Component 4C

4C - Communicating with Families

Although the ability of families to participate in their child's learning varies widely because of other family or job obligations, it is the responsibility of teachers to provide opportunities for them to understand both the instructional program and their child's progress. Teachers establish relationships with families by communicating to them about the instructional program, conferring with them about individual students, and inviting them to be part of the educational process itself. The level of family participation and involvement tends to be greater at the elementary level, when young children are just beginning school. However, the importance of regular communication with families of adolescents cannot be overstated. A teacher's effort to communicate with families conveys the teacher's essential caring, valued by families of students of all ages.

Elements of Component 4C:

Information about the instructional program
Information about individual students
Engagement of families in the instructional program

Evidence of Component 4C

Family Contact Log and Child Information

Before beginning at home interventions with a student, I communicated with her mother to gain some basic information about schedules, core strengths, and interests. Since parents usually know their child better than anyone else, this is valuable information to obtain from them. On this same document (second page), my partner interventionist and I kept a contact log of our communication with the family. In this process I learned that clear and consistent communication, especially in the case of home interventions, is often the key to success.

Lee and Larson - Child Information and Contact Log.docx

Larson - SPED435 Checklist Reflections.docx

Parent Teacher Conferences

I was able to participate in multiple parent-teacher conferences while in Senior Practicum. My mentor teacher shared with me how she approached the conferences and shared information with parents. My reflections on these conferences and other aspects of Domain 4 that I experienced during Senior Practicum are found on page four and five of the document.

Letters and Other Communication with Families

In several of my classes at BYU-I I was asked to design a class project or field trip, which including writing practice letters home to "parents" to inform them about what was going on inside out classroom. The document here is one such example. I learned that these letters should be concise while still giving an accurate representation of what the children are doing in class.

Consent Form

Component 4D

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