Connecting With Ell Families Strategies For Success

Guide for Engaging ELL Families: 20 Strategies for School Leaders How can schools form strong partnerships with ELL and immigrant families? How can school leaders make that happen? The following tips provide some ideas for getting started! These strategies appear in Engaging ELL Families: Twenty Strategies for School Leaders. The following strategies offer tips for building relationships with the families of English language learners (ELLs), getting to know their strengths and stories, and creating a welcoming environment.

Learning about your ELL families provides an important foundation for everything else you do at the school. Even basic information about students' ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, or the situations from which they have come, can help you match students with the appropriate services and programs. Answer the following questions about your ELL families using a KWL chart: Multilingual families can be powerful partners on behalf of their children. Yet what these partnerships look like will be unique to each school setting and community — and may require some thinking outside of the box. This section includes some key tips and recommended resources from our sister site, Colorín Colorado.

When you want to connect with the families of English language learners (ELLs), there are lots of strategies you can try. It may take some time to figure out what works, but those ideas will serve you now and in the future. Here are 10 ideas from our friends at Colorín Colorado to help you get started, as well as key questions to guide you. An important first step is to learn more about your families. You can start by reaching out to staff who work closely with families, such as family liaisons, ESL or bilingual teachers, and paraprofessionals. You can also look for local community organizations that work with the families in your school.

These groups often have important insights, resources, and ideas — and they may be able to provide volunteers and skilled interpreters. You can also talk with families directly; however, it is important not to overwhelm families with too many questions at once, especially if they are hesitant to share any personal information. For examples, many Indigenous families from Latin America are very cautious about sharing their Indigenous languages and cultures in school settings at first. Go slowly; it may take time to build trust. On the other hand, you may find some families who are eager to share information and ready to help. Whenever we ask veteran educators of English language learners (ELLs) the secret to their success, the answer is almost always the same: Build relationships with students and their families.

Relationships establish trust and improve communication. They help us better understand students’ strengths and needs, which is especially important for ELLs. If you’re new to working with English language learners, you may wonder how to partner with families who come from other countries and speak different languages. Understood is partnering with Colorín Colorado, the nation’s leading website providing research-based resources for educators and families of English language learners Here are six ideas to help you get started. As you read, look for one or two small steps that you might try with families this year.

Imagine what it’s like for immigrant families to enter your school or classroom. Do families see something familiar to them, like signs in their language or objects from their culture? Are books available in their home language? Small gestures can go a long way toward saying, “You are welcome here. We want your child to thrive.” In this day and age of diverse education, communication between schools and ELL families is not nice to have but necessary for student success.

As educators we need to acknowledge the challenges these families face and implement ways to get them fully engaged in their child’s education. This blog will explore 8 ways schools can communicate better with ELL families to create a more inclusive and supportive learning environment for all students. Maintaining accurate contact information for ELL families is the foundation of effective communication. Accurate contact information is the foundation of communication with ELL families. Schools must prioritize collecting and updating phone numbers, email addresses and mailing addresses. Tip: Create a user-friendly online portal where families can update their contact information and access important school resources.

This portal should be accessible in multiple languages and include features such as reminders for upcoming school events and deadlines. Different families may prefer different modes of communication. Knowing how ELL families prefer to communicate enhances outreach. Schools should offer multiple channels and use data to refine. Language barriers can significantly hinder communication between schools and ELL families. Language access is a legal requirement and a cornerstone of communication.

Schools must use human and technological resources to be clear. Five Principles with Twenty Examples for Engaging ELL Families-table James A. Erekson is an associate professor of reading at the University of Northern Colorado. He has been teaching in the field of languages and literacy for more than 20 years, teaching four foreign languages in addition to reading and language arts courses. Erekson collaborates with K–12 educators to teach and do research on reading, writing, and oral language.

He taught elementary grades and collaborated with middle school teachers to coordinate a successful reading center for eight years, where the vitality of social studies content helped young readers make breakthroughs in reading and... Erekson has presented his work both nationally and internationally, and he recently worked with Denver Public Schools' elementary teachers on a three-year state-funded learning experience on social studies and literacy. There are many ways that educators and administrators can connect with families of English language learners (ELLs) and keep that communication strong. This communication can be challenging to figure out, but it many cases, it can make a tremendous difference in students' learning. Here are some tips for schools, many of which are based on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. It's essential that schools have accurate contact information for families.

Understanding why families' contact information might change, how they prefer to update that information, and how the school can make it easier for them to do so can go a long way in helping... Start by looking for families' contact information and checking to see if information on file is still accurate. This may be challenging if families' housing and economic situations are unstable. Families who use prepaid cell phones may also change phone numbers regularly. If you don't have updated contact information for families, consider trying to pass on a message through: Learn how to stay in contact with English learners and their families and how administrators can support that outreach.

This article also includes multiple tools, resources, and tips for collaboration. This article is part of our guides on Strategies for ELL Success and distance learning for ELLs. As schools look for different ways to build successful partnerships with multilingual families, good communication is crucial. There are more options than ever before for educators and administrators to connect with families of English language learners (ELLs) and keep that communication strong. Here are some tips for schools and resources to explore. Note: This article was originally written during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since been updated with more general information.

School districts are legally required to provide information in families' home languages. You may need to share information about these rights with families themselves, colleagues, or administrators if families are not getting the information they need in their language. You can learn more about best practices for increasing families' language access from the following: Schools can better support students who are still learning English by working to involve their families in their education. The most impactful plans for student growth engage not only the learner but also his or her family. In fact, research points to parents and caretakers as invaluable stakeholders in students’ academic achievement.

Unfortunately, parents who are new to English are often left out of family engagement at the school level to some degree. How can we do a better job of appealing to and including the parents of English language learners (ELLs) as valuable members of the school community? Here are six keys to successfully engaging ELL parents and families. Engagement is a partnership between the parents and the school to serve the best interests of students. The school is responsible for meeting certain expectations, some of which are legally mandated through the Every Student Succeeds Act, such as provisions for translation of vital school information into students’ home languages. Parents also have specific obligations, which aren’t always clear, especially when there are cultural differences—we cannot assume that the American idea of doing school is shared by all families in our community.

Teachers can help by explicitly communicating parents’ key responsibilities, such as taking an active role in helping their child learn to organize his or her study time. Parents can also be encouraged to monitor engagement, limit distractions, build consistency, and celebrate periods of concentration.

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