Title: Helpful Hints for Communicating With Parents | Scholastic
Headings: Helpful Hints for Communicating With Parents
Helpful Hints for Communicating With Parents
Communicate effectively with parents via telephone, email, handwritten notes, and a classroom website.
Phone Home
Newsletters
Open Letter to Parents
Personal Notes
Your Classroom Website

Content: If you are suggesting supplemental activities, a weekly newsletter is probably your best bet. If you are trying to showcase student work and highlight achievements or contributions, a less frequent newsletter will suffice. Whichever timeframe you choose, try to send it on the same day each week or month so parents will learn to expect it and look for it. Open Letter to Parents
Teachers who don't regularly produce newsletters — and even many who do — find that a general letter to all parents can be useful. Send other letters throughout the year to make special announcements, explain a new policy, ask for volunteers, and so on. Personal Notes
Your first contact with a family should be positive. This way, you can gain parents' trust and confidence before you have to enlist their help if a problem should develop. Has a child accomplished an academic goal? Helped you or someone else? Finished her or his homework on time?