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7.4: NAEYC’s Principles and Guidelines for Family Engagement

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    228284
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    NAEYC’s Principles and Guidelines for Family Engagement

    How do early childhood education programs meet the challenge of engaging families in their child’s early learning and development?

    NAEYC’s Engaging Diverse Families (EDF) project goals sought answers to this question. Their plan was to develop a research-based definition of family engagement, identify exemplary family engagement practices in early childhood programs, and share what they learned by assembling a tool kit of materials to help programs more effectively engage families in children’s early learning.

    An extensive review of the research on family engagement by NAEYC and Pre-K Now found that programs with successful family engagement practices encompass the following six principles listed below.

    Principles of Effective Practice

    1. Programs invite families to participate in decision making and goal setting for their child.
      • invite families to actively take part in making decisions concerning their children’s education
      • teachers and families jointly set goals for children’s education and learning both at home and at school
    2. Teachers and programs engage families in two-way communication.
      • strategies allow for both school- and family-initiated communication that is timely and continuous
      • conversations focus on a child’s educational experience as well as the larger program
      • communication takes multiple forms and reflects each family’s language preference
    3. Programs and teachers engage families in ways that are truly reciprocal.
      • both programs and families benefit from shared resources and information.
      • programs invite families to share their unique knowledge and skills and encourage active participation in the life of the school
      • teachers seek information about children’s lives, families, and communities and integrate this information into their curriculum and teaching practices
    4. Programs provide learning activities for the home and in the community.
      • programs use learning activities at home and in the community to enhance each child’s early learning
      • programs encourage and support families’ efforts to create a learning environment beyond the program
    5. Programs invite families to participate in program-level decisions and wider advocacy efforts.
      • programs invite families to actively participate in making decisions about the program itself
      • programs also invite families to advocate for early childhood education in the wider community
    6. Programs implement a comprehensive program-level system of family engagement.
      • programs institutionalize family engagement policies and practices and ensure that teachers, administrators, and other staff receive the supports they need to fully engage families

    7.4: NAEYC’s Principles and Guidelines for Family Engagement is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Western Technical College.

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