Word problems for rural students should be meaningful to their way of life. Parents, older students, and students themselves are the best sources of accurate, up-to-date, and authentic word problems. Providing a format to use in problem development insures uniformity and provision of necessary information. (Author/CM)

Parents have the right to be informed about teachers and principals, to be informed about the curriculum, to be informed about policies, to influence administrative decisions, and to influence school policy. (Author/IRT)

Discusses the characteristics of slow learners, learning for mastery, commercially prepared materials for use with slow learners, grouping practices, and parental involvement. (FL)

Parents go through five stages in working with their talented children: (1) realizing their child's giftedness, (2) learning how to help their child learn, (3) venting their frustrations at the lack of programs for their child, (4) learning more from situations like conferences on the gifted, and (5) increasing their ability to work effectively…

Personal experiences of a male parent who participated in nursery school. (BF)

L'Anse Creuse Public Schools in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, invite parents to participate in curriculum study committees. (MLF)

Describes a nontraditional approach to reporting student progress via narrative report cards. The teacher-developed form used by three Tuscaloosa, Alabama, elementary schools is practically blank, allowing teachers to put student information into list or paragraph formats at nine-week intervals. Success depends on keeping communication and…

Describes how a parent, in cooperation with other volunteers, organized a writing center on a high school campus. Explains how they secured funding, found a room out of which to operate, and worked their way into the culture of the high school. Outlines the development of the writing center over its first four years. (TB)

Describes the development and implementation of a metaphorical (nonenforceable) family contract that sets forth parental responsibilities for assisting the public schools in the education of their children. Contract involves the home environment, use of the out-of-school time, and parent involvement with schooling. Discusses issues related to the…

Analyzes literacy events co-constructed by three bilingual, mainland Puerto Rican kindergarteners and the network of adults and children in their homes who support their developing literacy. Reveals and gives value to some of the many literacies in the children's lives and communicates a respectful approach to the study of literacy in families…

Discusses why parent involvement is important for student achievement. Provides several recommendations for the implementation of an effective parent involvement program in schools, including early and ongoing assessment of program effectiveness. (Contains 34 references.)(PKP)

Examines the effectiveness of a paired reading intervention using curriculum-based measurement (CBM) probes to document student reading progress. Parents and children used the paired reading method in their homes for 10 minutes, four times a week. Results showed that the children's reading accuracy and rates increased from baseline to follow-up on…

Surveyed urban elementary school principals and conducted case studies at high-mobility schools, examining how schools with higher mobility levels attempted to build community. Schools with high mobility levels implemented many programs and practices to help families, such as access to counseling services and adult education classes as well as…

Describes a study of an Indiana magnet school's effects on student achievement. The school has a diverse student body and offers programs in foreign languages and cultures, economics, politics, history, ecology, and social systems. On the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, the group of 560 students performed significantly better than they had…