Parent Teacher Communication
Make Parents Your Valuable Allies

Effective parent teacher communication, parent teacher connection and parent teacher relationships are critical elements in a student's development.

After all, parents are a child's first teacher,know the most about their child and along with their teachers play the largest and most important roles in their personal and educational development as they grow to adulthood.

Positive support,understanding and encouragement by both parents and teachers are the keys to developing a happy and successful student and adult.

Are you a new or inexperienced teacher who could use some important tips and strategies to improve on your parent teacher communication?

One of my goals is to provide you as a teacher with valuable teaching tools and strategies on how to build a successful, enjoyable and satisfying teacher parent relationship.

Remember that parents can (hopefully) be your most powerful and valuable allies.

Parents are interested in what their child is doing and their progress.

Make sure to keep them informed about what you and your students are doing.

They will appreciate it and it will strengthen the teacher parent relationship.

Today, there are many available parent contact resources that simplify and enhance parent teacher communication.

Watch this short video of the teaching workshop I held for student teachers at York University in Toronto where we discussed how to improve parent teacher communication.

Read my many strategies by clicking on the following pages.

Perhaps you're intimidated by parent teacher conferences. Click here to get my many strategies on handling meet the teacher nights (school open house) and parent teacher conferences professionally and effectively.

Parents are interested in what their child is doing and their progress. Make sure to keep them informed about what you and your students are doing. They will appreciate it and it will strengthen the teacher parent relationship. Student agendas are an excellent way to make this happen. Click here and read my tips on how student agendas can be used for effective parent teacher communication.

Report cards are another very useful method of communicating a student's progress throughout the year. Click here and read my tips and strategies about how to write effective report card comments.

Teachers letters to parents and classroom newsletters provide very useful information to parents on what their child is doing, improvements they're making and strengthen the bond between parents and teachers. Read my tips on classroom newsletters and get a sample of my own introductory newsletter to parents.

There are other effective ways of communicating with parents when circumstances dictate, via phone calls and emails. Read my strategies on these forms of parent communication.

Here are some other communication guidelines that have been most effective and valuable to me throughout my teaching career.

1. Contact parents as soon as possible if and when problems arise.

It's imperative that parents are made aware of and kept abreast of all situations concerning their child.

They will be much more supportive of you under these circumstances.

Keep a behavioral log and/or homework contact sheet to document these situations and if a situation escalates use the agenda or a phone call to notify the parents.

2. Focus on the positive. You can always find some positive attributes in each child.

Taking a negative situation and turning it into something positive(if possible)"is an art" that can be developed - You don't want to get parents on the DEFENSIVE.

Motivate the child to do better and be accountable for their own actions. Read my tips on creating positive student motivation.

3. You may want to join the School Council or the Parent Teacher Association (PTA)or attend a monthly meeting to become more in tune with the parents' point of view.


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