Tyrah Urie

Practicum 1
Guided Reflection #8

Family Engagement
When becoming a teacher of your own classroom, not only is engagement with the

children important but also the engagement with the families of those children. The benefits to

having children, families, and early childhood education programs are that they keep everyone

on the same page and involved. Being able to have a close knit relationship with the families,

with the ability to include them on what is going on inside the classroom and have them include

you on what is going outside of the classroom with the children are really important. Just based

of the family systems theory, “it can explain why members of a family behave the way they do in

a given situation” (Christian, 2006). However, when trying to figure this out, you need to be

able to connect, interact and be open/open minded with children’s families. Keeping families

involved helps the young children’s cognitive and social development.

In the Practicum 1 placement classroom, family engagement was highly practiced.

Whether it be from little notes on the whiteboard with messaging for the families, just a note to

let them know what was going on for the day, notes on their cubbies as reminders or verbal

communication, the communication piece was never forgotten. Besides the notes up in the

classroom, families received different things like newsletters, notifications sent out by the head

of the center, and even conferences held that the parents were able to attend. The CT in the room

made it a point to welcome not only the children into the room everyday but also their families.

From a quick ‘good morning’, ‘have a good day’ or to touching base with them to see how the

night before went or if there was anything she needed to share with the families. The CT always

offered involvement with the families from inviting them to bring something in that relating to
an activity in the classroom all the way to physically coming in the room and sharing an activity

with the whole class. There really was no limit. A cool piece to the family engagement is when

the student teacher of the classroom, involves the children and their families in a family

engagement project, where he/she plans an activity and bases it around the children and their

families abilities to contribute and help out! I think this is really cool in the sense that the

families are able to make that close relationship with someone in the room who isn’t the main

teacher, yet someone they can put their trust in to work with their children on an everyday basis

and feels included in the everyday activities.

When looking at how the communication and family engagement is highly implemented

in the room, I there could be ways to strengthen them as well. I think one way to strengthen the

communication would be to have journals or some written communication piece that can be

brought home and brought back to school with the children everyday or even weekly. Though

this can be a pain, I think it gives an opportunity for the families to share what they want with the

teacher without the feeling of being rushed, uncomfortable with other families around in the

morning, or maybe just not being able to be present when the drop off/pick up time comes

around to share those things. Another would help the communication and engagement up would

be to have more optional times for families to come and share something unique or fun about

their family. Though some parents were volunteering to come in and share, I think it would be

beneficial to open it up as a invite to have all of the families to come in. Some families aren’t as

open to coming in and may feel out of place but with the invitation, they may be more likely. I

think one way to strengthen the communication would be to have journals or some

communication piece that can be brought home and brought back to school with the children

everyday or even weekly. Though this can be a pain, I think it gives an opportunity for the
families to share what they want with the teacher without the feeling of being rushed,

uncomfortable with other families around in the morning, or maybe just not being able to be

present when the drop off/pick up time comes around to share those things.

The last way I think would be cool would be to make a simple easy prompt for the children to

verbally express for us to write in, or for them to draw/write as to how their day went or

something fun they did. From being a child, whenever I was asked how my day went everyday I

would give the same answer of “good”. Giving the children the opportunity to express through

this would be a very developmental independent way of communication through them with our

guidance that I think would be putting a fun, unique twist to it!

Without communication and family engagement the classroom wont be successful. Not

only does it help the teacher immensely with relationship with the children and planning

purposes but also gives the children positive outcomes. It gives the children “social competence,

cognitive development, communication skills, literacy development, vocabulary growth,

expressive language, comprehension skills, positive engagement with peers, adults, and learning

( Harvard Family Research Project, 2006).