Parent Support for At Home Reading & Back To School Parent Input Form

It is so helpful to parents when we, as teachers, provide strategies and tips for working with their readers at home! Parent input at Back to School time can be so helpful, too! I'm a big fan of parent communication and love doing what I can to help set parents up for success. This post contains two  parent letters - one for Reading at Home and one for Parent Input during Back to School or when you have new students.

This letter supports parents in reading at home with their children. I print it out and send it home in my first graders, Read at Home poly envelopes. Students keep it in their envelopes all year long for parents to refer to throughout the year as their readers grow and evolve. I don't even laminate it because it saves the environment, money AND time! I make 5 or so extra copies at the beginning of the year and replace any letter that's been ruined.

Parent Information Night is Thursday night and I've been getting a bunch of stuff ready! One of the things I've been getting ready is this letter to help parents support their child's at home reading...which, of course, I'm sharing with you! You guys are the best!!! I can't thank you enough for your kind words, emails, comments and support!

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I use letter size poly Take Home Book envelopes like  these or these because they last all year long (after we discuss and practice the expectations on how to take care of them)! 

This is all in an effort to support and enrich the foundation of reading workshop...which is to build readers who read like a star (S=study, T=think, A=ask & R=respond):

In my district, we use Lucy Calkin's Reading Units of Study. I created my reading workshop units prior to our district adoption, but because all three units are totally unique from one another AND from Lucy's curriculum, I still use them during whole group and small group. They are a GREAT supplement and can stand alone or be used in addition to any curriculum.

Do you struggle with students that don't self monitor their reading? They plow on with their reading even when what they've said doesn't make sense, sound right and/or look right? Be sure to check out "Teaching Readers to Self-Monitor" in my TpT store!

This parent reading support letter provides explanations and examples of how they can provide support and compliment their reader from the lenses of word-solving, fluency & comprehension.

The other side has the Word-Solving strategies, a tidbit about fluency and an image from my READ bulletin board in the classroom.

Here are the word-solving strategies.

You can find this At Home Reading for Parents letter here.

For building your classroom community with a culture of kindness, you might want to check this Let's Be Kind mini-unit out, too! 

You might also like this back to school Parent Input form. It's a zipped file containing a non-editable pdf and a Powerpoint file that you can edit & tweak to your heart's content for your classroom. (Uncomfortable, but necessary, terms of use...please do not edit the file and then redistribute it, claiming it as your own.)

  

Read more about how I take the Status of the Class in Writer's Workshop. It is a practice I will continue for SO many reasons! 

This Writer's Workshop post is full of tips for tweaking or refining your Writer's Workshop at Back to School or any time of year!

What tips do you have for building parent support and communication? I'd love to hear your ideas!