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MiFamily: Michigan's Family Engagement Framework

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MiFamily: Michigan's Family Engagement Framework

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National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA) has family toolkits in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese. You can download the full document, or by chapter.

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Chapter One - Enrolling Your Child in School Chapter Two - Attending School in the United States Chapter Three - Other Educational Programs and Services for Your Child Chapter Four - Finding Extracurricular Activities for Your Child Chapter Five - The Health and Safety of Your Child at School Chapter Six - Helping Your Child Be Successful in School
To request the tool kit in an alternate format as a reasonable accommodation, i.e. Braille, large print, CD Rom or audio, please contact Melissa Escalante by phone, 202-987-1745 or email at: Melissa.Escalante@ed.gov.

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Chapter One - Enrolling Your Child in School Chapter Two - Attending School in the United States Chapter Three - Other Educational Programs and Services for Your Child Chapter Four - Finding Extracurricular Activities for Your Child Chapter Five - The Health and Safety of Your Child at School Chapter Six - Helping Your Child Be Successful in School To request the tool kit in an alternate format as a reasonable accommodation, i.e.

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National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA) EL Family Toolkit Tip Sheets in English and Spanish.

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EL Family Toolkit Tip Sheets | NCELA - English Language Acquisition & Language Instruction Educational Programs

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Resources to Strengthen Connections with Families

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Resources to Strengthen Connections with Families

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Resources to strengthen connections with families

Families play a key role in their children's language development and possess a wealth of knowledge about their children's language use in home and community environments. At WIDA, we recognize families as experts in their children's language learning and development. Engaging with families to learn from them about their children's language use and development is at the core of language-focused family engagement.

The resources listed below provide professional learning for early care and education professionals, and K-12 educators, as well as resources and ACCESS assessment materials that educators can share with families.

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Resources to strengthen connections with families Families play a key role in their children's language development and possess a wealth of knowledge about their children's language use in home and community environments. At WIDA, we recognize families as experts in their children's language learning and development.

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Colorin Colorado offers numerous resources for teachers and educators in order to strengthen the school-home partnership with multilingual families. Some resources in Spanish as well.

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In this section we offer numerous resources for teachers and educators in order to strengthen the school-home partnership. From back-to-school night to parent-teacher conferences, we've got lots of ideas to get you started!

For Educators

If you would like some ideas on ways to reach out to the parents of your English language learners, take a look at these resources:

For Parents

For parents who aren't sure how to develop a relationship with their child's teacher, these articles offer some great suggestions:

Recommended Resource from Understood.org

For more great ideas, take a look at the bilingual resources on Working with Your Child's School from Understood.org, a free website focused on learning and attention issues.

Reprints

You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Colorín Colorado and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact info@colorincolorado.org.

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In this section we offer numerous resources for teachers and educators in order to strengthen the school-home partnership. From back-to-school night to parent-teacher conferences, we've got lots of ideas to get you started!

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Collaborating for Success : Parent Engagement Toolkit

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Collaborating for Success : Parent Engagement Toolkit

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OELA Toolkit: Ch. 10 Tools and Resources for Ensuring Meaningful Communication with Multilingual Parents

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OELA Toolkit: Ch. 10 Tools and Resources for Ensuring Meaningful Communication with Multilingual Parents

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The first step in building a partnership with the families of English language learners (ELLs) is to make sure that they feel welcome at their child's school. This resource section includes ideas that all members of the school community can try!

Featured Articles

See More

Blog Posts

Related Video

Books and Booklists

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The first step in building a partnership with the families of English language learners (ELLs) is to make sure that they feel welcome at their child's school. This resource section includes ideas that all members of the school community can try! See More Related Video

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Colorin Colorado: Empowering EL Families at Home

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Colorin Colorado: Empowering EL Families at Home

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All parents can be helpful in their children's literacy development, regardless of their language, education, or literacy level, and can contribute to their children's education in valuable ways.

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All parents can be helpful in their children's literacy development, regardless of their language, education, or literacy level. Parents who speak little or no English can contribute to their children's education in valuable ways. English language learners may benefit when they develop solid literacy skills in their first language before learning to read in a second one. Through Spanish, they are developing key language and literacy skills that may enable them to become excellent readers in English.

What are the important differences between the English and Spanish languages?

There are important differences between English and Spanish. Your awareness of these differences will help you to better teach English to your ELLs. For example:

Spanish-speaking ELLs may have difficulty distinguishing one English sound from another when they listen, speak, read, or write – especially the sounds that don't exist in Spanish. They may have trouble learning the 15 English vowel sounds because Spanish only has five. Beginning ELLs may not hear the difference between cat and cut, call and cold, or tin and ten. They need to hear the vowel distinctions from you before they are able to produce them on their own.

Discover more Spanish-English tips to help your ELL make connections between the two languages.

What if my students' parents speak only Spanish and don't know how to read?

Even if your students' parents cannot read, there are many ways they can develop their children's oral language skills and support their literacy efforts. Here are a few ideas:

Storytelling

In Hispanic families, oral storytelling is often more of a natural activity than reading a bedtime story together. By telling stories, parents are developing their children's vocabulary and oral language skills. Parents can also encourage children to add to stories or make up their own.

"Read" wordless picture books

Wordless picture books tell stories through pictures. This can be a fun way for parents and children to sit down together with books and talk about stories. Children can learn how stories progress, make predictions, and develop a love for books.

Say rhymes and sing songs

Rhymes, songs, and chants can develop oral language skills such as intonation and word stress.

Read more ideas on how to make word play fun:

Make frequent trips to the public library

You might be surprised at how many parents of ELLs do not understand that public libraries in the United States are free and for everyone. Try coordinating an informal "field trip" to your closest public library with parents (and possibly children) early in the school year.

Get ideas on introducing parents of ELLs to the public library, and more!

Engage in meaningful conversation

For oral language development, it is important that parents engage their children in meaningful conversation. Whether at the dinner table or at the grocery store, parents can ask children questions that require more than a simple yes or no answer.

Read more on how to engage your child to help develop oral language (also available in Spanish):

Watch educational children's television programs together

There are a number of wonderful children's television programs that promote English language and literacy development. This can be a great way for both parents and children to learn English together.

Learn more ways television can be used as an educational tool.

What if my students' parents read only in Spanish?

If your ELLs' parents are fully literate in Spanish, there are many ways they can help their children learn to read. First of all, they can do everything in the section above. In addition, they can:

Read books in Spanish

Just as English-speaking parents can read books with their children in English, Spanish-speaking parents can read books with their children in Spanish. If some parents are not accustomed to reading with their children, introduce them to children's books and model different ways they can read together. Visit our families section for more specific suggestions. You can print out Spanish versions of each page and hand them directly to parents.

Read bilingual books

Bilingual books are a great way for ELL students and their parents and family to enjoy books together. In addition, they can both improve their reading skills along the way.

Homework help

If parents do not speak English, they may feel powerless when it comes to helping their children with homework. Let parents know that there are a variety of ways they can help:

Direct help

There are probably many ways that parents can offer direct homework help, whether it's teaching numbers and letters, practicing reading, or helping with projects. Keep parents abreast of your classroom activities and homework, and point out specific ways that they can help out from home.

Keep tabs

Parents can keep in touch with teachers to make sure their children are finishing their homework. They can ask their children if they have any homework and make sure they set aside enough time to do it.

Provide good work space

Let parents know how important it is for children to have a clean, quiet work space to read or do their homework. Even if it is a simple table and chair, children will concentrate better with a defined place to study.

Find a tutor

If parents cannot directly help with homework, encourage them to locate a tutor to help their children and answer any questions. Often times there are volunteer tutoring programs at local elementary schools, high schools, libraries, and after-school programs. An aunt, uncle, neighbor, or older sibling might also be able to help.

Starting a home library

Regardless of their language or literacy level, parents can help their children develop a special collection of books at home. Here are some tips for parents:

Pick a special place in the house

Designate an area so that your child knows where to find his or her books. Buy, make, or clear off an area for a simple bookshelf. Even a board or cardboard box will do.

Find quality books

There are a number of ways to build up your home library. An obvious way is to make frequent trips to the public library. You can also buy books from bookstores and school book fairs. You can often find books for little cost at used book stores, thrift stores, and garage sales. Another way to develop a collection is to encourage family members and friends to give books to your children as presents for birthdays and other occasions.

Learn more about starting your own library:

Multicultural books

Watch children's author and literacy advocate, Pat Mora, discuss how her family stories have enabled many Hispanic children to see themselves reflected in books.

This video is also available on YouTube.

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Empowering ELL Parents & Families at Home

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All parents can be helpful in their children's literacy development, regardless of their language, education, or literacy level. Parents who speak little or no English can contribute to their children's education in valuable ways. English language learners may benefit when they develop solid literacy skills in their first language before learning to read in a second one.

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USDHHS: Gathering and Using Language Information that Families Share

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USDHHS: Gathering and Using Language Information that Families Share

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From U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: How to gather information from the families of DLLs. Includes list of possible questions, what you learn from them, and why it matters.

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Gathering and Using Language Information Families Share

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Guidance from MDE on when to use an interpreter/translator and when to use technology.

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Interpretation and Translation Guidelines from Immigrant Connections

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Interpretation and Translation Guidelines from Immigrant Connections

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OS Guidance: Effective Interpretation Process for ELs and their Families

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OS Guidance: Effective Interpretation Process for ELs and their Families

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Guidance from Oakland Schools, including working with interpreters before, during, and after an MTSS, evaluation, or IEP session.

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The Google Translate extension can be used to translate webpages into any language that Google supports. Make sure that the extension is whitelisted on district devices, and help families use this extension to translate district web pages and for students to understand online resources.

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Communicate with families in their home languages.

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TalkingPoints - Improving student outcomes through meaningful school-family partnerships.

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TalkingPoints - Improving student outcomes through meaningful school-family partnerships.

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National translation and interpretation services.

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Get quality language services solutions with Propio Language Services. Expert translation, interpretation, and localization services.

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This 20-second video (no sound or spoken language--all visual) shows you how to translate documents using Google Docs.

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This video shows you how to to use Microsoft Translator in Microsoft Word.

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This is a chrome extension that can read text in many languages.

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Select any text you want to read and just listen to it!

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Ready DLL is for Head Start and Early Head Start educators who work with multilingual learners. You can learn survival words and key sentences in Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, and Haitian Creole, view resources and videos to learn more about effective teaching practices, and more.

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Download the Ready DLL App Today!

Ready DLL is a mobile application (app) for Head Start and Early Head Start teachers and caregivers who support children who are dual language learners (DLLs). Access resources, learn key words and phrases, and discover implementation strategies from your smartphone. Through Ready DLL, you can:

Get badges by completing weekly classroom-based activities

Support children by learning survival words and key sentences in Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, and Haitian Creole

View resources and videos to learn more about effective teaching practices

Download the App

Select the buttons below to download the Ready DLL Mobile app on your smartphone.

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Ready DLL is a mobile application (app) for Head Start and Early Head Start teachers and caregivers who support children who are dual language learners (DLLs). Access resources, learn key words and phrases, and discover implementation strategies from your smartphone.

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National translation and interpretation services.

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Language Translation and Interpreting Services | LanguageLine Solutions

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LanguageLine is the global leader in interpretation, translation, and localization services. We provide 24/7 language access coverage in 290+ languages.

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Books are written in English or Spanish, but have narration available in multiple languages, including Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, Hmong, and Armenian.

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Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages. Literacy is at the core of a healthy community, so we unite with partners to enable all families to read with their young children.

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Global Storybooks is a free multilingual literacy resource for children and youth worldwide. Read, download, toggle, and listen to a wide variety of illustrated stories from different countries in multiple languages.

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The Global Storybooks Portal is designed specifically for teachers, parents, and community members around the world. It makes 40 selected stories from the African Storybook available in major national, immigrant and refugee languages of individual countries, regions, and groups.

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A fundamental principle of the International Digital Library is that children and their families deserve to have access to the books of their culture, as well as the majority culture, regardless of where they live.

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ICDL - International Children’s Digital Library

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WISD Intake Guidance: Newcomer Family - School Visits

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WISD Intake Guidance: Newcomer Family - School Visits

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Newcomer family intake resource created by Puja Mullins, Newcomer Coordinator at Washtenaw ISD.