1D) Invite families to share language and culture
Partner with families to provide varied opportunities for them to come to the classroom to share their language and culture.
Video: Integrating Family, Culture, and Language in the Curriculum
This video shares examples for how educators can incorporate various strategies to inform their curriculum: Collaboratively create an environment that represents families through books in different languages, music, and providing utensils/food/dolls in dramatic play that celebrate diversity.Read More
Video: Integrating Home Culture and Language in Learning Activities and Environments
This video provides examples for what educators can do to create a supportive classroom environment for Multilingual Learners. Activities can provide opportunities for MLs and their families to learn about other cultures. Materials (dolls, labeling, books) should celebrate and represent the diversity of the children in the classroom.Read More
Webinar: Family School Partnership—PreK
In this webinar video, building strong family partnerships is explained as well as providing some tangible strategies for early learning educators.Read More
Strategy Overview: Promoting a Sense of Identity
This strategy outlines ways teachers can work with families to promote children's sense of identity, connection to home language and culture, plus respect for diversity.Read More
Strategy Overview: Conducting a Family Oral History—K-3rd
Everyone has stories that are worth sharing! This strategy deepens a child's knowledge about their heritage, makes use of their home language, and opens opportunities to share their stories with their peers.Read More
Video: A Meeting At School
In this video, parents come into the classroom to help with a family project and discuss the language preferences of their children with the teacher. Collecting this type of information and exchanging language development goals for the child is key to partnering with families.Read More
Video: A Letter From My Mom
In this video, parents are encouraged to write a letter to their child and drop it in a classroom mailbox. Children sort the letters into student mailboxes and then read them with the support of the teacher.Read More
Tip Sheet: Parent Involvement and Family Engagement for Early Childhood Professionals
This resource compares and contrasts "parent involvement" and "family engagement." A spectrum of ideas in both categories for partnering with families are offered.Read More
Template: Language Presence in the Classroom
This simple form serves as a template for teachers to acknowledge and record the linguistic knowledge of families who are the "home language experts" for Multilingual Learners.Read More
Strategy Overview: Ensuring the Presence of Each Child’s Language
This resource provides a comprehensive list and explanation of the actions teachers can take to acknowledge, affirm, and support multiple languages in the classroom. Included are tips for engaging with families as "language experts" and capturing their linguistic knowledge on a planning template, and phrase cards with basic greetings in 10 common home languages.Read More
Website: Project 2Inspire
This is a website maintained by CABE, the California Association for Bilingual Education, and is a resource hub for the Parent and Family Engagement Program.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Language and Literacy Development (Spanish)
This tip sheet, provided in Spanish, helps providers partner with parents and families of Multilingual Learners in order to develop language and literacy skills both in school and home environments.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Language and Literacy Development
This tip sheet helps providers partner with parents and families of Multilingual Learners in order to develop language and literacy skills both in school and home environments.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Social and Emotional Development (Arabic)
This tip sheet, provided in Arabic, can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and who might need support in how to best communicate and build relationships with them in a culturally responsive manner.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Social and Emotional Development (Spanish)
This tip sheet, provided in Spanish, can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and who might need support in how to best communicate and build relationships with them in a culturally responsive manner.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Social and Emotional Development
This tip sheet can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and who might need support in how to best communicate and build relationships with them in a culturally responsive manner.Read More
Newcomer Toolkit: Establishing Partnerships with Families
This is one chapter from the U.S. Department of Education's Newcomer Toolkit. This chapter focuses on how teachers can partner with the families of Multilingual Learners and invite them to share their language and culture and engage with a school community.Read More
Newcomer Toolkit: Welcoming Newcomers
This is one chapter from the U.S. Department of Education Newcomer Toolkit. This chapter focuses on how teachers can welcome both newcomer Multilingual Learners and their families into a school community.Read More
Strategy Overview: Testimonios
Testimonio, a Spanish term for "witness account," is a storytelling pedagogy that emerged from Latin American culture and narrative research methodology. Used in the classroom, testimonios can be written, oral, and/or visual representations of Multilingual Learners' experiences that support home language development and engage families in children's learning.Read More
Strategy Overview: Gallery Walks
In this culminating activity at the end of a thematic unit, posters and student work are displayed around the classroom while children guide family members, teachers, or peers through the room, explaining the concepts they've learned. The opportunity to explain concepts to visitors gives children an authentic purpose for using language and demonstrating their knowledge.Read More
Strategy Overview: Family Cohorts
This resource explains how to partner with families by establishing cohorts and home-school connections. Family cohorts can help to create a site-wide culture that values family engagement to support dual language learning. Resources for family cohort meetings are provided, such as a sample agenda and a blank planning template.Read More
Strategy Overview: Family Conversations, Home-School Connections, & Projects
This resource describes how to engage families in their children’s learning by facilitating family conversations, home-school connections, and projects. This resource includes guidance on how to partner with families and connect the curriculum to learning at home.Read More
Video: Home-School Connection and Projects
Opportunities for curriculum-based learning at home help build relationships with families and support language development for Multilingual Learners. This video showcases an example of a home-school project presentation in a preschool classroom where educators provide high-quality extended talk in multiple languages and provide hands-on, inquiry-based experiences.Read More
Strategy Overview: Bridging School to Family Assignments
This resource offers examples of projects and activities that provide families with opportunities to connect school-based content with learning at home. Examples demonstrate how teachers can also invite home language into the classroom.Read More
Tip Sheet: Special Topic & Mini-Strategy Workshops for Families
Workshops provide rich opportunities to talk with families about language development goals for their children, and to invite and prepare them to share their language and culture in the classroom. This document explains two different structures for family workshops.Read More
Video: Key Points of Home Language Preview and Review
This resource explains how educators can engage families in previewing and reviewing books with Multilingual Learners. Teachers can provide families with books to preview at home to connect curriculum with learning at home. Teachers can invite families and other speakers of the home language to come to classrooms to share books in their home languages.Read More
