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A language education professor has created a research-based guide for teachers and administrators for partnering with families across cultural and language differences.

JoBeth Allen, a professor in the department of language and literacy education, has written Literacy in the Welcoming Classroom: Creating Family-School Partnerships that Support Student Learning, a book that showcases stories of what works when teachers in elementary school classrooms partner with families with a focus on learning.

The book, designed for professional study groups, parent-teacher discussions and whole-school workshops, offers effective strategies that educators can adapt to fit their own school communities to raise parent involvement and ultimately, students’ literacy learning.

This followup to Allen’s bestselling book, Creating Welcoming Schools, features the latest research on the effectiveness of family involvement on students’ learning and demonstrates how teachers and families can collaborate through family visits, dialogue journals, photography projects, and critical inquiry projects. It also details how to establish and sustain dialogue through student-led, family involved conferences and outlines experiences that teachers and families can do together to support student learning, including a version in Spanish, downloadable at www.tcpress.com.

The book will be released by Teachers College Press in May.

Allen is co-director of the Red Clay Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project. The book features the work of several RCWP educators as well as other local teachers.