Session 5: Communicating with Parents
Sequence of Sessions
PRINCIPALS
This one-day training is designed for principals leading the adoption of CKLA. The training will be focused on building a deeper understanding of CKLA quality
implementation and why this focus (i.e., quality implementation) is critical to supporting student and teacher growth within the program. Time will also be given to
communication around CKLA and tools that are available for supporting outreach efforts around CKLA.
TEACHERS
This one-day training is designed for teachers using CKLA. The training will build teachers’ capacity to take a ‘continuous improvement’ approach to implementation of
CKLA. The focus is on gathering evidence for formative (rather than evaluative) purposes (teachers own learning and learning about students in ways that shape
instruction). Research suggests this mindset, and these protocols, are supportive of schools and classrooms engaging in successful change, such as engaging in a new
curricular adoption.
Overarching Objectives of this February 2014 Network Team Institute:
PRINCIPALS
1. Support principals in understanding the sources of data present in CKLA and how to complement these data with added types of assessments,
depending on the questions that need to be answered regarding student performance.
2. Support principals in understanding the importance of building collaborative conversations around CKLA to support teachers’ own learning within
the curricular adoption.
3. To expose principals to a specific protocol called Looking at Student, which is designed to structure teachers’ collaborative conversations around
their teaching/CKLA and illustrate this protocol as a means of enhancing the quality of their curricular implementation.
4. To support principals in observing curricular implementation and considering quality versus fidelity of implementation within these exemplars.
TEACHERS
1. Support teachers in understanding the sources of data present in CKLA and how to complement these data with added types of assessments,
depending on the questions that need to be answered regarding student performance.
2. Support teachers in understanding, using, and sharing the Looking at Student work protocol as a means to enhance students learning within CKLA
and teachers own knowledge and skill in using the CKLA curricula.
3. To support teachers in understanding, using, and sharing a process for building rubrics within CKLA.
High-Level Purpose of this Session:
PRINCIPALS
Session Description: This session will introduce principals to various resources that have been posted with the intent of understanding these resources as
means of outreach to parents. The focus will be on examining the key messages about CKLA that are critical to convey to begin garnering support (inside
and outside the school). As such the focus will be on key questions that arise and the tools available to support messaging around these ideas. We will
also examine key misconceptions and discuss (and share) strategic ways that principals can, and have, supported learning around these misconceptions.
TEACHERS
Session Description: This session will introduce participants to various resources that have been posted with the intent of understanding these resources
as means of outreach to parents. We will organize these resources around some key questions that administrators and teachers may be encountering
from parents. Time will be given in this session to watch parts of key resources to enhance familiarity and to foster discussion on how to facilitate a
process for proactively sharing this information. Included in the resources that we will examine are sample report cards aligned to CKLA, webinars that
may be useful to parents, and resource we will also consider is the report card. Sample report cards, revised to incorporate a CKLA lens, will be examined
and time for participants to consider.
Related Learning Experiences
This training assumes general prior knowledge about CKLA. For schools, teachers, or administrators who are interested in knowing more about Core
Knowledge, there are prior training modules posted on EngageNY.org that provide this general support (see .
http://www.engageny.org/resource/professional-development-turnkey-kit-ela-p-2-overview for modules of training, on-demand webinars, etc.). It is
recommended that anyone new to Core Knowledge look over the material on the program prior to attending this training.
Key Points

(Not yet written) This session will…
Session Outcomes
What do we want participants to be able to do as a result of this session?
How will we know that they are able to do this?
In this session principals and teachers will:
1. Become familiar with tools and resources that are available to
support communication with families and parents.
In-session activities
Session Overview
Section
Domino Share
The role of parents in
CKLA and the child’s
success
One school’s efforts for
parental involvement
Core Knowledge
resources for working
with parents
Reflection
Additional examples
of year-round parent
involvement
Time
Overview
Prepared Resources
__
This section will allow participants to Session 5: Communicating with
Parents, slides 1 - 2
share key information they already
want to communicate to parents and to
consider overlaps and/or gaps in their Handouts:
initial thinking.
1.
__
This section will prepare
Session 5: Communicating with
participants to consider the
Parents, slide 3
importance of parent involvement
during CKLA implementation.
__
This section will provide participants
with examples from a large parent
event used to engage parents in their
children’s learning.
__
Session 5: Communicating with
This section will provide participants
Parents, slides 10-11
with newly posted tools for parent
involvement and identify helpful
handouts for parent events.
__
This section will allow participants Session 5: Communicating with
to share their ideas and past
Parents, slide 12
experience with parent orientations
relative to the examples provided in Handouts:
this session.
__
This section will provide
participants time to consider
additional examples of parent
events that can occur throughout
the school year.
Session 5: Communicating with
Parents, slides 4 - 9
Session 5: Communicating with
Parents, slides 12 - 25
Facilitator Preparation
Connect, Question, Extend
Participants can discuss what they
have learned, want to try, ask
Session 5: Communicating with
questions about what was missing Parents, slide 26
and reflect on what is important to
take away.
Reflection
Session Roadmap
Section 1: Domino Share
Time: __
[20] In this section, participants will share key information they already want to communicate to parents and consider
overlaps and/or gaps in their initial thinking.
Materials used
(in slides)
Time
Slide #/ Pic of Slide
Slide 1
Script/ Activity directions
GROUP
Slide 2
Key Points:
1. Participants share what they think is the most critical/overarching information they feel
parents should know about CKLA.
2. Participants share what they have already informed parents about CKLA effectively or
information they have not yet been able to convey.
Section 2: The role of parents in CKLA and the child’s success
Time:
[__ minutes] In this section, participants will consider the importance of parent involvement during CKLA implementation.
Materials used
include:
Slide 3
Key Points:
1. Parents are an important support.
2. CKLA can be different and it helps everyone when parents can understand and be
on board.
3. Teachers play a huge role in making this connection.
Section 3: One school’s efforts for parental involvement
Time:
[__ minutes] In this section, you will examine examples from a large parent event used to engage parents in their children’s learning.
Materials used
include:
Slide 4
Key Points:
1. While socioeconomics play a huge role in the challenge of helping students
succeed, having a curriculum to help increase student knowledge is only half the
battle.
2. Educating their parents about how to enhance their child’s learning experience in
the home is the real challenge.
3. This is one schools effort. In the face of that we knew, the effort was
worthwhile.
Slide 5
Key Points:
1. This school documented its commitment to strengthen home-school relationships
by working toward goals listed in their Parent Involvement Policy.
Slide 6
Key Points:
1. As the literacy coach for K-2nd grade, it was important to me to ensure that
Core Knowledge was represented in this and that Core Knowledge had a voice.
My mission was how to interpret these goals and connect them in K-2 for
students and their parents around CKLA. I took the lens of understanding that
parents needed to learn what their children were learning.
2. My priority was to help parents make the shift from leaving the teaching to the
school, where learning ends at 3 0’clock, and empowering them to learn the
skills they would need to extend and reinforce the learning in the home. The
approach was about training parents, providing them with opportunities for
interactive learning. Because Core Knowledge is about the infinite learning on
topics that can happen. I wanted to get the parents excited about that. It was a
huge challenge but a great mission.
Slide 7
Key Points:
1. Holding a Parent Curriculum Conference in September set the tone for a year of
parent communication.
2. The conference provided an opportunity for parents to learn about school policy,
curriculum and programs and meet key school personnel.
3. The forum of meeting as an Core Knowledge K-2 cohort created a sense of
community for students and parents.
Slide 8
Key Points:
1. Meeting in the smaller classroom environment provides parents with an opportunity to
receive attention to their specific needs.
2. Teachers can make a huge impact on student success when they share their
expectations for learning, including attendance and punctuality, with parents.
Slide 9
Key Point:
1. In classroom information sessions, teachers can help parents know exactly how
they will be expected to participate in their child’s learning.
Section 4: Core Knowledge resources for working with parents
[__ minutes] In this section, participants will be reminded of newly posted tools for parent involvement and identify helpful handouts
for parent events.
Slide 10
Key Point:
1. Consider using the Core Knowledge power point “Tools for Working with Parents” as
an effective way to provide parent orientation at the beginning of the year.
Slide 11
Key Point:
1. Displaying how their children will learn to read and how they will be taught to write
and where that shows up in the program, can help assuage any fears that parents
have about their child missing something.
Section 5: Reflection
Time:
[__] In this section, participants will share their ideas and past experience with parent orientations relative to the examples provided
Materials used
include:
in this session.
Slide 12
Key Points:
1. Participants can reflect on what they have heard and what they would like to try for
parent orientation.
Section 6: Additional examples of year-round parental involvement
[__] In this section, participants will consider additional examples of parent events that can occur throughout the school year.
Slide 13
Key Points:
1. Following up the informational V.I.P. night with an interactive instructional workshop
in November, provides parents with an opportunity to learn about and practice the
skills that their students have gained in the first couple of months in school.
2. Here is a combination Skills, Listening and Learning, Library workshop held at the
school.
Slide 14
Key Points:
1. The family Reading Workshop Agenda included interactive Skills activities to help
parents understand the CKLA rationale of a sounds first approach.
2. Parents observed a Listening and Learning Read-Aloud done by a teacher. The
teacher annotated the read-aloud enough to convey how the L & L read-alouds are
used on a daily basis to help children build background knowledge, vocabulary and
listening and speaking skills.
3. The librarian helped parents understand the importance of reading aloud trade
books with their child at home and how that might differ from an L & L read aloud
done in the classroom.
Slide 15
Key Points:
1. We collected feedback sheets to help gauge the parent’s responses to what was
shared in the workshop.
2. Parents were provided with a feedback sheet that included the prompts… I notice…,
I think…, I like…, I learned…, I wonder…, I would like to learn more about…
Slide 16
Key Points:
1. Family Game night held in March proved to be popular with families. The games
were taken from templates found in Skills Pausing point Activities and the
Assessment and Remediation Guide.
2. A make and take activity table provided parents with actual materials to make and
take to use at home to reinforce learning.
Slide 17
Key Points:
1. Templates and instructions for how to play for each of these games can be found in
the Skills Teacher’s Guides under the Pausing Points section and in the Assessment
and Remediation Guides.
Slide 18
Key Points:
1. Templates and instructions for how to play for each of these games can be found
in the Skills Teacher’s Guides under the Pausing Points section and in the
Assessment and Remediation Guides.
Slide 19
Key Points:
1. Templates and instructions for how to play for each of these games can be found
in the Skills Teacher’s Guides under the Pausing Points section and in the
Assessment and Remediation Guides.
Slide 20
Key Point:
1. Templates and instructions for how to play for each of these games can be found
in the Skills Teacher’s Guides under the Pausing Points section and in the
Assessment and Remediation Guides.
Slide 21
Key Points:
1. In April we invited families to enjoy a special “Family Story Night”. Families came
together in the gym in a “campfire like style” fashion.
Slide 22
Key Points:
1. Teachers and administrators read and act out revisited stories from the fiction
Listening and Learning domains from Kindergarten and First Grade.
2. Teachers present interactive Listening and Learning demonstrations, showing readaloud images, demonstrating how questions are asked, how we ask students to
respond in full sentences, how we focus on vocabulary as we read in context.
3. Students turn and talk to their parents about the read aloud heard. Families practice
the classroom student expectations of taking turns speaking, listening and
expressing themselves in full sentences.
4. Parents then practice reading aloud domain related trade books to their children.
Slide 23
Key Points:
1. To bring parents into the school throughout the year, parents are invited to domain
related monthly assemblies.
Slide 24
Key Points:
1. Throughout the year we made an effort to help parents understand exactly what their
child was learning through written communication.
2. We helped to keep communication strong by supplementing official report cards
distributed in November, March and June with progress reports in October, January and
May.
3. The report cards and progress reports were grade specific and included CKLA learning
objectives and goals.
Slide 25
Key Points:
1. Be creative about drawing parents into the school community to keep the focus on
helping children hone their reading skills.
2. So often parents take on the role of speaker and reader. This Listening Nook in Newark,
New Jersey’s Quitman Elementary School helps reverse that role by having adults take
on the role of listener.
Slide 26
Key Points:
1. Debrief: Connect, Question, Extend. What ideas seem most relevant now. How did this
case study on parent outreach compare to the ideas you originally brainstormed? Do
you feel all the major topics were covered? What was missing?
Use the following icons in the script to indicate different learning modes.
Video
Reflect on a prompt
Turnkey Materials Provided
Additional Suggested Resources
Active learning
Turn and talk