Teachers Ask Jen Serravallo

By Natasha Dash
905-Module 3

The Season 2, Episode 6 of Teachers Ask Jen Serravallo (2016) explored ideas on how to get families more
involved in their child’s reading at home. As a Kindergarten teacher, I often have discussions with families
about how they can support literacy at home, and many of the recommendations Jen suggested I have done
as well including:

o Reading Nooks
o Families can create a space for their child to read in similar to the book nook we have in our
classroom.
o Library cards
o Each year, I take my Kindergarten students to the public library so they can register for their
very own library card. I encourage families to visit the library with their children and participate
in various programs offered.
o Books at home
o My class participates in the scholastic book orders so families can build their libraries at home.
o I do a home reading program where students take leveled sight word books home to read with
their families. I include instructions explaining how families can support their child in reading as
well as prompts they can give their child as they are reading (ex. look at the pictures, what does
the work start with? what would make sense?).
o Students are also allowed to borrow books from the classroom and school library each week to
take home and share with their families.

At the beginning of the podcast, Jen highlighted that its more important for a parent to have a
relationship with their child around the books they are reading rather than how many books their child is
reading. She states that we do not want parents to be “reading police” (Serravallo, 2016). Early in my teaching
career, I used to send home a reading log for families to complete with their child, but not everyone was doing
it, and I agree with Jen that it didn’t seem the reading logs were helping the families be more involved with
their child’s reading or understanding their child’s literacy needs, so I stopped using them.

After listening to the podcast, I found some great tips from Reading Rocket (2008) on how parents can
support reading at home. They offer a great one-page Reading Tips handout to download and print. The
handout is available in 10 different languages and there is one for each grade preschool to grade 3.
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/reading-tips-parents-kindergartners
 References

Reading Rocket. (2008). Reading Tips for Parents of Kindergartners. Retrieved May 29, 2022, from
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/reading-tips-parents-kindergartners

Serravallo, J. (Host). (2016, November, 15). Season 2, Episode 6. [Audio Podcast]. In Teachers Ask Jen
Serravallo. Teacher Learning Sessions. https://share.transistor.fm/s/c6220ebb