***** Respond in a paragraph following the established guidelines. The answer must be of a substantial nature and with quotes present in the textbook. Agree or disagree is not appropriate. 

***** Only use this book and specific pages.   Represent the quotes (author, year, and page) when reflecting the content in your paragraph with concepts fundament or content about Dr.  Fernald of the book.

Source of reference: ONLY textbook:  
Vaughn, S., & Bos, C. S. (2012). Strategies for teaching students with learning and behavior problems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Chapter 5 

peer 1

  What is the teacher’s role in addressing the needs of the entire family?

Teacher attitudes and beliefs about families and family involvement directly relate to their family involvement practices. When teachers hold parents in high regard and view them as a child’s first teacher, they are more likely to invite parents to become active participants in their children’s education (Epstein & Dauber, 1991). Teachers who are familiar with strategies to involve families and are positive about the benefits of such involvement are more likely to encourage parent participation in children’s learning.

Gathering information directly from parents may lead to pragmatic and accurate understanding of families, such as where to reach families, who to contact, what issues the families are facing, and what potential barriers exist to their involvement. Specifically, when teachers believe that family information helps them better teach children, and that staying apprised of this information is part of one’s job, teachers may have greater receptiv ity to families and initiative in seeking out information. Nearly all of the teachers interviewed for this analysis believed that collecting family information is part of their job and this motivated them to work hard for it. They also believed that understanding families helped them to strengthen their relationships with families and children and connect students and their families to other forms of support, such as counseling groups for students and support groups for parents.

Effective, consistent and proactive teacher-parent communication is a relatively new phenomenon in our schools. In previous generations, the watchword was “no news is good news” and parents heard from teachers only when there was a crisis or when the child was struggling powerfully. School / home connections were made up of artificial Parent Nights routines and regular ten-minute sit-downs with the child’s elementary teacher. As soon as the child reached high school, there was virtually no communication between the home and the classroom. All parties (parents, teachers and students) felt that a high school student’s program and progress was simply not part of the parent’s business.