I found our current lit night model to be pretty successful, and the parents seem to be impressed with the student experts and many literacies for learning, but I wonder how we could get more parents to attend. I've used the trick of having kids perform or be involved to get more participation with orchestra and step team performances as well as student presenters, but sometimes the parents come begrudgingly to the literacy sessions b/c their only real motivation for coming is to watch their kid perform in the orchestra/step team, etc. With the 600 students in our school, I guess I'm an overachiever to hope we could pull more than the 50 or 60 parents that show for the evening. Do you think this is a reasonable turnout? Do most schools have a family literacy night or event to promote literacy with parents? How do you get more parents to participate?
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
A Reflection on Literacy Events for Families
We had a nice turn out for our Family Literacy Night again this year. I have had many different variations of our family night: a reading carnival, a reading pep rally, and the the current version: an evening of many literacies. During the last two years, in the spirit of participatory learning, (which got me all excited when I learned about it from Henry Jenkins) students have led sessions for parents on several different #literacies (which is one of my passions brought on from the teaching of great Donna Alvermann at UGA and all of my PLN friends in the area of #literacies Anna Smith, Emily Pendegrass and Buffy Hamilton just to name a few). Parents rotate among the classes to experience all of the student-led sessions. Probably my favorite part about this year's fam lit night was our collaboration with the teen services librarian at Athens Regional Library. Lauren came and provided activities for the middle schoolers while the parents were in the sessions. We have done quite a bit of collaboration with Lauren from the library this year, and I'm super excited to share more about that....in another blog post soon.
I found our current lit night model to be pretty successful, and the parents seem to be impressed with the student experts and many literacies for learning, but I wonder how we could get more parents to attend. I've used the trick of having kids perform or be involved to get more participation with orchestra and step team performances as well as student presenters, but sometimes the parents come begrudgingly to the literacy sessions b/c their only real motivation for coming is to watch their kid perform in the orchestra/step team, etc. With the 600 students in our school, I guess I'm an overachiever to hope we could pull more than the 50 or 60 parents that show for the evening. Do you think this is a reasonable turnout? Do most schools have a family literacy night or event to promote literacy with parents? How do you get more parents to participate?
I found our current lit night model to be pretty successful, and the parents seem to be impressed with the student experts and many literacies for learning, but I wonder how we could get more parents to attend. I've used the trick of having kids perform or be involved to get more participation with orchestra and step team performances as well as student presenters, but sometimes the parents come begrudgingly to the literacy sessions b/c their only real motivation for coming is to watch their kid perform in the orchestra/step team, etc. With the 600 students in our school, I guess I'm an overachiever to hope we could pull more than the 50 or 60 parents that show for the evening. Do you think this is a reasonable turnout? Do most schools have a family literacy night or event to promote literacy with parents? How do you get more parents to participate?
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