2011 Workshop Series
Walking Together: Parent-Teacher Relationships
In our first workshop of the year, our aim is to encourage parents to
discuss the importance of family involvement in school and to take the
initial step towards creating a positive, working parent-teacher
relationship. Parents will discuss their role in supporting their
child’s education in addition to specific ways that they can openly
communicate with their child’s teacher and how this communication can
lead to an improvement in their child’s education.
Math Night: Helping At Home With Math
DC Public Schools has adopted new learning standards for core subjects,
including reading/English language arts, mathematics, science, and
social studies. This workshop will provide parents with an overview of
the Common Core Standards for math and demonstrate activities that can
be done at home to support the development of math skills at all grade
levels. Parent will learn about the topics covered in each grade level
and what their child should know by the end of the school year.
Author Visit
Each semester, Turning the Page invites a local children’s author to
Community Nights. During this visit the author reads to families from
his/her story in the auditorium, followed by a question/answer session
for parents in the workshop room. At the end of each Author Visits,
parents receive a personalized autographed copy of the author’s most
recent book as a gift from Turning the Page. We ask a teacher to
volunteer to promote the visit school-wide leading up to the evening
and create an art project or performance with his/her class to welcome
the author the night of the visit.
Literacy Night: Bring Books to Life
This workshop is designed to give parents insight into the importance
of literacy development and allow parents to discuss creative and
innovative ways to bring literacy to life. During the workshop, parents
will discuss the five building blocks of reading and the relationship
between homework and literacy development.
Turning the Page Parent Workshops
Since 2001, Turning the Page has developed more than 60 distinct 90-minute parent workshops offered during TTP Community Nights. Our workshops create networks of parents that care about one another, share their dreams for their children with each other, and learn together. This supportive network of engaged parents strengthens the fabric of communities and provides a foundation from which other sustainable community objectives can be achieved.
TTP workshops are based on research that emphasizes the importance of parental involvement in children’s learning. Traditionally, we have focused on literacy connections by sharing strategies parents can use to help their children become fluent readers, as well as encourage an appreciation for literature, poetry, and creative writing. While literacy remains the centerpiece of our workshop curriculum, in recent years, we have begun exploring ways to connect reading and writing through other content areas, specifically science, social studies, and math. We collaborate with community leaders as well as teachers in our partner schools to add relevance to the workshops. Having teachers serve as workshop leaders also provides parents with an opportunity to meet and interact with teachers in their school, while simultaneously encourages teachers to support parental involvement in their classrooms.
HOW TTP BENEFITS THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY
- Elevates a parents’ level of confidence by providing accessible opportunities and resources to be active participants in their children’s education.
- Fosters parents to connect with each other to share academic resources, moral support and strategies to help their children to become well-equipped and engaged citizens of their communities.
