Effective communication of students' academic progress to families is essential for their understanding and support. Translating grades and assessments into clear, comprehensible information allows families to better assist their children academically. Families desire actionable advice to support their child's learning at home and celebrate their achievements. High-impact tutoring is an effective strategy for addressing students' learning needs and can be part of a collaborative effort with parents and caregivers to support students. See below for more on what we heard from families and the associated recommendations to address what we heard.
What we heard from families
- Caregivers often find the way educators talk about students’ academic progress to be unclear and confusing, leaving them not fully understanding how their child is doing compared to grade-level expectations.
- When educators dedicate time to translating grades and assessment scores into information that families can clearly understand, families are able to work with their children to support their academic needs.
- Families want to know how to support their students’ learning at home. Providing concrete ideas of what to talk with their child about and what to do at home can help them and their children.
- Pairing the understanding of students’ academic progress with high-impact tutoring opportunities provides a clear path to partner with families to address student learning needs.
- Families want to celebrate students’ accomplishments. When a student has worked hard to achieve a milestone, families want to know!
Recommendations to align to student progress
- Connect high-impact tutoring opportunities to other communications about students’ academic progress. For example, share high-impact tutoring program information during parent/teacher conferences or when report cards are shared with families. This guide, developed in partnership with families, provides additional examples of opportunities for connections.
- When students take benchmark assessments that provide information about grade-level performance, provide opportunities for families to understand what the reports are saying about their students’ academic progress and resources for teachers to engage in these conversations with families.
- When a student is not meeting grade-level expectations in a specific area, clearly communicate this challenge with the family, including how high-impact tutoring can help the student grow academically.
- Provide opportunities for families to meet with their child’s tutor or other tutoring program staff.
- Send text message reminders to families and students (if applicable) on days when students are scheduled for tutoring. Sending reminders to families and students increases attendance rates for opt-in tutoring and is likely to also have an impact on high-impact tutoring.
Communications to align to student progress
Explore these communications templates that support the goal of aligning high-impact tutoring to students’ academic progress.
Additional Resources
- Review the Family and Caregiver Toolkit for language and resources co-created with families for Partnering and Advocating.
- Visit the Learning Heroes website for concrete resources and research for families and partner organizations. The Learning Heroes website includes many Family Engagement Resources you can use for free.
- Partner with families to help them understand what students should be learning at each grade in order to be prepared for college and career by reading the Parents’ Guides to Student Success and this Readiness Roadmap!