who are from low income families are always helping to take care of younger siblings while the parents work, which causes them to not be able to do extra-curricular activities or hang out with their friends. Rarely if ever do I hear my students complain about doing this, because they are happy that they can help their families in whatever way possible. Some of my students who are able to work have after school jobs so they can earn some extra money.  This money is not used for their own personal pleasures, but it goes towards helping support their families and provide the things needed for them to survive.  Once again, these students don't see it as a burden or are resentful, they just see it as a way to help their families.

My school does a few things to help low income families. A common thing that I know almost every school offers is free and reduced lunches. They also help students who can't pay fees for certain school activities. When the weather starts getting colder, one of the guidance counselors has a sign up for those who need coats/hats/gloves and she has coats donated to the kids so they don't freeze outside. Also, we have a program called "Joshua's Tree" I believe that happens around Christmas. The children fill out an information card about their families, and on Christmas day, the organization will drop of christmas presents to their houses.

# data[].attributes.body
Since I teach high school math, I'm going to stretch this question a bit to relate it to math. I frequently hear parents say, I just don't know how to help my child. In order to help with this, I started putting all of my note keys online so parents could access them. This way parents are able to see what we did in class that day and have a model to help their child with. I have had great feedback from parents about this resource. It is also great when a student misses a day and the notes are available to them without much work on my part! As far as supporting outside reading, I will encourage my students to have a book to read during down time (e.g. after a test). I also try to engage with students about books they are reading. The student may not like math, but once I ask them about the book under their desk, they really open up.

# data[].attributes.body
The first article talked a lot about the resilience of families with low income. This is something I see with my students quite frequently. Many of my students are responsible for taking care of a child or multiple children outside of school. When I talk about it with them, they take pride in their family and the support they provide to the family. One thing my school does to meet the needs of students of low income is something called Dragon's Closet. This year was the second year of the program and the students really appreciate it. It has clothes, food, and hygiene items for them that they can get before, during, or after school. The retired teachers from the school help run the closet. In addition, around prom, they collect prom dresses from teacher (so many bridesmaids dresses) and the community, so these students could have a chance to get a dress for prom.

# data[].attributes.body
One way I try and support positive reading experiences for my students outside of my classroom is providing my students with an in-classroom library and helping my students receive a Chicago Public Library Card. Students are always able to check out a book from my classroom to take home with them and I try to help students with the process of going to a public library and checking out a book from them. I think I can continue doing a better job including my students parents in this process. Next year I would like to hold an information session for parents at the start of the school year about all of the great programs that are offered at our public libraries so that parents are able to work with their children outside of school on their reading experiences.

# data[].attributes.body
One strength that I read about in the article that I have had the pleasure to see in my own practices as well is the idea of family. For most if not all of my students, their family is something that is so important to them. My students primarily come from Hispanic cultures and family is very important to them. They grow up with, live with, and interact on a close basis with their immediate and extended family members (parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) My students want to succeed in school because they want to make their families happy and proud. At my school, there are many different programs that are offered to help families of low-income. Many of my students are part of the free and reduced lunch program at school. They are able to receive, breakfast, lunch, and supper through school at no to minimal cost. This is a great program because families don't have to stress on their kids eating throughout the school day. Another program that is offered is scholarships for school fees. Students are able to apply and receive money towards their school fees so that they are able to receive a great education even if they do not have money to pay for all of the different aspects of the school (academics, enrichment, community service, clubs, sports, etc.) There are other programs at my schools for families of low-income but those are just a few.

# data[].attributes.body
I don't think I give my students enough positive reading experiences, unfortunately. I have a difficult time sending books home with my students because of their low executive functioning skills. Since they have intellectual disabilities, their functional and adaptive skills are lower. When I have sent books home with them, they are rarely returned. So I have a hard time doing so because I don't want to lose all of those classroom books and library books. I need to do a better job of printing out books and resources that I could send home for them to read with their parents. Oftentimes, when I send homework, I will have parents initial it which involves them in some way. But this year, I hope to do more shared reading experiences at home to build that positive relationship.

# data[].attributes.body
One strength I read about in this article was the family's resilience in times of struggle, stress, and trials. I can definitely see that in my students who are from lower income families. When a stress comes into their life (bullying, family loss, troubles at home), they will be upset for a bit, but it's very soon after that they are back to their normal selves. I think resilience is an incredible strength, because life throws a lot of curve balls at people, and these kiddos really know how to handle that. As a school, we provide a safe place for those students when they are in our presence. We provide different supports like free/reduced lunch, Christmas gifts off the angel tree, and other similar things.

# data[].attributes.body
I'm going to be entirely honest, I don't believe I do enough to support positive reading experiences outside of school for my students. When I first inherited my job last year, I encountered families that were very distrustful of the school and myself. They had a lot of negative experiences with the teacher before me and thus, I had an uphill battle to fight. I struggled to get parents not to hang up on me the moment I said that I was from their child's school. This year, I feel that my biggest success was simply getting parents to stay on the phone with me and actually talk to me. My most difficult family has finally gotten to the point where I can call to tell them that their child has practice after school and won't be on the bus, and I won't get met with yelling. Trust has taken a long time to build - and rightfully so.
Now that I finally feel like my families are able to trust me and don't feel like I'm judging them all of the time (or ready to call DCFS on them constantly), I feel like I'm at a point where I can start to consider sending things home to help families support their students at home. However, I will have to do this delicately, so that I don't run into families thinking that I'm inadvertently telling them they can't raise their own children. I'm excited to see what everyone else does for their classrooms and see if some of their ideas can't be used in my own classroom!

As for how I involve parents- for the families that have access to the internet, I just recently started using SeeSaw this year. I explain it as basically Facebook for Education. On it, I can post student work and photos. Students can see each others work- and families can only see their own child's work (key for protecting privacy of students with IEPs). This has enabled us to better collaborate with parents. I've had students be sitting in class and learning about a topic, and suddenly they want to make a text-to-home connection. They want to ask their parents a question, we'll immediately type out a question and post it on their wall and parents will get a notification and can reply. It's been fun for students to post their work and within a few minutes, have feedback from their parents. It certainly helps keep parents informed about student progress so things aren't so much of a shock at quarterly update time.

# data[].attributes.body
The one strength that I read about and have truly seen in my own experiences was family cohesion. For all of my students, I've noticed that they are really close with their family- and not just their extended family. My students grow up with their parent(s) as well as their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. They have several adults invested in their lives, which helps a lot because most of my students come from single parent households where mom is working full-time and not home as much. For one of my students, family cohesion was critical for his life. His mother died when he was very young and he was adopted by his aunt. He continues to be raised by "mom" several aunts and grandma. It can get a little confusing on my end trying to keep the family tree straight and make sure I have proper permissions from whoever is in charge at his house, but he has a support group that is solid. My other students have similar supports in their extended families that make involvement in sports, social events, and various activities like field trips possible. Due to the fact that our school isn't the home district for my students and many of them are bussed in from out of town, you can probably imagine having to come before school or stay after school wouldn't be possible for those single-parent households if it weren't for the support of extended family.
To be honest, our school doesn't have many programs in place to support students who are low-income because we just don't have very many. That being said, our entire community of staff and families always comes together to make sure that things get paid for and families are supported. When it comes time to order spirt wear, I often find that a classroom parent has purchased something for my students who are low-income. When I need more breakfast food in my room since my students require breakfast and our school doesn't have a program- teachers often will drop off cereal, snacks, granola bars, juice, etc. whenever they've recently gone to the store. Whenever my students are involved in sports, the athletic director, coaches, and parents often will donate clothing items and new shoes for the students. I do out of pocket a lot of expenses for my students to have what they need to get by in school, but our school community at large is always willing to pitch in and help as well. It's been a huge support and I know our families really appreciate the help.

# data[].attributes.body
I really love shared reading. Whether I'm doing a read aloud to my students or asking them to read to me, I think there are some critical positive exchanges that happen in shared reading like fluency, tone, and decoding ability. I support positive reading experiences outside of school by making sure students always have a book to read for enjoyment whether it be from my classroom library or the IMC since many of my students don't have access to books at home. Involving parents in students' reading at home is something I know is encouraged by our sixth grade teachers, but I don't know that I've ever really involved teachers in student reading at home. I would love to encourage this in parent-teacher conferences this fall!

# data[].attributes.body
One strength of low income families from the article is that they stick together. I think this strength applies to many of my students' families. Since I see mostly Hispanic, low-income students, I do see, like the article mentions, that their families have strong cultural ties and traditions. They celebrate often and have a defined family structure. They have dances, quinceañeras, other birthday parties, and more that I hear about often. I love the culture and feel that my students bring that show me everything their families have passed on to them. I had a group of girls who would come in during lunch and listen to traditional Mexican music and do traditional dances! I loved it. A way my school supports low income families is by providing rides to meetings when they cannot afford it or are not able to drive for other reasons. I think this is a district-wide support, but since our school is out in the country a distance, we are difficult to reach for those families and benefit from this support a lot.

# data[].attributes.headline
Article 1: The resilience and strengths of low-income families

# data[].attributes.subject
Article 1: The resilience and strengths of low-income families

# data[].attributes.body
What is one strength of families with low income? How do you as an educator or your school as a whole support students/families of low income?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Resilience and Strengths of Low-Income Families.pdf

# data[].attributes.headline
Article 2: Teacher and Parent Involvement in Shared-Reading Intervention for Pre-K Children from Low-Income Backgrounds

# data[].attributes.subject
Article 2: Teacher and Parent Involvement in Shared-Reading Intervention for Pre-K Children from Low-Income Backgrounds

# data[].attributes.body
How do you support positive reading experiences for your students outside of your classroom? How do you involve parents?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Realtive Efficacy of Parent and Teacher Involvement in Shared-Reading Intervention for Pre-K Children from Low-Income Backgrounds.pdf