A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Useful Publications for Parents

The Educational Resources and Information Center (ERIC)

The National Library of Education sponsors the Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC), a national education information network of 16 clearinghouses responsible for developing, maintaining, and providing access to the world’s largest education literature database. Each ERIC clearinghouse, drawn from the academic and not-for-profit sectors, is responsible for collecting the significant educational literature within their assigned education area (e.g. family literacy), selecting the highest quality and most relevant material, processing, (i.e., cataloging, indexing, abstracting) the selected items for input to the database, and also for synthesizing the literature and providing information analysis products (e.g., Digests) and various user services. To access information, topical packages, and referrals on specific educational practices, research, and resources, contact:

The National Parent Information Network

The National Parent Information Network (NPIN) is a project of the ERIC Clearinghouse system. The NPIN is an Internet-based information network for parents, and for organizations and individuals who support parents. Those services include:

• Parent News--an award winning Internet resource, updated monthly, with such items as current articles, books, organizations, community programming ideas, and interesting websites.
  
• Parents AskERIC--a question and answer service for parents, teachers, administrators, and parent education specialists.
  
• Parenting Discussion List--an informal list of parents, and professionals who work with parents, discussing current parenting issues.
  
• Resources for Parents and for Those Who Work for Parents--includes a variety of current journals, articles, and books on family life, child development, and parenting from birth through early adolescence.

The ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication offers parents and teachers free two-page summaries on such topics as:

• supporting children’s literacy development
  
• helping children overcome reading difficulties
  
• using computers for reading and writing and instruction; and
  
• incorporating phonics in whole language classrooms.

For more information about NPIN, contact, ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary Education and

Early Childhood Education at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Children’s Research Center, 51 Gerry Drive, Champaign, IL 61820-7469. The phone number is (217) 333-1386, and toll free: (800) 583-4135. E-mail: ericeece@uiuc.edu. The home page for the National Parent Information Network is: http://npin.org/. The home page for the Clearinghouse is http://ericps.crc.uiuc.edu/.

Another free resource available from the Clearinghouse is the newsletter, The ERIC Reader. Both the winter and spring 1996 issues were devoted to the issue of under-achievement in reading, including strategies and materials for addressing the problem.

In addition to the free publications, the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication produces low-cost books, including Teach a Child to Read, Remedial Reading for Elementary School Children, and Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing. The Clearinghouse can also assist parents and teachers through a series of seminars and workshops offered through its Family Literacy Center at sites throughout the country. These include "Parents Sharing Books" seminars and workshops such as "Make Parents Your Parents in Literacy." Contact the Clearinghouse to learn more about these offerings.

To order Digests or to receive the ERIC Reader, call 1-800-759-4723 or write to: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English and Communication, Indiana University, Smith Research Center, 2805 E. 10th Street, Suite 150, Bloomington, IN, 47408-2698. You may also download selected Digests, The ERIC Reader, and bibliographies on popular literacy offerings from the Clearinghouse’s Web site at http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec. More specific literacy questions may be addressed to the AskERIC question and answer service at askeric@ericir.syr.edu.
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