Children are motivated to become readers when their teachers and families work together.  Here are some ways that teachers can reach out to families and forge partnerships with parents.

• Make personal contact with each family.  Get to know the parents and other caregivers, and their goals for their child.  Find out what you can do to support family reading times.
  
  
• Show respect for every family's culture and home language.  Learn to speak, read, and write a few words in the language(s) children speak at home.  Invite families to share the rhymes, songs, poems, and stories that are part of the cultural traditions.
  
  
• Use familiar words rather than educational jargon.  Talk about reading and writing instead of literacy, books instead of literature, pictures instead of illustrations, and the classroom instead of the learning environment.
  
  
• Set up a system for regularly sharing information about children with their families.  Tailor the system to fit each family's needs and circumstances.  Send notes to some families; make phone calls to others.
  
  
• Ask families to keep track of their children's reading and writing progress.  Families can share samples of the drawings and writing their children do at home.  Ask them to tell you about words their child has learned and favorite books they read at home.
  
  
• Encourage families to use their unique skills to make learning exciting.  For example, a creative parent who likes to sing could make up a silly song filled with rhyming nonsense words. 
  
  
• Establish a classroom lending library.  Make it easy for families to borrow books to read aloud to their children.  Enlist families to help set up the library and keep track of the books.
  
  
• Make a progress marker to keep track of books read at home.  Use colored construction paper and have families write the title and author of each book on each cutout to be added to the display.  For example, for each book read families can add a leaf on a reading tree, a wiggly worm to the fishing bucket, a gumball to a giant gumball machine, etc.
  
  
• Issue a family reading challenge.  Challenge parents to match at home -- book for book -- the amount of reading aloud that you do at school.  Designate a two-week challenge period.  Read at least one book every day in your classroom.  Send home a note with the title of the book you read and a question or two that parents can ask their children about it.  Also send home a progress marker(see above) so families can fill in the title of the book they read to meet your challenge.