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Lessons

Reaching out to parents, siblings, after school programs and others to work with your students can be a snap. Below, I offer sample presentations that follow this basic outline:

Introduction: I describe who I am and what my role at the school is.
Why we should work together: I outline the importance and benefits of students improving early literacy skills
What I want them to do: I outline the details of the program including a demonstration of the activities, plan for communication, and any incentives.

Following are kindergarten activities and games I prepared for each group with whom I worked during my research: parents, siblings, and an after school program.

Things to consider before you get started:

Always work with your site and district administrators. They will be a great resource to further your efforts.
When working with families, I highly suggest recruiting the help of an interpreter and translator. In Napa, we are fortunate enough to have a wonderful and speedy translator. Our site also has an amazing and trusted part time parent liaison who was able to interpret during the parent meeting.

Working with Parents

Invitations for an evening dinner meeting were sent out to parents of target kindergartners to discuss the Parents as Partners program. Our school parent liaison made phone calls to confirm attendance, and she also interpreted during the meeting. Below is the slide deck presentation we used for the meeting.

Click image for a PDF version of my Parents as Partners meeting presentation.

Sample Activities for Parent Program

Based on the literature review I conducted on parent interventions, I incorporated these themes into the activities that I adapted for my program:

Repeated readings of short text
Teaching one letter at a time
Focus on letter naming and phonemic awareness
Parent training on implementation
Reinforcement of material studied in class
Short sessions (10-15 min)
Focus on positive interactions between parent/child
Simple, easy to follow activities that repeated weekly for parent-child mastery

The activities below were assigned weekly to reinforce classroom learning. They were designed to wok with poems and pictures from the core curriculum's letter of the week. These were always sent home on the same color paper and put directly into students' backpacks. The Parent Activity PDFs include online alphabet activities as well. Weekly reminders and links to online activities and logs were also sent via our district's communication app, ParentSquare.

Click the image above for a PDF of Parent Activities in English.

Click the image above for a PDF of Parent Activities in Spanish.

These were the curriculum poems and posters that went home with my activities.

Fast Start: Getting Ready to Read by Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak

Some of my Parents as Partners activities were inspired by this book. If you are interested in a finished, complete program that is ready to copy and send home, this is a great resource.

Click image for PDF of Parent Activity Log in English and Spanish

Working with Sibling Pairs

Target kindergarten students and their siblings in 3-5th grade came to hear all about the "Super Siblings" program. Using the presentation below, I spent about 30 minutes to introduce myself, the program, incentives, and to practice a "getting along" script as we played the first game I gave them to take home.

Click image for a PDF version of my Super Siblings program student presentation.

Sample Games & Activities for Sibling Program

For the sibling program, I wanted activities to be simple, familiar, and fun. The learning objective was also simple: practice naming alphabet letters and the sounds they make. I also wanted materials to be easy to manage, since everything would be done by students.

I applied for, and was awarded, a local grant with which I purchased cardstock to reproduce easy printable games and ziplocks to put them in each week to send home.
I found some printable games within the online phonics program our district uses, iRead (by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and others I found for free online. You can get creative and fun with simple alphabet letter and sound games!
Finally, I used the rest of the grant money to purchase microwave popcorn, fruit snacks, and juice for the incentive:

Below are pictures of the hands-on games I used for this four week siblings program, as well as student logs to capture time spent. Since the games are licensed, I'm unable to share PDFs with you. However, they are so simple and basic, similar games could be found online.

Alphabet Bingo

Uppercase/Lowercase Memory Match Game

CVC Words Bingo

Beginning Letter Sounds Game Board with Picture Cards

Click image for a PDF of this Online Activity Instruction Page. This page was sent home weekly as an additional option for game play.

Click image for PDF of Super Sibling Student Log in English and Spanish

Working with Community Partners

We are blessed with an amazing Boys and Girls Club here in American Canyon. The staff truly care about our students in the after school program and often ask what they can do to enrich the students' experience. I knew they would be a great partner for my early literacy program. Here are the steps I followed:

After clearing it with our principal, I scheduled a meeting with their director and staff. My presentation to them followed the basic outline I described above: Who I am, why we should work together, and the details of the games and activities I had prepared for the Kindergartners.
They proposed that their middle school students act as cross-age tutors in a weekly "Kinder Buddies" meeting. The middle schoolers would play the games I provided with an assigned "Kinder Buddy" and some of them would take leadership roles to manage the games, and ensure logs were filled out properly and put into the collection box.
I returned and did a modified presentation of the program and demo to the middle school group.
I returned one more time for the launch of the "Kinder Buddies" program to make sure everything went smoothly.
The activities I prepared for students to choose from were similar to the Super Sibling activities, however a bit more advanced since older students would be leading, along with adult supervision. See below for photos.