A First Grade Teacher's Guide to Supporting Family Involvement in Foundational Reading Skills

Learning to read begins at home through everyday parent-child interactions, long before children attend school. Parents' continuing support of literacy development throughout elementary school positively affects their children's reading ability. Many recent efforts to motivate parents to be involved in their child's literacy development involve informing parents about how to incorporate literacy development into daily routines, such as labeling food items at the grocery store or conversing while folding laundry. Teacher leadership and communication are critical--the more teachers encourage and assist parents, the more likely parents are to become involved in the education of their children. If teachers encourage and guide parents, parents may prioritize time to work with their child, even though they have many other responsibilities. To assist in helping families support literacy, the Georgia Department of Education partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast to create a suite of grade-specific Teacher's Guides that certified teachers can use with families to encourage and facilitate literacy support for children in the home. This guide serves as a companion to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Educator's Practice Guide "Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade" for teachers and administrators. [For the WWC Practice Guide, see ED566956.]