Running head: EFFECTS OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT ON STUDENTS 1

What are the effects of parental involvement on literacy education, specifically word study in

elementary school?

Mary E. Goggins

Longwood University
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Searching for answers on what is the best practice for a well-rounded word study

approach in education requires a few home literacy aspects to be in place as well. Like almost all

school related initiatives, progress comes from schools and parents being on the same page,

while together working towards a common goal for the student. Word study is a rather recent

method of learning in the education field, many, if not almost all parents do not feel equipped to

assist instruction at home. Considering parents did not receive “Word Study” instruction they

often do not see the value of word study instruction for literacy growth. The generation of

parents and grandparents received memorization based spelling instruction. From this research

many of these answers have been found and explored on a deeper level. How can we reach

parents? What are the effects of parental involvement in elementary school? What parent

programs and initiatives have had success with improving achievement? For the home learning

aspect to be successful in word study the effects of parental involvement must be explored.

When it come to specific research regarding word study initiatives regarding parent involvement

it was very difficult to find any research. The academic community has not extensively explore

this area yet. My research cumulatively will give insight to what outside factors influence

literacy, and how we can make improvements starting at home with the student's main home

guardian.

Looking for some more qualitative results from the Texas Journal of Literacy Education on

early elementary literacy education modeled by parents is explored deeper. “Adult questioning

helps foster children’s participation and engagement in the shared reading event. As noted in our

observations, these interactions were often enhanced by humor or dramatic intonation. Perhaps

even most importantly, the mothers modeled positive attitudes about reading in general by reading

with their children for enjoyment and not solely for skill acquisition. (Curry 2016)” The research

studied showed a positive correlation of numbers between these two things teachers are trying to
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foster in a new subject. Word study needs play, and operates best when picture, concept, blind

sorts, etc. are all used in variations over time. According to the study this is not the case in all

households, sometimes homework does not even make it in the front door let alone leave the

bookbag. Students who have parents working with them on instruction reinforcement have the

upper hand. In 1983 research was done by Heath and it shined a light on literacy practices being

much harder for lower income families. Heath is mentioned saying that culturally defined

literacy at home may not be wrong, but it does not align with school practices and therefore the

students can not succeed at school to the same potential. These constraints would all need to be

taken into consideration when planning parental involvement programs for word study

instruction.

The research journal Reading Research Quarterly article “Why Are Home Literacy

Environment and Children’s Reading Skills Associated? What Parental Skills Reval” has a lot of

supportive evidence to link word reading accuracy and decoding to parent home environments.

The author also states what success is related to genetic differences “ The passive form of a

correlation between children's genotype and environmental exposure happens because parents

pass on their genes and create the home environment. (Bergen)” parents, both controlling the

design influencing students success. This journal also examines how reading fluency (even past

the emergent stage) and other factors such as orthographic skills are developed with strong

correlation to the family environment. The quantitative data in this research over two years took

into consideration: age, gender, socioeconomic status, education, subscriptions, and books in the

house. The data found that reading fluency was related to parents education, and specifically the

fathers reading fluency, but not the mothers fluency. The data showed that for reading fluency

the influence from fathers was .21 to mothers only being .02 correlation. To many people that

may come as a surprise, being that oftentimes mothers are the ones spending more time working
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with the students on homework and reading skills before schooling even begins. The article

suggests that the father's data relates to the socio economic status of the father. Books in the

home had a strong correlation, magazine subscriptions had no effect. Now that we know more

about influences at home we can further explore word study at home.

In one of the leading word study instruction textbooks Words Their Way designs

instruction to start by introducing parents with four days of activities and instructions. The text

states that students should only “be held accountable for what they have been taught.” This

means not correcting all mistakes, and encouraging learned patterns. All of this and more would

need to be shared with parents, below we will explore the best way to share that information and

the other best practices for word study instruction. Much attention has been drawn to the best

way to share information with parents. Very little research has been conducted on what is best to

share about word study. Words Their Way suggests using spelling inventories to help explain

students progress “to discuss individual growth, needs and progress… It reassures parents to see

their child's earlier invented spelling give way to greater accuracy in writing.” (Templeton 2014)

These factors may not be convincing at first but with the right presentation of materials parents

will learn the new method of spelling.

It has to start when they are young, time is very important. In a research study done in

2012 The Long-Term Effects of Early Parent Involvement and Parent Expectations in the USA

they outline the importance of early intervention when parent expectations are not to the schools

standards. When the two are not in sync the child's progress at a young age will be stunted. This

study was also done in regards to behavioral expectations and homework expectations as well.

Studying the long lasting effects of parental involvement in a child’s early years. This study

showed that parent’s involvement in Kindergarten had a stronger correlation than a parent
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checking homework in 8th grade. A parent’s expectations can also predict a student's success in

8th grade as well as college. Students were nationally represented and the study concludes a lot

about family environments. “Because early parent expectations have long lasting effects on

children, parent involvement interventions for young children need to be developed that also

target elevating parental expectations. (Froiland 2012)” going on to prove that “For instance,

expectations held by parents in kindergarten exert much of their positive effect on adolescent

academic achievement via expectations held in 8th grade. Student expectations (which are

influenced by parental expectations) also significantly predict 8th grade achievement. Parent

involvement in homework and grade checking in 8th grade has a slight negative effect on

achievement. (Froiland 2012)” Elementary school is when these predictions and expectations

needs to happen. While word study instruction should still be going on in middle school and

communication about features and assessments should be shared with parents, their day to day

interactions are not as necessary as before.

Why are parents not involved? The biggest gap we see is from socio economic

differences. All students want to succeed just as all parents want their children to be successful.

“Some parents may not have good information about the importance of parenting or productive

parenting practices, and as a result, fail to provide their children with an optimal level of support.

(York 2014)” For new programs to be successful you have to break routines which can be the

hardest part of the experience. This takes time and calls for longitudinal studies to take place.

This gives parents time to trust the system and for everyone to adapt to the new method of

communication. This study by The National Bureau of Economic Research tried a texting

program to promote suggestions for literacy. Few parent programs have been successful because

of costs and time demands on parents and schools and the design on the program was created
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with that in mind. This program found success using text messages to parents of preschool

students. The text message program increased in home achievement by 0.22 to 0.34 standard

deviation, and parental involvement when from 0.13 to 0.19 standard deviations. The findings by

York proved that “By construction, tip texts that address specific skills provide parents with

more detailed instructions than tip texts that address general skills. Therefore, it seems that

specifically-worded text messages are better than generally-worded texts. This interpretation is in

keeping with our overall theory of action underlying the program – highly-specific messages

break down the complexity of parenting more than general messages, making them easier to act

on. (York 2014)” Parents often would like to help but do not have the skills or ideas to execute

them. This study gave examples of text messages that were found to be helpful. They also

worked get feedback about the program for more qualitative results. Highly specific messages

included step by step instructions and leave the idea that for setting up word study parental

programs at school through this method of communication. While many teachers have websites

and choose to email parents York suggests that emails are not read nearly as often. From his

study “...virtually all text messages are opened (by comparison, the e-mail open rate in education

is about 36 percent). Last year, we spent less than one dollar per family to send text messages...

(York 2014)” this was compared to other programs that were costing around 10,000 per family!

Public education programs have to consider cost and when almost everyone owns a cell phone it

seems like an untapped resource and a great solution to getting information to parents.

Working to find the best method will be dependent on many variables but from this

research a few things have been gathered. Starting the parent/school relationships at a young age

is crucial. Making sure parent, student, and school expectations align is in direct relation with

student success. Text messages is a great way to share information with parents about school
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word and literacy suggestions. While this field of word study is changing quickly and more and

more schools are adapting it into their curriculum the work to get parents involved has just

begun.

Resources:
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Cambell T. R., (2014) Literacy for the 21st Century.

Retrieved from:
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=oK6aBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=pare
nt+involvement+in+literacy+in+elementary+school&ots=x8AF92u18I&sig=KKXvlcT-
SN3kMPJazKBYAm6lvCk#v=onepage&q&f=false

Curry D. L., (2016) Texas Journal of Literacy Education. Arlington R.L.

Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1121638.pdf

van Bergen, E., van Zuijen, T., Bishop, D., de Jong, P. F. (2017). Why Are Home Literacy
Environment and Children’s Reading Skills Associated? What Parental Skills Reveal. Reading
Research Quarterly, 52(2), 147–160. doi:10.1002/rrq.160

Froiland, Peterson, Davison. (July 31, 2012). The Long-Term Effects of Early Parent
Involvement and Parent Expectations in the USA.

Templeton, S. (2014). Words their way (6th ed.). Harlow, Essex: Pearson.

York, B. (November 2014) One Step at a Time: The Effects of an Early Literacy Text Messaging
Program for Parents of Preschoolers
Retrieved from: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20659