Improving how schools engage families during the crucial 9th-grade year

Researchers Martha Abele Mac Iver, Joyce Epstein, and Steven Sheldon summarize the outcomes of their four-year partnership with an urban district aimed at improving the ways schools engage families during the critical transition to high school. They describe how schools put into practice the strategies learned in ongoing professional development, how family engagement practices changed, and what effects those changes had on students. Particular strategies include the use of an online parent portal and interactive homework assignments about the transition to high school.

A Book, A Bed, A Bag: Interactive Homework for “10”!

Is it possible to make learning the concept of “ten” meaningful? These kindergarten children did it! At morning meetings for several days, the children read, sang, clapped, and dramatized the book There Were Ten in the Bed. Playing with 10 in this way was fascinating. Soon the children requested a favorite classsroom manipulative—an over-night story book bag—for this book. This article describes how the children interacted with, and documented their experiences with, the There Were Ten in the Bed story-book bag in the home setting. In particular, how children explored and expressed their concepts of tenness is delineated.