The involvement of parents in the education of their children is briefly discussed. Discussion focuses on ways to involve parents, ways to reach parents, and difficulties in involving parents. It is asserted that the suggestions offered in this ERIC Digest can help teachers involve parents who might not otherwise be involved. While an individual…

This ERIC Digest offers tips for understanding the needs, concerns, and feelings of employed parents, and discusses ways child caregivers can involve working parents in their children's lives while the children are enrolled in child care facilities. Competition with the caregiver, guilt over leaving children in the care of others, and little time…

This digest informs parents about how to help their child learn mathematics. It discusses what children are learning in mathematics and provides parents with some guidance and World Wide Web resources that can benefit them in assisting their child. Featured topics include setting an example of the usefulness of math, helping children see the math…

Head Start has been successful because it includes comprehensive services, parent involvement and family support, a commitment to meeting local needs, training and technical assistance support, and a collaborative approach. This ERIC Digest briefly describes each of these components. Discussion concludes by noting that Head Start must take more…

The vision of school restructuring seems to be taking shape. New themes and patterns in curriculum, instruction, and assessment have begun to emerge in American schools. A new focus on social issues and practical application opens the doors to more community and parent involvement. Teaching strategies are becoming more congruent with the needs,…

Noting that research has shown that the more extensive the parent involvement, the higher the student achievement, this Digest discusses standards for parent/family involvement and describes online resources that can help parents and educators attain those standards. It discusses existing national standards for family involvement programs and…

This ERIC Digest asserts that parent involvement is critical in facilitating children's development and achievement and in preventing and remedying educational and developmental problems. Topics briefly discussed are benefits to children and to parents of parent involvement, effective approaches to parent involvement, problems in involving…

Young adolescents entering high school look forward to having more choices and making new and more friends; however, they also are concerned about being picked on and teased by older students, having harder work, making lower grades, and getting lost in a larger, unfamiliar school. For middle school students, including those who have been labeled…

Broad changes in social values, as well as the raising of achievement standards by parents and administrators, are pressuring teachers to change curriculum for young children, with the result that children are hurried and hothoused. Early childhood educators are particularly vulnerable to criticism of their work, and this reduces their ability to…

This ERIC digest describes the lives of migrant families, migrant students' education, and migrant parents' involvement in their children's education. Migrant families tend to travel along well-established geographic routes which can be identified as the East Coast Stream, the Mid-Continent Stream, and the Western Stream. In 1986, the average…

Modeled after the pioneering French immersion programs developed in Canada in the 1960s, foreign language immersion programs in the United States are designed to enrich the education of native-English-speaking students by teaching them all of their academic subjects in a second language. The goal is for students to become proficient in the second…

This digest discusses children with reading difficulties and how these children can be helped to read and learn more effectively. The digest offers a definition and discussion of dyslexia, examines instructional conditions that help the reading comprehension of children labeled as learning disabled, offers suggestions for choosing helpful reading…

Children whose parents are involved in their formal education, among other things, have better grades, test scores, and long-term academic achievement than those with disinterested mothers and fathers. Tutoring is probably the best way for parents to participate in public education, but parental attitudes and expectations toward academic…

Initiating an effective and well organized plan for parent involvement in the elementary language arts classroom takes plenty of work--work to achieve it, work and commitment to maintain it. One such program encourages parent participation in the classroom for parents who are able to volunteer their time, but also emphasizes parent participation…

This digest is intended to help parents support young children's literacy learning. It begins with definitions of literacy and then follows with suggestions for parent involvement in children's early literacy development, based on recommendations from the National Reading Panel. It also lists 23 additional resources (organizations, books,…