Parental Involvement & At-Risk Students
Enrolled in Even Start Family Literacy Programs.
Life is what your creator gave you for free Style is what you do with it—Dr. Mae C. Jamison.
By Patty Ball Thomas, Ph.D. and Tony J. Manson, Ph.D.

Posted: 4:49p.m .est, October 08, 2006
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Patty Ball Thomas, Ph.D.		Tony J. Manson, Ph.D.

Introduction: There is presently a very dismal outlook for America's education system relative to the phenomenon of primary at-risk students and their academic achievement, classroom participation, homework completion, and attendance. Cardenas notes that many primary students have a 50 percent chance of becoming a part of the rate of attrition; that is, these students are at risk of exiting school and failing to complete their education with adequate skills levels. While there are several factors that contribute to attrition, including low achievement due to inadequate self-esteem, failure in grades due to discrepancies between teacher expectations and student performance, and language problems due to multicultural diversity, the role of the parents proves most significant. The role of parents in the acquisition of learning for their children, whether or not they fall within, low socioeconomic groups can well determine whether students will be taught and have reinforced those values that prove positive to school regard. Further, the role of parents can as well determine whether or not at-risk children can be redeemed.

Parental Involvement: Choate and Rakes, as well as Cardenas, that parental involvement can either fully or partially remediate even the most severe of problems that are related to low academic achievement on the part of their at-risk children. Cardenas notes that even when a student manifests a language problem, it is very probable that he or she will be faced with many related problems, particularly alienation. This is because language is the single most important element of communication both within and external to the classroom. Note that many students with language problems may have difficulty answering basic questions for example, because they lack familiarity with the vocabulary. Further, teachers also may unconsciously be responsible for their not adjusting to the language demands of these students because of strict rules regarding classroom time, and their not being able to devote one--on-one instruction to these students. An additional issue is that traditional teaching strategies do not provide students having limited language proficiency with adequate opportunities to master the English language.

There are several ways in which parents can help their at -risk children to improve language skills. For example, parents may offer to volunteer in the classroom to interpret for their children and other students, thus actively becoming involved in the teaching process. With the parents of such students being in the classroom, they can also markedly enhance the teaching process by providing support to the teacher's emphasis on language mastery and the learning process by effectively diminishing the language barrier.

Possibilities: A further possibility is that parents themselves may actively engage in activities that increase their language mastery, thus providing sound role models for their at-risk children. The provision of such role models will both facilitate changed behavior that places emphasis on language mastery and reinforce said behavior, which can positively affect academic achievement for at--risk students.

Catalano notes that ". . . parents are the children's first and most important teachers . . . in order for children to learn how to become better students, their parents must first be taught to be good parents;" that is, given that children are socialized by their parents as to how to regard education and academic achievement, the parents themselves must insure that the home environment promotes sound values about academic performance.At Risk Students: Mills reports that the involvement of parents with at-risk students can have several advantages for not only the students, but the teaching process. In support of this, following the implementation of an assessment program that entailed the review of student portfolios by their parents, as well as other education staff members, student performance in the areas of reading and math markedly improved. With the parents working with school administrators, there were also several changes made relative to the ways in which these subjects were taught in the classroom, the frequency of homework, the weighing of homework with regard to final grades, textbook selection, and performance evaluation.

Chau notes that attendance is the most obvious and early sign of both potential or actual at-risk students. There were several recommendations made to alleviate attendance problems among at-risk students subsequent to the findings of her study, including that the teacher must maintain contact with the student, develop open lines of communication, and actively involve the students' parents and/or significant others in the educational process. Although teacher-student contact and communication proved integral to improve at-risk student performance, it was essential that parents demonstrate responsibility for the quality and quantity of education attained by their children.

Finally: Studies indicate a wide variety of variables influencing inadequate academic performance among at-risk students. Of these variables, teacher expectation appears to have as much an impact as does parental involvement. However, the impact can be significantly mediated by those parents who actively participate in the education of their at-risk children. Parents must assertively question teachers and school administrators about teaching strategies and policies, and stringent advance improvement for their at-risk children.

References:
Banks, M. (1984). Attrition and minorities. Cardenas, J. (1986). The role of native language instruction in bilingual education.

Catalano, J. (1990, May 20). A learning experience - teaching parents to be parents pays off for children.

Chau, K. (1989). Sociocultural dissonance among ethnic minority populations,

Choate, J. S. & Rakes, T. A. (1989). Reading: Detecting and correcting special needs.

Mills, R. P. (1989, December). Using student portfolios to assess achievement.

Contact: tony.manson@famu.edu or patty.thomas@famu.edu for complete article with additional references.