Running Header: REDHAWK READING FINAL PROJECT

Redhawk Reading Program Final Project

Ilana Berry, Kelly Boyer, Rebecca Murch and Shanell Meredith
Seattle University

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Redhawk Reading Program Final Project

Project Description
The beginning of our project was primarily an educational process. Our community
partner, Priaya Singh, started by introducing us to the Redhawk Reading program that had been
put underway through a grant-funded program that distributes literacy materials to kindergarten
teachers at Bailey Gatzert elementary schools students and their families. The purpose of the
program is to increase the educational attainment of the kindergarteners within the school by the
way of literacy kits. The literacy kits are designed to encourage parental involvement, which
has been closely tied to students academic success. Our contribution to the project was the
development of a tool to determine if the distributed literacy kits have translated to academic

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success, ascertaining which aspects of the materials lead to the most achievement, in addition to
gaining an understanding of how the program might be altered in the future to produce more
positive outcomes. Our group met with our community partner, Priya, to familiarize ourselves
with a general background of the research pertaining to parental engagement at home, parent
self-efficacy, and parent-teacher interaction.
An intensive literature review was the next step in the process. We each researched
parental engagement in relation to the barriers inhibiting engagement, and also which factors
lead to increased parental engagement, parental self-efficacy, and parent-teacher interactions.
Following our literature review we set up a meeting with Priya and the participating
teacher, Miss Karen, to determine what type of assessment tool would be most beneficial for the
specific demographic of Bailey Gatzert. The majority of families with children attending Bailey
Gatzert can be described as having a low socioeconomic status; yet the school is richly diverse.
In subsequent visits to the school we were able to observe a class of students using their literacy
skills at Library class and in their classroom. We were also able to look through the materials
provided in the literacy kits. With a stroke of luck we stumbled upon a diverse group of parents
discussing their perspectives on how the culture in Seattle differs from their country of origin,
which enabled our group to gain awareness pertaining to some of the barriers parents face with
the school system. Through our literature review, observations, inspection of the literacy kits and
Priyas guidance we decided on a general format for the survey tool and addressed the barriers
we may encounter with non-English speaking families. Throughout the course of this project we
were enabled to create a survey to obtain feedback targeting the impact of parental engagement
with the literacy kits.

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Need
Over 90% of the students that attend Bailey Gatzert Elementary qualify to receive free or
reduced lunches due to families having low incomes, many well within the ranges of poverty
(Seattle Public Schools, 2011-2012). Children who live in poverty typically present with lower
levels of engagement in school; exhibit greater rates of school failure; have lower standardized
tests scores and graduation rates; and have higher rates of school tardiness, absenteeism, and
school dropout than their middle-class peers (Amatea & West-Olatunji, 2007). Research also
indicates that when teachers have the perception that their students parents are not engaged with
the child's education, teachers tend to have lower academic expectations for that child (Amatea
& West-Olatunji, 2007). Bailey Gatzert Elementary is a school of great ethnic diversity, 45% of
the students are English language Learners, while less than 5% of the schools population is white
(Seattle Public Schools, 2011-2012). Families from non-white, non-western ethnicities and/or
cultures may have a more limited understanding of school expectations and policies, and as a
result tend to not meet the school's or teacher's expectation levels of engagement in their child's
education (Amatea & West-Olatunji, 2007). However, despite all this research indicating the
potential for negative outcomes for kindergarten students at Bailey Gatzert Elementary, the
administration and teachers understand that parental engagement at home can overcome these
obstacles and increase the students chances for academic success. The administration and staff
also recognize the need for parents, educators, and others in the community to have shared goals
and responsibility for student learning and work together, rather than alone, to develop positive
and productive engagement at home, in school, and with the community to produce the best
results for students academic achievement.
Purpose

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The literacy kits that were distributed at Bailey Gatzert Elementary school will benefit
from feedback regarding how the kits were used from not only the parents of the children, but the
teachers as well. The objective feedback from parents and teachers will help to see what is and
isnt working as far as being useful and easy to understand. The literacy kits have been a tool to
increase parent engagement and our survey is to get a working idea of what still needs to take
place in order to do so. Although not a specific intention of this project, it was purposeful to
understand a working definition of what Parent Engagement means and how it will be useful for
professionals in counseling or educational settings to help facilitate the increasing process of
getting parents involved.
Supporting Literature
The level of parent or caregiver involvement with their childs education is a strong
predictor of student academic success. Uncovering the factors associated with a parents
respective level of involvement is pivotal in creating change that will positively impact parents
and students alike. Our group researched many of the factors and ideals attributed to the success
and failure of students. We carefully considered the body of literature on parental engagement
and selected the following articles to use in our review.
Amatea, E.S., & West-Olatunji, C. A. (2007). Joining the conversation about educating our
poorest children: Emerging leadership roles for school counselors in high poverty
schools. Professional School Counseling, 11(2), 81-89.
This review of literature on poverty and social class as it correlates to student success,
teacher expectations, and parent involvement provides a foundation for school counselors trying
to expand their leadership roles in high poverty schools by (1) serving as a cultural liaison among
students, their families, and school staff; (2) working with school staff to create more culturally

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based instruction; and (3) assisting in fostering a more family-centric school environment. The
authors suggest that school staff/teachers may not be aware of their advantaged status as middleclass educators, nor realize that the differences in class privilege and sociopolitical power
experienced by poor families influences these families' involvement in their children's lives.
They also suggest that many educators have been socialized to view poor people as having
values and/or behaviors that do not enable them to rise up out of poverty, and that these traits are
passed on to their children. Moreover, the authors tell us that "research reveals that when
teachers perceive parents are uninvolved, they expect lower academic performance from their
children". Therefore, school counselors should help staff learn to collaborate more effectively
with low-income parents; help teachers see that a focus on blaming parents for children's
difficulties triggers parental defensiveness derailing efforts to encourage more parental
involvement; and show teaching colleagues how to build on the strengths of parents/families to
foster more involvement in the student's education.
Brandt, R. (1989). On Parents and Schools: A Conversation with Joyce Epstein. Educational
Leadership, 47(2), 24.
In this interview Ron Brandt conducted with Joyce Epstein, a central point of discussion
was Epsteins development of five types of parent involvement. These include parenting,
communicating, volunteering, learning at home and finally, representing other parents. Parent
engagement is a key component to Epsteins research and she is able to critically examine gaps
where improvement needed in this area. It is vital to know that the most common of practices
arent necessarily the best and that it is okay to need new practices of sharing information.
Examples she gives for improvement include simpler communication between the school and

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parent and to begin to change the volunteering aspect to all parents. It is continually beneficial to
get feedback from both the parents and teachers to develop short and long term goals.
Although this source was completed in 1989, the issues are still relevant today. For many
reasons such as economy, single parent homes and lack of information in general we still need to
work on closing the gaps where parent engagement needs to be improved. Working with Bailey
Gatzert Elementary School in Seattle, the development of a tool to determine how engaged
parents are with their children is helpful to know what to keep doing and what to do more of.
Further assessment should continuously be developed and distributed in other forms to find out
how schools are putting effort into the entire parent engagement process. Its important to, like
Joyce Epstein brings up, to not only discover what is and isnt working but why and who its
working for.
Doyle, A., & Zhang, J. (2011). Participation Structure Impacts on Parent Engagement in Family
Literacy Programs. Early Childhood Education Journal, 39(3), 223-233.
doi:10.1007/s10643-011-0465-x
In this article, Doyle & Zhang look at literacy focus groups and try to identify parents
motivations for participating and their expectations of what the program would entail (2011).
Two focus groups were set up: a parent only group and a parent-child group. After eight weeks
of attending the focus groups, the parents were given a written questionnaire to gain their
perspective on the focus , their experience as a participants, and the effects (if any) they saw in
their children as a result of the group (Doyle & Zhang, 2011). One of the major findings of this
study was that the primary goal of parents in the parent-only group was to find ways to help their
child at home, while the main goal of those in the parent-child group was for the in-school
experience to be emphasized along with learning and social development (Doyle & Zhang,

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2011). The parents in the parent-child group were more fixated on the learning goals of their
children, and because their focus was more on their children the parents themselves initially did
not see the program as a resource for themselves (Doyle & Zhang, 2011). Ultimately, parents in
both programs were motivated by the goal of supporting their childs literacy development.
Doyle & Zhang found that parent-only groups are less costly to offer, and can also be more
flexible to accommodate parents with schedules that might not allow them to be in school during
the day.
This article could be helpful to the Redhawk Reading Program because it takes the idea
of literacy focus groups and really delves in to what parents might expect from them and what
they hope to achieve by participating, as well as what factors might limit a parents participation.
The example questions from the questionnaire that the authors provide might be helpful as we
write our own survey for the parents at Bailey Gatzert. However, the families that participated in
this study were mostly middle class and all native English speakers, so it may not be as relevant
to a school with so many families from other countries.
Epstein, J. L., & Voorhis, F. (2010). School counselor's role in developing partnerships with
families and communities for student success. Professional School Counseling, 14(1), 114.
The authors of this article propose that school counselors should dedicate about 20% of
their time on "strengthening teamwork for partnerships by working with other educators, parents,
and community partners to plan, implement, and evaluate goal-linked partnership programs for
their schools". They postulate that this investment of time would: improve outreach and
involvement activities aimed at families; increase the amount of parents who are actively
involved in their child's education; and thereby reduce the number of students with academic and

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behavioral problems needing a school counselors individual attention. They assert that students
will benefit greatly when home, school, and community "overlap" by recognizing shared goals
and responsibilities for the students learning. Within the areas of "overlap" they identify six (6)
types of involvement: (1) Parenting - helping families understand child development and creating
home environments that support students; (2) Communicating - effective two-way
communication about school programs and student progress; (3) Volunteering - "recruiting and
organizing help at school, home, or in other locations to support the school and student's
activities"; (4) Learning at home - giving ideas about how to and creating take home programs
that allow the parents/families be involved in the student learning at home; (5) Decision-making
- empowering families and parents to be involved in school committees and decision making
processes; and (6) Collaborating with the community - "identifying and integrating resources and
services from the community to ... support schools, students, and their families". In this article
many sources are cited in which "family involvement in reading confirmed positive results on
young students' reading readiness and early reading skills.
Fan, W., Williams, C. M., & Wolters, C. A. (2012). Parental Involvement in Predicting School
Motivation: Similar and Differential Effects Across Ethnic Groups. Journal Of
Educational Research, 105(1), 21-35. doi:10.1080/00220671.2010.515625
The authors of this article sought to investigate the similarities and differences of parental
involvement on student motivation across different ethnic groups. They collected data on the
relationship between parental involvement and motivation from a large and diverse sample of
participants while controlling for socioeconomic status, and gender. The findings of their
research suggest that ethnic differences exist between Caucasian, African American, Asian
American, and Hispanic students. The results demonstrate that there is a similar positive

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motivational impact with having a parent that holds high aspirations for their childs postsecondary education across ethnic groups. They also found that parental communication with
school, regarding academic problems, is related to negative feelings of motivation across ethnic
groups. In addition to these findings, the research also highlighted many individual differences
between groups. Parental advising and communication with the school over benign issues
predicted positive intrinsic motivation for Hispanic students, but predicted decreased intrinsic
motivation toward mathematics for Asian American students.
Teachers and parents alike may not be aware of the most effective way to be supportive
and increase feelings of motivation in their children. The central focus of schools efforts toward
increasing parent involvement has been done with a one-size fits-all mentality. Higher degrees of
success may be experienced if schools were to appeal to the ethnic and cultural backgrounds of
families and subsequently tailor those efforts depending on will work best for the individual
students.
Harris, A., & Goodall, J. (2008). Do parents know they matter? Engaging all parents in
learning. Educational Research, 50(3), 277-289. doi:10.1080/00131880802309424
This article describes a research project exploring the barriers to parent engagement and
the corresponding benefits to student academic achievement. Three hundred and fourteen parents
from twenty schools in the UK participated in a qualitative study. The study was designed to gain
insight from a parents perspective as to what barriers exist that limit their engagement in their
childs school. The demographics of the schools were chosen to ensure the findings could to
applied to a diverse population; both urban and rural schools containing families of varying
socioeconomic status and black minority ethnic percentages. Students academic performance,

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behavior and attendance data was also collected and analyzed for trends and patterns linking to
the parent engagement data.
The results of the research mirror the popular belief that social and economic factors rank
as the most significant barriers to parental engagement, but also that difficulty in communicating
and reaching appropriate school staff creates an additional hurdle for parents. The idea that
engaging parents in the schooling process is widely accepted is an important factor in student
success; however, teachers, students and parents tend to view the purpose behind parental
engagement in different ways. Parental engagement in the form of actively participating in the
learning process at home was most strongly linked with positive student achievement.
Ultimately, the research suggests that schools should decrease their focus on involving parents in
school activities and instead increase the variety of ways in which parents can engage in learning
with their children at home.
Mapp, K. (1997). Making family-school connections work. Education Digest, 63(4), 36.
Karen Mapps article regards what gaps seem to be occurring between parents and
their childs school. She sheds light on the fact that many times staff is not trained well
enough to work with the parents specifically, but those that are well trained and help create a
positive bond between school and parents create an increase in areas such as student
achievement, self-esteem, behavior and attendance. Mapp (1997) notes that parents feel a sense
of honor when their childs school staff respects their opinions. Two main themes she points out
that are extremely beneficial to parent engagement are joining and honoring. Between
school, home and community we are a system that is defined by various cultures, races and
economic differences which Mapp regards as part of the barrier to positive and increasing parent
engagement. She interviewed 20 parents from an urban public elementary school called Patrick

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OHearn in Boston where the themes of joining and honoring surfaced. By encouraging parents
to become involved and then empowering and recognizing their efforts whether small or big, the
relationship between and school increases.
While Karen Mapps study of a school where 90% of the parents are involved in some
way is helpful to discovering what works for the theme of parent engagement it is as crucial to
look at schools where involvement is minimal to determine what needs to be implemented,
keeping in mind there are multiple aspects concerned other than Mapps finding of joining and
honoring. A mindset where continued change in what needs schools and parents has should be on
the conscious minds of the entire system.
Vera, E. M., Israel, M., Coyle, L., Cross, J., Knight-Lynn, L., Moallem, I., & ... Goldberger, N.
(2012). Exploring the Educational Involvement of Parents of English Learners. School
Community Journal, 22(2), 183-202.
This article examines what kinds of parental involvement are utilized by immigrant
parents. The authors had several questions that they wanted to explore: what types of school
involvement are the most and least common, what are common barriers to involvement, do
demographic factors impact barriers or specific types of involvement, and are there any
significant predictors of specific types of involvement (Vera, et al., 2012). The authors found
that parents were most likely to participate in educational involvement in the home, such as
homework help. Utilizing community resources was the least common type of parental
involvement. Common barriers that immigrant parents faced were language barriers, lack of
knowledge regarding the educational system, and not wanting to interfere with teachers doing
their jobs (Vera, et al., 2012).

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I felt like this was a significant article for the Redhawk Reading Project because it could
contain some relevant information about ways to either get parents more involved or ways that
we could shift the program to garner more involvement. Many of the families in the Bailey
Gatzert community are immigrants, so it is important to acknowledge the difference in cultures
and find ways that work for everyone. Knowing that some parents might be sensitive to
interfering with the teachers job could be very helpful moving forward. Finding ways to assure
the parents that the teachers want their help could be key. Furthermore, finding out what kinds
of involvement are the most common will be very beneficial, so we can determine what the most
effective ways to implement a project like this would be. The goal of the RRP is to improve the
reading skills of the kindergarten students by involving the whole family, so it will be vital to
make sure it is designed in a way that maximizes parent involvement.

Tool Development and Usage

Following our literature review, class observations, and the informative meetings with
both Priaya and Miss Karen, we set out to create a concise survey that will access parental
perceptions and impact of the first three kits received. We also sought to gather parental feelings
surrounding self-efficacy and the effect the kits had on the parent-teacher relationship. After
brainstorming together, we decided to use both likert scale questions and open ended questions
on our short survey in order to give parents a straight forward and relatively quick way to share
opinions and personal feedback. Interest in teacher perceptions guided us to create a similar
survey for the participating kindergarten teachers.
Outcome

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After a thorough review of the survey results it can be concluded that the majority of the
families either agreed or strongly agreed that the literacy kits helped with increasing engagement
with their children at home. Most of the families would like to continue such programs with their
children as they move up to the first grade. A more detailed analysis of the survey results
follows.
Final Product
Redhawk Reading Program
Family Survey Results: 19 Total family responses

Question 1: It was fun to use these reading materials with my child at home.
Table 1
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral0
Agree

Strongly Agree

13
0

10

12

14

As represented in Table 1, all of the families surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed
that the literacy kits were fun to use at home with their child. 6 out of 19 (32 %) families
"agreed", while 13 out of 19 (68%) families "strongly agreed" that the literacy kits were fun for
the family to use.
Question 2: As a parent, it was easy to understand how to play the reading games
with my child.

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Table 2
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral0
Agree

Strongly Agree

11
0

10

12

As represented in Table 2, all of the families surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed
that the reading games included in the literacy kits were easy to understand for use at home with
their child. 8 out of 19 (42 %) families "agreed", while 11 out of 19 (58%) families "strongly
agreed" that the literacy kits were easy for the family to understand.
Question 3: Other members of my family got involved while using the books and
games sent home with my child throughout the year.
Table 3
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly Agree

10
0

10

12

As represented in Table 3, most of the families surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed
that the literacy kits enabled other family members to get involved while using the books and
games at home with their child. 7 out of 19 (37 %) families "agreed", while 10 out of 19 (53%)
families "strongly agreed". However, 1 family (5%) was "neutral" and 1 family (5%) "disagreed"
possibly meaning that the family did not get involved while using the literacy kits.
Question 4: I have seen an improvement in my childs reading skills.

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Table 4
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral

Agree

Strongly Agree

12
0

10

12

14

As represented in Table 4, most of the families surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed
that they noticed an improvement in their child's reading skills due to the literacy kits sent home
with their child. 6 out of 19 (32 %) families "agreed", while 12 out of 19 (63%) families
"strongly agreed" that the literacy kits improved their child's reading skills. However, 1 family
(5%) indicated a "neutral" response possibly indicating that they did not notice a marked
improvement in their child's reading skills due to the literacy kit.
Question 5: I felt comfortable talking with my childs teacher about concerns
regarding the reading materials sent home.
Table 5
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral

Agree

Strongly Agree

13
0

10

12

14

As represented in Table 5, most of the families surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed
that they felt comfortable talking with their child's teacher about concerns regarding the literacy
kits sent home with their child. 5 out of 19 (26 %) families "agreed", while 13 out of 19 (68%)
families "strongly agreed" that they felt comfortable talking about literacy kit concerns with the

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teacher. Only 1 family (5%) gave a "neutral" response possibly indicating that there was no need
to talk with the teacher regarding the literacy kits.
Question 6: I feel more involved in my child's education because of the books and
games we used all year.
Table 6
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral

Agree

11

Strongly Agree

7
0

10

12

As represented in Table 6, most of the families surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed
that the literacy kits helped them feel more involved in their child's education. 11 out of 19 (58
%) families "agreed", while 7 out of 19 (37%) families "strongly agreed" that the literacy kits
help them feel more involved in their child's education. While 1 family (5%) felt "neutral" about
the literacy kit, helping them feel more involved.
Question 7: I would enjoy using games and books with my child for other subjects,
not just reading.
Table 7
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree

Neutral0
Agree

Strongly Agree

10
0

10

12

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As represented in Table 7, most of the families surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed
that they would enjoy using similar games and books in other subjects with their child. 7 out of
19 (37 %) families "agreed", while 10 out of 19 (53%) families "strongly agreed" that they would
like to use games and books in other subjects with their child.
Question 8: Which part (i.e., game, dictionary, etc.) of the home reading materials
did you like the most?
Table 8

Lit Kit Materials

Books
14%

24%

Games
Dictionary

24%
38%

All

Table 8 represents which element of the literacy kit that the families like the most. The
totals are more than 100% because some of the families gave more than one response. 38% of
the families indicated that the games were the favorite part; 24% of the families liked both the
books and the dictionary; while 14% of the families indicated that they liked all parts of the
literacy kits. Yet, the key element of the literacy kits seemed to be the games provided. Several
parents specifically noted that they enjoyed the "Bob books".
Question 9: Do you have any suggestions for how this reading program could be
improved?
Most of the parent had no specific suggestions as to how the reading program could be
improved. However, several of them made comments such as:

"I would like you to give more books to my child!"

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"Help children more with side words."

"Keep up the system you are doing now for [the] future."
"Thank you and keep up the good work for the sake of our children."

Redhawk Reading Group

Teacher Survey Results: 3 total teacher responses

1. Question 1: I received a positive response to the take home reading materials from
parents/families.
Table 9
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral0
Agree

Strongly Agree

1
0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Table 9 indicates that all of the teachers participating in the Redhawk Reading program
felt that they received a positive response from the parents/families of the children in their class
regarding the literacy kits sent home throughout the year.
Question 2: As a teacher, I felt like my relationship with the parents of my students
improved as a result of the reading materials.
Table 10
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral

Agree

Strongly Agree

1
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

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As shown in Table 10, when asked if they felt that their relationship with the parents of
their student improved as a direct result of the literacy kits 1 teacher indicated they "strongly
agreed"; 1 teacher indicated they "agreed"; and 1 teacher indicated they felt "neutral". This
indicates that over 66% of the teachers feel that the literacy kits had a direct and positive impact
on the parent/teacher relationship.
Question 3: I feel that the level of engagement during class reading instruction time
showed improvement for the majority of my students.
Table 11
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral0
Agree

Strongly Agree

2
0

0.5

1.5

2.5

As shown in Table 11, when asked if they felt that the level of engagement during class
reading instruction time showed improvement for the majority of their students due to the
literacy kits all of the teachers either "agreed" or "strongly agreed". indicating that they felt there
was a direct correlation between literacy kits and student engagement.
Question 4: I would recommend the use of these take home reading tools again next
year with new students.

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Table 12
Strongly Disagree0
Disagree0
Neutral0
Agree

Strongly Agree

2
0

0.5

1.5

2.5

As shown in Table 12, all of the teachers participating in the Redhawk Reading program
either "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that they would recommend the use of the literacy kits again
next year with new kindergarten students at Bailey Gatzert.
Question 5: Which part (i.e., games, dictionary, etc.) of the take home reading
materials did you like the most?
Table 13

Lit Kit Materials

Books
33%

33%
33%

Games
Dictionary

Table 13 represents which element of the literacy kit that the teachers like the most. The
totals are pretty evenly split for each teacher. One teacher liked the books and games; another
teacher preferred the dictionary and books; while the final teacher liked the games and dictionary
the most. The teachers also provided additional comments, such as:

"Dictionary [and] books - [I enjoyed] sitting and talking to families about how to use the

materials."
"I think dictionaries are a great gift, but probably will be used more over time."

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Question 6: What changes, if any would you make to the program?
There were two suggestions offered by the teachers that may improve the literacy kits:

Omit several games at the beginning, such as: Mrs. Wishy-washy. They were only played

a few times before [the children] lost interest.

More books and more leveled (by student) activities.
Question 7: Do you have any suggestions for how parental involvement can be

increased within this program?

The teachers provided suggestions, such as:

Provide more opportunities to talk to families about how they can help improve child's

reading.
Introduce games at a literacy night when the children can play the games with the

parents.
Have parents be introduced to activities with each new set; this might mean adding more
kindergarten conferences or meetings after school.

Group Reflection
It was extremely beneficial to gain knowledge on how important parent engagement is
within an educational setting. For those of us who plan to be future professionals families it is
great to be aware of the systems we will be working with. From the results we will receive, the
variety of how parents responded to the literacy kits will be helpful in understanding how diverse
the families are not only at Bailey Gatzert but in the future places we will work in as well. We
learned how important we think it is for parents to be engaged with their children and school. We
also learned how incredibly responsible we have to be for our role in the system in helping this
process. It was eye opening to see the diversity in the school as far as backgrounds and culture.
Awareness was found in how challenging it can be for parents to communicate with the school.
The difficulty for the children and parent to be a part of a system they are not familiar with

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became clear as well. The different values cultures hold in education plays a pivotal role in how
involved parents are within their childrens school as well. We learned that as emerging
counselors or professionals in education, we must learn to acknowledge socioeconomic
differences. Parents can and will be hesitant in approaching professionals because of the image
we portray in their eyes, in this sense we must realize that just because we are engaging with
families it doesnt mean it will be successful. The way we reach out to families can be a different
experience for each person.
A critical reason to why we overlooked the time it would take to get feedback from the
parents and teachers that we didnt take into account their busy schedule which is a crucial
component to our learning process. The literacy kits have been a very effortful process
throughout the year for the students and parents of Bailey Gatzert. Taking the time to get genuine
feedback will be helpful in the implementation of future literacy programs, which is what is most
important. We are curious about the self-efficacy of those that received calls for surveys with
translators compared to those who received paper surveys at home. There may have been areas
where information was lost in translation. More room for assessment would be the addition of
finding out how many other children are in the family since that can play an immense role in
how much parents are involved depending on each childs stage in life and whether they have
special needs.