Improving Parental Involvement in Children\u27s Literacy

The influence of the home environment on children\u27s learning has long been recognized as significant. While many schools strive to involve families, others complain about parent apathy. Mavrogenes (1990) points out that teachers andprincipals need to question their assumption that low-income parents do not care about their children\u27s education. It is likely that many parents are willing to help, but have few ideas about how to provide help, or have negative memories of school themselves. Parents\u27 insecurity in the school setting may indeed be read as parental apathy (Greenberg, 1989; Moles, 1982)