Closing the ELL Achievement Gap through Parental Involvement and Technology

Participating at the Northern Virginia Writing Project’s Summer Invitation Institute gave me the opportunity to research about what I can do to help close the achievement gap between the ELL population and the general education population. Due to my knowledge of previously published studies that demonstrate the benefits of parental participation as means to increase student achievement, I decided to focus more specifically on how technology could be used to assist with parental involvement. Most of the articles I found addressed the use of ipads for early childhood literacy building skills. One of those successful programs is organized by Mano en Mano (Hand in Hand) to serve the needs of the Maine Migrant Education Program. For more information, please visit http://www.manomaine.org.

However, I needed to find more information on programs that serve parents of elementary school-aged students. Our Summer Institute Director suggested for me to read Writing with Families: Strengthening the Home/School Connection with Family Scribe Groups by S. Arthur Kelly and Literacy in the Welcoming Classroom: Creating Family-School Partnerships that Support Student Learning by JoBeth Allen. Both books start from the premise that “All families have important experiences, skills, and bodies of knowledge” (Allen, 2010, p. 31) and that through family writing groups, “children and adults gain leadership skills, find their personal voices, gain empowerment in their communities and schools, and become creators of a strong school-family connection” (Kelly, 2006, p. 3).

Both books validated a parent’s contribution as the child’s first educator, as well as the value in a parent’s culturally or linguistically diverse background. Allen underscored the importance of creating partnerships with families through home visits, family-school journals, visual literacy; Kelly presented the complete curriculum for a five-week family scribe group.

Despite the fabulous ideas both authors mentioned, I still faced one huge obstacle. I did not know if ELL parents would be able to participate at the family writing events due to their demanding work schedules. According to the AFT,  “immigrant parents feel apprehensive about getting involved because of their limited English skills, prohibitive work schedules, lack of familiarity with mainstream culture and the public school system in the United States” (2006, p.15).

Due to this, I decided to launch my own blog (www.EsolTrenches.wordpress.com) with resources for ELL parents. Through this medium, I can still offer capacity-building to parents but at their most convenient time. My blog will offer parents the option to watch mini webinars that will clarify topics such as: What are word study sorts and how do these benefit the students?  What is the expected process for returning the weekly folder the general education teacher sends home? What is a parent-teacher conference? What are some reading strategies that parents can use to increase their child’s understanding of text? What are some writing activities that the parents can do independently and with their child?

Research has shown that “programs and interventions that engage families in supporting their child’s learning at home are linked to student achievement” (Henderson & Mapp as shown in Allen, 2010, p. 11). Building a family-school partnership through parent capacity-building can strengthen the relationship between parents, teachers, and students and therefore create more successful ELL students.