Parenting Beliefs & Behaviors: What Matters Most (page 2)

Educators know well what research continues to show: school success is significantly improved when parents are full partners in children's learning. How can schools help families support learning? Educators need to recognize the many ways families contribute to children's learning, and offer a range of supports. No single parent or family factor has been found to predict school readiness and achievement. Rather, a pattern of parent beliefs and behaviors shapes family learning environments.Three dimensions are particularly important to early school success.

Family verbal environment: Children's everyday experience with language is a powerful predictor of academic success. It is especially valuable for children to have conversations at home that:

• involve increasingly diverse words and sentence structures;
• support the child's expression of ideas and enable the child to help guide the interaction;
• provide the child with choices.

Family mealtimes and shared book reading are great opportunities for meaningful conversation. Studies show it is helpful for children to retell activities, and to extend discussion of a book to their lives and interests. Adults can help by asking open questions. Children learn more by answering a question with many possible responses ("What happened at school today?") rather than a "yes/no" question ("Did you have a good day at school?").

Routines and materials: Supports for learning are deeply embedded in family routines. Parents can foster routines that actively bolster education, such as keeping well-established times and places for homework; reading books, and talking about past and future activities and interests; making age-appropriate reading and writing materials available. Parents own reading habits and use of literacy to get information, are models for children. Children of parents who view reading as a source of information and pleasure generally have a more positive view of reading.

Expectations of learning and development: What parents think about how children develop, and how they as parents contribute, are important influences on school outcomes. School success is associated with parents who:

• See the child as an active contributor, rather than a passive recipient of learning;
• Have high expectations for school achievement;
• Believe they can and should exert a positive influence on their child's education.