Description
Book SynopsisIt has been well established that schools and families must work together to ensure academic and literacy success for all children. Educators understand the importance of creating a learning connection between families and schools. Families provide teachers with increased knowledge of students. Teachers also recognize the importance of building on the learning events occurring in students' homes and communities. However, in practice, partnerships are not easily established. Often teachers are not prepared to effectively reach out to families nor are families and schools prepared to effectively work together. There are many constraints in forming home-school partnerships and the added challenges of creating partnerships with families of children struggling with literacy development are even more difficult. Often teachers and families find themselves on opposite sides, facing similar challenges, looking for a way to connect. Families of children struggling to acquire literacy skills are
Trade ReviewPractical, meaningful, timely, and supportive, Tuten, Jensen and Endrizzi add to their work with Crossing Bridges: Strategies to Collaborate with Families of Struggling Readers. Their book is jam-packed with authentic vignettes to touch one’s heart and mind, with guiding principles to apply in one’s own instructional decision-making, with self-assessments for taking an honest look at one’s strengths and challenges, and with suggestions for expanding one’s professionalism through supplemental readings. Crossing Bridges is a complete package of inspiration and aspiration for any teacher who is dedicated to enriching the literacy lives of all students. -- Deborah Eldridge, Academic Vice President of WGU's Teachers College
This textbook is a gift; one that teachers who work with struggling readers will want to open again and again. The authors provide educators with an indispensable tool for strengthening the home and school connection. Using five important principles of trust, respect, communication, adaptation, and celebration, teachers are presented with a plethora of creative ideas and practicable strategies to inform their literacy instruction. Using surveys, letters, workshop game nights, technology, photography, intergenerational projects, websites, are just a few of the tangibles teachers will be delighted with as they use this book. In this critical and practical textbook, the authors share what they have learned and show teachers how to build a literacy bridge from their classroom to their students’ homes. Thank you for the opportunity to endorse and add my perspective to this book. -- Margaret Maziarz, PhD., educational consultant; former middle school language arts teacher and principal
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Why Cross the Bridge? Chapter 2: Evoking Trust by Initiating Conversations Chapter 3: Re-imagining Collaborative School- Home Events Chapter 4: Developing Respect for Home and Community Literacy Experience Chapter 5: Adapting Curriculum to Include Families’ Ways of Knowing Chapter 6: Celebrating Literacy through Sharing Stories Chapter 7: Using Children’s Literature to Connect Families and Schools Chapter 8: Crossing Bridges: Sustaining Family and School Engagements to Support all Learners Index
