Episode Transcript

Announcer: This podcast is produced by Benchmark Education.

Kevin Carlson: You know your students. But how well do you know their families? And how well do their families know what happens in your classroom? In this episode: “Family Engagement: Bridging Classroom Curriculum and At-Home Learning.”

I'm Kevin Carlson and this is Teachers Talk Shop.

Megan Lorio: Nine out of ten families think that their child is performing at or above grade level. But teachers know that there's a huge gap in understanding there. You know, there's kind of a critical gap of information, especially when it comes to learning.

Kevin Carlson: That is Megan Lorio. She is a former kindergarten teacher and literacy coach and is the current managing editor at Family Engagement Lab, a national nonprofit that works to enhance family engagement in schools across the U.S.

Benchmark Education's Dr. Jennifer Nigh sat down with Megan recently to discuss some high-impact classroom practices that help to cultivate trusting, authentic relationships, and also help to ensure all students achieve academic success.

Here is Jen Nigh with Megan Lorio.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Megan, thank you so much for joining us today. It is such a pleasure to have you here and taking time out of your very busy schedule.

Megan Lorio: Thank you so much, Jen. I'm so thrilled to be here and to be talking about family engagement today, something I'm super-passionate about.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: You and I had the opportunity to meet this year at Plain Talk in New Orleans and had a really engaging conversation. So tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get to where you are in your career, and what brought about this passion for family engagement?

Megan Lorio: I am currently the managing editor at Family Engagement Lab. We’re a national nonprofit, and we really work to enhance family engagement in schools across the country. I'm based in New Orleans. I'm a mom myself of two little girls, a four and a six-year-old. My background really is working in schools. I was a kindergarten teacher for seven years and then I was a literacy coach and administrator for four years after that, and in transitioning over to Family Engagement Lab­—I've been with FEL for about four years—and so much of my work is really focused on our mission to really empower all families in their child's learning by bridging classroom curriculum and at-home learning, and really giving parents the tools that they need to feel confident and capable in supporting their child. So I love this topic. I got to speak on it at Plain Talk. It's something I'm super-passionate about, and just being able to have my parent hat and my teacher hat on for this conversation will be really great.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. We all wear different hats, and when we can kind of consolidate those hats to bring those different perspectives into what we're doing, it just makes the world of a difference. So that's fantastic.

Well, let's start real basic. We sometimes call the connections with parents different terms, or families when we're working in schools. So maybe home and school connections, or in the case family engagement. So let's unpack that a little bit. What, in your words, is family engagement? What do we think about when we talk about that term?

Megan Lorio: Yeah, I think that's a great place to start. For me, when I'm thinking about family engagement, it's really thinking about, how are we bringing families to the table? So, really recognizing that families have just a wealth of assets and knowledge when it comes to their children. So really focusing on how are we engaging in ways with families that really focus on their strengths, rather than focusing on the more traditional barriers to family engagement or to that home-school connection.

So for me, we spend a lot of time in research at Family Engagement Lab. So we know that parent involvement in learning specifically really has a huge impact on what students are able to achieve in any given school year, so really thinking about how are we fostering those connections between teachers and families around really high-impact information. I think that that's so important for us to be thinking about—the types of information that are going home to families. So just really recognizing that teachers are the trusted experts, and families really need that information from them in order to best support their child at home.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah. So you mentioned you spent a lot of time in research and really unpacking what works well, what you know is going to be, as you said, that high-impact practice that is going to move the needle, is going to make the difference. So tell us a little bit about what some of those high-impact practices are.

Megan Lorio: Yeah, that's great. So I think that at the cornerstone of any sort of practice or family engagement strategy is really focusing on building trusting, authentic relationships between teachers and families. So encouraging two-way communication and just thinking about what are the opportunities for me as a teacher to build trust with a family. So recognizing that families come in with a lot of different experiences of school. In any given year, they might have a very different experience in terms of how things went the previous year or at a different school for their child. So really thinking about recognizing that families have so much to bring to the table. So asking them questions like, “What motivates your child?” or, “Do you have what you need to support your child's learning?” or even just, “What are your hopes and dreams for your child this school year?” Really thinking about building those relationships just has to be at the foundation of any kind of practice or work that's happening in a school year. So I think building on that is thinking about all of the practices, all the ways that we engage families through a lens of making sure that those practices are inclusive.

We find in a lot of conversations with families and a lot of different kinds of districts that often our most underserved communities really aren't getting the information that they need. Families who speak a language other than English get a lot less communication from their schools, for instance, historically, than families who speak English. So really thinking about taking a look at all of our practices with that lens and really considering, “Are we being inclusive, are we making sure that we're reaching all families with the practices that we're using?”

I think another really important sort of high-impact practice to be thinking about is that if we think about families in schools, they're being inundated with information, right?

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Aren’t we all? (laughter)

Megan Lorio: Exactly, exactly! I experience that as a mom, for sure. And we hear that all the time from families, you know, they're just getting so much information in from schools. And so really thinking about, is there a way to embed more of a learning focus into those channels, right? That's really what parents want—they really want more information about how to best support their child at home. Going back to the research, there's really interesting research that recently came out that nine out of ten families think that their child is performing at or above grade level. But teachers know that there's a huge gap in understanding there, and that definitely not, in terms of—nine out of ten students are not performing at grade level, right? So there's kind of a critical gap of information, especially when it comes to learning. So really thinking about how are we raising families’ expectations for what their child should be doing at any grade level, and how can we actually not only say, “Here's what your child should be learning or is learning,” but, “Here's what you can do about it.” Sort of, “Here's how to take action on it,” or, “Here's the conversation to be having with your child at home.” Just finding any opportunity to embed that into more traditional family engagement communication strategies, I think is really, really important.

Kevin Carlson: After the break: Trust and goal setting. Stay with us.

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Dr. Jennifer Nigh: You mentioned that critical gap between—you know, as a parent, we want to all assume our kids are doing fantastic all the time. Unfortunately, we know that that isn't always the case. So I imagine going back to—you're talking about trust a lot and establishing that trust early and building those lines of communication, I imagine, makes it a lot less troublesome or challenging when you may, as an educator, have to have that hard conversation, that, you know, unfortunately, we've got some things that aren't going as we would hope to. But we have a plan in place and together we can work to make sure we rectify those challenges. So I'm sure that you've experienced that.

Megan Lorio: Oh, exactly. I mean, I feel like I've experienced that as a teacher and in our work at Family Engagement Lab, I can think about plenty of times for me as a teacher where it was so critical to have that relationship, because there are hard conversations that have to happen over the course of a school year. And certainly it's important to be thinking about—the first time that a family is brought into a conversation shouldn't be sort of focused on, “here are all these gaps,” right? There really needs to be that relationship in place and also opportunities to bring families in for goal-setting. I think that shared goals between a family and a teacher can be really powerful. If a student knows that families and teachers are working together and have a shared understanding around what it is that that child really needs to be working on next, that can be super-powerful in terms of really reaching those goals and making sure that families feel included in that process, rather than just getting the information. They feel like they're really brought to the conversation, which I think is really important.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah, I like that. I like what you're saying about goal-setting, too, because—and going back to what you said, keeping it focused on learning and not the goals, you keep it focused on learning. You can have those tough conversations if need be, but probably more important are even those positive touch points that, “Guess what? Your child did X, Y, and Z.” I can tell as a parent the times that I've gotten those kind of little touchpoints that said, “Oh, you know, Ryan”—my son Ryan—"did X in class,” or my daughter Alexandra did X in class. That really helped build that trust and kept me connected as a parent. But also, it wasn't just the “Oh my goodness, I'm getting that call because something's wrong.”

Megan Lorio: Exactly. And I think that traditionally so many families experienced school that way themselves or experienced school that way, right? So really thinking about how can we shift mindsets around, “We're partners together, I'm excited to celebrate with you, and I'm excited to set new goals with you around your child.” I think that's a big shift for a lot of school cultures. But I think it's so, so important.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah. You bring up a good point about a lot of parents may be experiencing that. That’s what they're bringing into their child's classroom. They may have experienced not good experiences. They may have experienced trauma in school and that can be challenging, then, when you're coming in as a parent trying to build this—wanting a different experience for your child.

Have you worked in those type of situations before too, and do you have any advice about that?

Megan Lorio: Yeah, absolutely. I think that that is certainly a common experience. I think that recognizing—that's part of what makes this work so complicated, right? There's never going to be a simple answer to thinking about family engagement in schools, because you're exactly right­­—families are coming in with their individual stories and experiences and so that's really, for me, why that relationship has to be at the foundation of everything that's going on between a teacher and a parent. It's just so important to be able to build empathy for that family. Teachers do such a great job of really getting to know individual children, right? Really wanting to understand them, understand their unique strengths and needs. And I think putting that same lens on a parent relationship can also be super-powerful, right? Like really understanding, this is where they're coming from, here are their unique strengths, their unique needs, and how am I thinking about addressing that as a teacher or as a broader school system.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah. Do you think in your work collaborating with school districts and teachers, are there some challenges to making this work happen? So, you know, there's so many things that are so important and critical in education. And sometimes some of those things are kind of on the back burner or nice to have, or, “I'll get to that when I can, because there's only so much I could do.” Do you find that as a challenge sometimes with really instilling high-impact family engagement practices?

Megan Lorio: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think oftentimes we see that for—that family engagement can kind of be treated as an add-on, right? Or a nice-to-have and not a need-to-have. Or just very basic communication with families. You know, “Here are the events coming up this month.” Or, “Here's the field trip, here's the form to send back in.” That kind of communication.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: “The conference is in November.” (laughter)

Megan Lorio: Exactly, exactly, exactly. And teachers have great intentions around that. We see teachers who are sending home newsletters with events coming up and they really have intentions of wanting families to know what's going on. And at the same time, teachers don't always know how to integrate some of those high-impact practices like I was talking about earlier. So are we providing teachers with professional development on family engagement? Are we prioritizing that as something that we're talking about in our PLCs? We also think a lot about, at Family Engagement Lab, what are the systems and structures in place at a district or a school level that could really be supportive of teachers? Are principals allowing for time for family engagement? Are they giving important resources? All of those sort of systemic barriers are really important to consider if you're really wanting to make a shift in the overall culture around family engagement in a school setting.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah, it definitely sounds like—it's as much of an amazing impact one classroom can have if it's the culture of the school and the district and the community, that's likely where you're going to see that biggest impact and that sustained impact, too. Because then it's expected, right? It's, “I'm expecting this, this is going to be part of what I experience as my child moves up through the grades and experiencing successes.” So that's great.

Megan Lorio: Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

Kevin Carlson: After the break: More on family engagement from Megan Laurio. Stay with us.

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Dr. Jennifer Nigh: So we talked a lot about family engagement, generally and broadly. But I also know that literacy is a particular area of passion for you. So tell me a little bit more about that. How do you build family engagement around this topic of literacy—especially right now, when literacy is really all over the media? You can be on social media, read certain different news outlets—on the news, literacy is a hot topic, so parents, families, may be really seeing some of all of this and wondering what's going on and how can that all tie into the importance of family engagement.

Megan Lorio: Yeah, it's so important. It's a great question. For me, I think that with any sort of family engagement practice, whether it's literacy, math, any subject, reflecting on some key questions might be helpful to start off with. Really making sure that anything that you're doing is collaborative, right? So really a two-way communication with families, right? How are we bringing families into the conversation. Again, rather than them just receiving information, how are they also able to bring themselves to the conversation? I think when it comes to literacy, too, are we thinking about building their capacity? Anything that I'm doing really should, as a teacher, really should give families more information to build their own capacity and resources around supporting their child at home. And are the practices that I'm doing, are they really clearly connected to student learning? So those are just some sort of reflection, questions for any practice that you're currently using.

I think also more specifically, what we were sort of talking about earlier, this gap in understanding. Families really do have this gap in understanding around what it is their child should be learning at any grade level or just at any point in their child's reading development. So really making sure that families have high expectation when it comes to literacy. Do families understand what their child should know at any point in the year? And even more importantly, do they know what that might look like or sound like?

Like, I think it's one thing to say, “At this point in the year, your child should be reading these types of books or these types of words, or this kind of level,” or really removing it from that and saying, “You know, this is actually what that might sound like in your home, this is what that might actually look like for you when you guys are sitting down and reading a book together before bed.”

I think it's hard as teachers to remember to get past the jargon.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Right.Sending home, “Please do phonological awareness.”

Megan Lorio: Exactly, exactly. I know, I know. And so many assessments that go home to families—that's the kind of language that's embedded in that, right? So they need to work on CVC words or they need to work on phonological awareness like you're saying.

And so I think really being more specific with families and really saying, “That's really what this means,” you know, “Here's a really concrete way for you to practice this at home,” or, “This is what this might sound like in reading” or whatever it might be. So, yeah, I think something that we do with our product, Fast Talk, is really focused on making literacy information accessible and actionable. So just really thinking about what is one small thing a family can practice in the car, waiting in the doctor's office, that can really reinforce grade-level skills. So much of the information that families receive about literacy doesn't feel actionable to them. So we want to really think about how we weave in activities that build their capacity and their confidence to support learning just in their everyday lives. Things that they can just be doing on the go and have those jumping off conversations with their child.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah. I remember eons ago when I was teaching, I taught first and second grade. So when I was teaching first grade, a lot of times I would say, “Super simple, you're in the car a lot, so do some rhyming with your kids. ‘I see a blue sign. What rhymes with sign?’” Little word games. And I remember vividly being like, “Is that really going to help? Is that really literacy? Is that really reading?” And it's breaking it down into, those are the stepping stones that do make a difference that, like you said, are actionable. It doesn't have to be overly complicated. It can be fun and it's impactful, back to your beginning of “these things need to be impactful and related to learning” and just that modeling and understanding of what those things are sounds like can make a massive difference in a student's learning and in the relationship between the classroom and the home.

Megan Lorio: Yeah, I think that's so important because I think that what you're saying, we really—helping families understand that even simple activities like you're saying really do make an impact. So we often tell families, “Read for 20 minutes before bed,” or “Read 30 minutes a day with your child.” And that can actually look a lot of different ways. One night it could be acting out the story from the night before, one night it could be taking turns reading different pages, one night it could be engaging a sibling and reading. And all of those are wonderful things for children to be doing in order to enhance their literacy development and just sort of demystifying it a little bit for families so they feel like these are really actions that we can just do every day that can be fun and engaging for my child.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah, I love that. And again, everything is so much about time too. Like you say, you can do this as you're doing other things, and it doesn't have to be something that takes a significant amount of time out of your day. It can happen as you're doing other things.

Talk real quick to me about curriculum. You mentioned your work with the Family Engagement Lab. You really work to make sure that the curriculum can also support that family engagement. So how can curriculum also do this work for us? So not just the teacher and the parents or the families and the administrators, but what role does curriculum have in this?

Megan Lorio: Yeah, I love that question. I think that—if we're thinking about some of the typical conversations that families have when a child comes home from school, right? They just got off the bus. “What did you do at school today?” “Nothing.” You know, there's a lot of—

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Always. Always “nothing.” Yeah, exactly. Exactly. “I know you did a lot.” (laughter)

Megan Lorio: Yeah, exactly. And so I think that one clear connection that we see with Fast Talk, between curriculum and at-home learning is really thinking about conversations, right? Really thinking about, instead of, “What did you do at school today?” more, “I know you're reading,” or, “I know you're learning about the moon”—or about space or about this text or whatever it might be—"tell me something new that you learned today about that,” right? Giving families really specific, more specific questions to ask their child can really help create more relevant experiences in the everyday world.

When families have more of an understanding of, “These are the kinds of topics and themes and texts that we're reading in class,” it really creates those connection points to say, “That's something that we notice in our family,” or, “That's something that we have in our house,” or—any kind of opportunity to make those everyday connections, I think is so impactful, both for families, to see that this is the way that I can engage with my child around this, and also for children to say, “This isn't something that just lives at school—now I'm getting to see this in the context of my family, my community.” Really making those connection points, I think, is a really important job of curriculum in terms of engaging families at home.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: I love that. I find myself doing the same thing. “What did you do today? What did you learn?” The response is always, “Nothing,” “I don't know.” But to your point of giving families that explicit information so that they can ask those more targeted questions of their children and say, like you mentioned, “Well, I know that you're reading ‘X’ book,” or, “You are learning about space, so tell me a little bit more”—that creates a better conversation between the parent and the family, but again, makes that link that learning is coming home and then going back into the classroom. So I love that recommendation. I'm going to use it myself more often.

Megan Lorio: Yeah, I think that any time we can think about really helping to facilitate a positive interaction around learning between a parent and a child is just so powerful. That is really what we're looking for, is just those opportunities to really say, “We had a fun conversation today about what my child was learning,” instead of it being, “Oh, it was homework, it was stressful.” How can we make this a really positive experience both for the parent and for the child?

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been absolutely enlightening. So I would just ask as we get ready to close off here, Megan, is there any other lasting words that you would like to leave us with, as it relates to family engagement?

Megan Lorio: Yeah, I think that really focusing on building trusting relationships is just so important when we are thinking about a family engagement strategy. And I think that family engagement is a big topic, but how can we think about what's the one next thing I'm going to try with my families? What's the one action I'm going to take? Maybe it's looking for opportunities to embed more learning into the communication I'm sending home. Maybe it's calling a couple of harder-to-reach families this week, or just getting really small with it and just taking steps because all of those steps are really important and really powerful. Really thinking about meeting families where they are. Seeing each family's unique strengths and needs can have just such an impact on students and their learning.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: Yeah, that's great. And that work can start any time.

Megan Lorio: Exactly.

Dr. Jennifer Nigh: It can start at the beginning of the school year, mid-school year, and no time is too late, would be my guess. So great. Excellent.

Well Megan, thank you so much. I know personally I learned a ton more from you, things that I'm going to actually use today in about two hours when my own kids get home from school. I love it. So thank you so much and thank you so much for your work that you do on this really, really important and critical topic and a topic that we know makes a difference. So, thank you. I really appreciate it.

Megan Lorio: Of course, Jen, thank you so much for having me. This was a really, really great conversation.

Kevin Carlson: Thank you, Megan Laurio. Thank you, Jen Nigh, and thank you for listening to Teachers Talk Shop. To learn more about the Family Engagement Lab, visit Family Engagement Lab dot org.

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to elevate family and community engagement efforts, you can also check out Benchmark Education's Knowledge Hub. You'll find valuable insights, practical strategies, and supportive tools. You can listen to expert podcasts, read blogs, and access ready-to-use resources designed to empower you to put your learning into action. From building stronger connections with families to enhancing classroom practices, the Knowledge Hub offers everything you need to make a positive impact in your school community. To learn more, visit the Knowledge Hub at Benchmark Education dot com. It's on the main page. Keep scrolling down, you'll find it.

For Benchmark Education, I'm Kevin Carlson.