Teachers, and especially first-time teachers, strive to improve upon their communications with parents. As a cornerstone of your students' education, it is essential to involve the parents and provide avenues for them to communicate with you as well.

Parental Newsletters

A weekly or monthly newsletter sent home to every parent is a good way to keep parents in the loop about the classroom. Many teachers now also send their newsletters via email. The newsletter can incorporate information about subject lessons, projects, upcoming field trips and school functions, as well as provide opportunities and suggestions for how parents can get involved. Include clip art or other graphics among your teaching supplies that you can use to spice up the newsletter.

Friday Folders

Friday folders, or homework folders as they are often called, are a good place for teachers to communicate with parents once a week on an individual level. Write a short note on special note paper from a teacher supply store with each child's take-home folder to alert parents to possible problems, to ask for feedback, or to express positive feedback about a child's work. Encourage the parents to write back by taping the note to the inside of the Friday folder with masking tape and leaving space for the parents' comments underneath.

Email Correspondence

Email is an excellent way to communicate with parents individually. It can be done from anywhere you have internet access, and better yet, it is quick and effective. Invite parents to email you too; for many busy families, this is the preferred form of communication. A short note from a parent addressing a concern about their child is easily answered by you during lunch break or afternoon recess.

Some classes also set up a class email group to share information among all the classroom parents. It is an easy way for parents to get involved in class activities and to be kept in the loop when something needs to be done or communicated.

Communicate Available Hours

It's perfectly acceptable to tell parents about the best time to reach you and your preferred method of communicating. If you're willing to talk in the moments directly before or after school, then make a point of sharing this with parents. With so many means of communicating in the modern classroom, sometimes it's difficult for parents to tell which way is less of a burden on the teacher. Make it easy for them to contact you by being direct about what works best for you within your busy schedule.

Be Flexible

As a teacher, you will meet all types of parents with a wide range of communication preferences. As much as you can, be sensitive and flexible to the ways parents communicate. You both have the best interest of the student in mind, so see your relationship with the parents as a partnership, instead of as an adversarial relationship.

Improvements in parent-teacher communication result in better interactions with students and a better educational environment all around. The above ideas highlight a number of ways to develop solid, effective, constant communication with parents.

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