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

Roles for Education Paraprofessionals in Effective Schools - 1997

Title I Kindergarten Parent Involvement Program

Spokane School District
Spokane, Washington

Teaching Learning at Home

Paraprofessionals and teachers plan lessons together to coordinate home/school efforts
Paraprofessionals work with parents to support children's school success
Preservice and inservice training keep paraprofessionals' skills sharp

Overview

Paraprofessional Mary has spent the morning observing several of the kindergartners assigned to her. After lunch, she meets with the kindergarten teacher to review the data showing which children are progressing and which need more help in the designated skill areas. In the afternoon, she visits two of her students at their homes, meeting with each child's parents. Bringing a BB Bunny puppet and book to one of the visits, she asks the child to help her collect things whose names begin with the sound of the letter b, such as a bottle, a bag, or a ball. Before leaving, Mary discusses similar games with the parent and leaves the BB Bunny book for the parent and child to read together over the next week.

Since 1974, the Spokane School District has worked with parents to provide home-based instruction to Title I students as a supplement to their regular classroom work. Based on the concept that early intervention will improve students' basic skills, the district hires and trains paraprofessionals who serve as "liaisons" to families. Conducting 40-minute home visits every week, paraprofessionals focus on showing parents the importance of reading to their children and playing educational games.

Program Context

The Spokane Public School District serves 31,800 students in 48 elementary and secondary schools, and 16 of the district's schools are considered Title I schools. In 1993-94, nine of the schools developed an extended-day kindergarten program for students eligible for Title I. The district has about 11 percent minority enrollment, with almost 45 percent of its students receiving free and reduced-price lunches.

Major Program Features

Currently, 13 kindergarten paraprofessionals spend their time observing Title I students in the classroom, meeting with classroom teachers, planning their activities, and conducting home visits. About 210 kindergarten students participate in the program, and each paraprofessional liaison has an average caseload of about 16 students and families. (Seventeen paraprofessionals staff a similar program for 270 Title I first graders.)

Assisting their Title I students in their regular classrooms, liaisons collaborate with the teacher to develop individual lesson plans for students that are shared with the participating parent. During the 40-minute weekly visit, the liaison provides a book for the parents and child to read together during the week and models simple educational games for the parents. Parents are expected to spend a minimum of 15 minutes each day reading or playing instructional games with children.

History

First offered in 1974, the program has changed over the past 20 years. The most significant and recent change involved shifting the program's focus from developmental skills to an emphasis on school readiness or literacy and numeracy skills. Before 1991, kindergartners were pre- and posttested using the Santa Clara Inventory of Developmental Tasks, which stressed conceptualization, language, auditory memory and perception, visual memory and perception, and visual, motor, and coordination skills. The program now uses a portfolio assessment strategy and concentrates on children's beginning skills in handwriting, numbers, and letters; it also evaluates their language development skills and their understanding of stories (early reading comprehension skills).

In addition, in the nine schools offering extended-day kindergartens, the program now includes an afternoon of enrichment activities. In these schools, Title I students attend class with other students in the morning, but they remain in the afternoon for extended-day activities.

Participant Selection

With a district-developed screening instrument, observations, and teacher referrals, kindergartners' beginning skills in numeracy and literacy are evaluated, and the 15 who show the greatest need are offered Title I services.

Home Visits

The concept behind the home visit program was that parents might prefer to develop their skills in interacting with their children at home rather than at school. Parents also are given the option of meeting with the liaison at school, and about one-third take advantage of this option. Some of these parents are uncomfortable with a liaison coming to their home, and others have schedules that make it easier to visit the school on the way from work. To encourage parents to participate, liaisons are flexible, sometimes meeting parents at their worksite. One drawback is that because the visits must be scheduled during regular school hours, working parents cannot always schedule a meeting with their liaisons.

The program emphasizes reading to children and stimulating their self-expression. Toward that goal, liaisons model the behavior that elicits active participation from the children--for example, asking children to retell the story in the book in their own words and answer specific questions. Showing parents simple games that feature common household items, liaisons focus on skills such as identifying letters and letter sounds within the content of a story, or sorting by size or color. For example, to help the kindergartner learn colors, the liaison might have a child sort a collection of buttons by color and size.

Classroom Instruction

Title I instruction is also provided to the students via their regular classroom teachers; the liaison home visits are supplemental. Services provided by the liaisons are coordinated with regular classroom instruction through weekly meetings with teachers and through classroom observation. Meetings, typically held at noon to help liaisons plan for afternoon visits, stress the progress and needs of each student. Each week, liaisons--whether at regular kindergartens or at extended-day kindergartens--spend four hours or more working with students, and another six hours preparing lessons and materials. (Extended-day programs are run by the classroom teachers and concentrate on activities such as computer games, thematic units, and field trips.)

Support and Professional Development Programs

The program coordinator provides one week of training for newly hired liaisons before they begin working with families. Additionally, each new liaison is assigned a "buddy," a more experienced liaison acting as a mentor, for the first year.

All liaisons participate in monthly professional development sessions, which are offered in two-hour blocks on Friday afternoons. (These sessions are considered part of the liaison's workday.) Topics include, for example, portfolio assessment, anecdotal record-keeping, and reading strategies. In addition, the district reimburses liaisons for some outside training opportunities, such as workshops on computer skills, literacy, numeracy, and writing.

Issues

The program has little turnover among the liaisons; four of the 30 current liaisons were hired when the program started in 1974. Several liaisons have teaching certification; the program coordinator noted that some liaisons have left to take teaching positions.

Liaisons work a six and one-half-hour day and are paid more than Title I instructional assistants, but not as much as certified teachers.

Funding

The program coordinator estimates that per-pupil costs, covered by the district's Title I funds, are about $1,300.

Evidence of Success

When the program was using the Santa Clara Developmental Inventory, participating kindergartners would typically show an increase of about eight months in developmental age during the course of a school year. Although the portfolio process is showing improvements, it is more difficult to quantify the children's progress. Program evaluations now rely partly on a parent survey. Parents rate the program highly, and some of their comments include:

"I didn't know what they needed to know to be ready for kindergarten, and this has shown me."
"I didn't know what materials to use. I didn't realize I could use things at home to work with my child."
"I didn't realize asking my children questions during reading would increase their development."

In addition, some teachers and liaisons predict that younger siblings of the participating kindergartners will not need the program because the liaison's lessons make a lasting impression on the families served. However, the program has not been able to track this comprehensively.
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