New Resources for Family Engagement!
Talking to parents about their students' reading progress can be difficult. And once students move into middle school and high school, juggling multiple teachers in a single day, communication with families can easily fall by the wayside. But it's crucially important.
Leigh Carey, a STARI teacher in Queens, NY, has seen this shift firsthand:
"Children through elementary, they understand their reading level. And then all of a sudden in middle school, all the conversations stop….it becomes this taboo subject and no one wants to talk about it. Even the parents have no idea. And when we have that hard conversation and we say, unfortunately, your student tested at this level, it's like a light bulb goes off. And parents say, 'I wish I knew, I wish someone would have told me.'"
Sharing students' reading skill levels and their progress with families is essential. If you're looking for ways to share students' STARI successes with families, we have you covered!
Introducing Families to STARI
First, we have resources to tell families about STARI: what it is and what students will learn.
As you begin, you may want to share the
STARI Overview with families. This 1-pager explains what students do during STARI lessons, including the core reading skills STARI strengthens: phonics and decoding, comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary.
Additionally, each STARI unit now includes a
Letter to Families, offering a brief summary of the books students will read during that unit and the reading skills they'll develop along the way. The STARI Overview is also included with the letter for the first unit of each series.
→ Find these documents in the SERP Download Center under each unit's STARI downloads.
Keeping Families in the Loop
To help families stay connected as students work through a unit, we've developed
Weekly Newsletter Summaries, updates that can be shared through family communications to highlight what students have been working on in the previous five STARI lessons. These summaries include questions families might want to ask their student about what they've been learning in STARI.
→ Find in the SERP Download Center under each unit's STARI downloads. (Currently available for the first unit of each series only. Later units will be made available throughout the school year.)
Celebrating Student Progress
Finally, the STARI Assessment Guide now includes Progress Reports. Designed to be completed by students after each progress monitoring assessment, these reports give students the chance to share their own growth in the core reading skills taught in STARI. This opportunities for self-reflection helps students build agency and ownership over their learning. Sharing progress has benefits beyond the classroom, too. As Leigh Carey explains:
"In the beginning of the year there were a lot of behavioral problems …a lot of hallway walking, going late to their intervention class. And we found family outreach was really helpful. The parents were so happy to even hear about this program, and they were really encouraging the students to take it seriously."
→ Find in the
SERP Download Center, they are embedded in the Assessment Guide for each unit. (Currently available for the first unit of each series only. Later units will be made available throughout the school year.)
Get These Resources
Find all of these resources and more in the SERP Download Center at
access.serpinstitute.org.