An effective “Parents as Partners” Program includes these seven components:

1. Build respectful and supportive parent communication and education:

• Make home visits, ideally before school starts to initiate collaboration.
• Give parents a collection of nursery rhymes during spring registration — in case their child hasn't already memorized many of them.
• Host a Family Literacy Night in the classroom or in parents' homes. Present a Family Writing Workshop and a Family Art Night.
• Send regular newsletters home that highlight children’s learning experiences.
• Mail short, positive notes or postcards monthly to each child's family. Be prepared — address 10 postcards to each of your students before school starts and send one each month.
• Develop your personal Kindergarten Philosophy and Photo Essay and Parent Lending Notebook of informative articles and educational research that supports Good First Teaching. Include many photos of your children engaged in learning with captions describing how children are learning.
• Send home lists of your favorite “predictable books” and quality children's picture books.
• Send home class-made books about the lives of the children and photo folders highlighting school field trips and thematic studies.
• Teach parents why it is important for children to memorize many songs and rhymes as a foundation for success with guided and independent reading.

2. Have a policy that parents are always welcome in the classroom:

• Helping with special projects at home or at school and joining in field trips.
• Observing the learning community “in action.”
• Encourage parents to volunteer for “kid writing” workshops and guided reading.
• Create a family bulletin board and build a parent resource book library.
• Invite parents to come in early to “snuggle read” with a small group of children in the quiet library corner.

3. Engage parents in teaching their child to print their name and to collaborate on multisensory ABC and phonics immersion:

• Send home a nametag showing how children will print their name.
• Celebrate individual accomplishments and thank parents for helping their child learn.
• Support parents' commitment to ABC and phonics immersion by sending home one consistent ABC/sound/symbol book, chart, CD, and flashcards.
• Have high expectations for parent support.

4. Promote nightly reading at home and meaningful family learning experiences:

• Initiate a “Book Bag” program and send home books for family reading.
• Provide training for parents in effective guided reading strategies including the Neurological Impress Method.
• Send home copies of Read and Sing Little Books, a Little Book treasure box, and literacy information letters.
• Help parents understand how children will transition from “magical memory reading” to guided reading and independent reading.
• Send home letters inviting parents to engage in special family learning projects together with their child (e.g., study the stars, keep moon journals, identify leaves, collect rocks, become bird watchers, etc.).

5. Create Poetry or “I Can Read” Notebooks encouraging children to perform and share oral language with the family on a weekly basis:

• Give children the most exquisite language we speak — poetry.
• Children memorize, recite and perform language at school and at home.
• Children illustrate these notebooks, which become a powerful record of the child’s growing oral language and art development.

6. Facilitate student-led teacher-parent conferences – yes, even at the kindergarten level:

• This is authentic assessment at its best.
• Children show samples of their work and take pride in demonstrating their learning.
• Encourage children’s self-evaluation and goal setting.
• Empower kindergartners to take pride and ownership for their own learning.

7. Make school a “celebrative place”: (Read about Dr. Earnest Boyer’s model of The Basic School.)

• Fill the room with the lives of your children through drawings, murals and photo montages of the children engaged in authentic project learning.
• Create a joyful learning community.
• Send home literacy gifts such as the first lines of poems that children have learned so children are encouraged to recite entire poems.
• Invite parents to share in learning celebrations throughout the year (e.g., fall festival, winter celebration, author’s tea, Mother Goose recital, “Big Bagels for Dad” or “Muffins for Mom” early morning classroom performance, sign language festival [a performance of signed songs]).
• Honor a “child of the week” or create meaningful, literacy-rich birthday celebrations.
• Celebrate the first and last day of the year with memorable traditions that involve families.