Reading Matters Winter 2019

finds that home visits by the teacher leads to better student performance, better parent and student attitudes about school, and more effective communication between the school and home (Meyer & Mann, 2006). Meyer and Mann (2006) conducted research with 26 kindergarten through second grade teachers in a rural, small, Midwestern school district. These teachers participated in home visits at the beginning of the school year. The results emphasized several major themes. The teacher expressed a more empathetic understanding of the child and his family because of the home visits. Observing the home environment and being in a comfortable setting allowed the teacher to gain insight into the family’s structure. These insights led to a positive influence on future interactions with the parents and child. Because of the non-threatening nature of the home visits, the teacher was able to build rapport and trust that benefitted them throughout the school year (Meyer & Mann, 2006). Reglin (2002) studied a low socio-economic school with high risk fourth and fifth graders in Northwest Florida. Using the Home Visit Survey , he questioned 80 families regarding the benefits of home visits. His research revealed that 91% of the parents surveyed felt home visits supported them and their children. Home visits contributed to parental involvement at the school level with 78% of the families. Teachers also need to prepare for the home visits for the partnership between school and home to thrive. Having a knowledge of the family structure and attitudes toward school is a good first step. This implies a cultural awareness from the teacher as well as a deep respect for the family’s beliefs and values. Scheduling the home visit and initiating a contract to be signed will increase the trust and rapport the teacher is trying to develop. All of these factors increase parental involvement and have a positive impact on parental attitudes toward the school (Reglin, 2002; Walker-Dalhouse & Risko, 2008). Home visits have historically been a strategy schools often fail to consider but are especially effective in lower socio- economic communities. The benefits include meaningful one on one time with the parents and child that promote trusting relationships. Because the home visits allow the teachers to observe the home environment and interactions, a deeper appreciation and understanding of the family is cultivated and leads to greater rapport among all parties (Peralta-Nash, 2003). The benefits are extremely advantageous in promoting positive child teacher relationships and positive parent teacher relationships. Conducting home visits in rural communities is an effective strategy to promote literacy and reading goals for children and increase their motivation. Teachers can use these home visits to teach about and model literacy activities that can be carried out in the home, answer parents’ questions about their children’s literacy performance, show parents their children’s work products to give them an understanding of how they are doing in school, and allow their children to read and write to show what they have learned. These home visits encourage parental involvement in the child’s academic welfare

and also promote a positive working relationship between the teacher and parent (Meyer, Mann, & Becker, 2011). Idea #4: Connect students’ book learning with authentic experiences Children living in poverty oftentimes experience limited life experiences (Tienken, 2012). Their day to day living often occurs within the confines of their local communities, giving them limited opportunities to learn about the larger world in which they live. For children living in rural poverty, their remote locations may create an even greater barrier to community participation. To combat these limited levels of exposure, teachers can be deliberate in engaging students through authentic literacy learning to help broaden their perspectives. Authentic activities encourage critical thinking, support learning in real-world situations, make use of resources beyond the classroom, utilize collaboration, and allow for the demonstration of knowledge through product and performance measures (Rule, 2006). Two ways that teachers can provide authentic learning opportunities to students are through virtual field trips built into lessons and using e-books during learning tasks. When students participate in virtual field trips, they visit other places, talk to experts, and participate in interactive learning activities from their classroom setting (Meyer, 2016). Teachers can use tools such as Google Expedition, a free app found in the Google Play Store or App Store, to provide students with three-dimensional views of sites around the world. They can use videoconferencing technology such as Google+ Hangouts, Zoom, or Skype to virtually bring peers, experts, or other individuals into the classroom to exchange information and/or collaborate with students (Raths, 2015). Each of these tools has free versions for teachers to access for use in their classrooms. Teachers can also join the Connected Classrooms G+ Community, a free web-based platform, that enable them to partner with various Tour Guides to bring content to the screen while providing opportunities for students to interact through question and answer options (“Google Classrooms,” 2013). With the increased emphasis on technology use in the classroom, teachers can seek to integrate the use of e-book readers during learning activities to support young children’s reading and comprehension. This resource engages students through narration, sound effects and animation, bringing the text to life (Huang, Liang, Su, & Chen, 2012). For young children living in rural poverty who may not have had many life experiences, reading an e-book about a bike and hearing the vroom sound effects of the motor can better help them to process the text. According to Willoughby, Evans, and Nowak (2015), with teacher scaffolding of children’s interactions with beginning literacy resources such as alphabet books, a potential exists to increase acquisition of emergent literacy skills at the kindergarten level. Since funds to purchase technology resources in high poverty rural settings may be limited, teachers can look for grant funding opportunities to aid them in acquiring e-books. Funding sources such as DonorsChoose, Dollar General Youth Literacy

Reading Matters Place Matters

| 22 | Reading Matters | Volume 19 • Winter 2019 | scira.org

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