Children across the state and country have recently begun their new school year. Associate Professor Brook Chapman de Sousa at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Teacher Education program in the College of Education is an expert in how multilingual children and their families engage in learning, and the strategies educators can use to create classrooms that support every student’s success. Chapman de Sousa shared practical tips to help families ease the back-to-school transition and support their children’s learning and growth.
What did I wish I knew before my child started kindergarten?
I know it’s very stressful starting kindergarten, and I’m a parent as well. I would say the biggest advice is establishing routines as best as you can so your children know what to predict. Starting schools can be scary for them. Knowing that there’s routine at home is really helpful and something that can also help the parent. It just makes the days go smoother. But, having said that, I also learned that it’s important to be flexible too because it can be stressful, and sometimes just realizing in the moment that we have to let go.
What can parents do at home to support reading and math?
Have a designated spot and make sure that all of your resources and tools are there. That ties into the idea of routines. Also, I think it’s really helpful to make time to have conversations with your child about what they’re reading or their math. We know that talking things through helps kids learn. It’s hard, we’re busy, but any time as parents we can just sit with them and ask them ‘what are you learning about?’ When my own children have problems, oftentimes I found that if I just ask them to talk through what they’re doing, they’ll have moments where it just clicks and all they needed was for me to just sit with them.
How can you get the most out of parent-teacher conferences?
Teachers in schools will oftentimes send information home about the structure of parent-teacher conferences. Different schools do it differently, so for some, the children lead the conference, and it’s them presenting and sharing. There’s not always time for parents to ask questions, and I know parents are often really curious. I would advise in that case sending an email to the teacher and either putting their questions into the email or asking if there could be a follow up meeting because it is important at conference time if the children are present, for them to be able to go through what they’ve prepared. I found with my own children that was the style of conference that we had, and it was really nice to sit back and listen to what the teacher and the children were presenting. I think just approaching conferences and working with teachers as a collaboration, so you could also think about the ways that you can get involved in the classroom.
Explain the focus of your research.
My area of focus is how do teachers involve families and children who are multilingual, more so in the classroom. It can be overwhelming and intimidating, especially if it’s an English medium setting. For families who are multilingual and for teachers, if there is any way that we can build those bridges. There’s so many apps now that can help with language and just make sure that you understand everything that’s coming home. If you need support with interpretation or translation, request it because it’s available to you. Also I think that the school can benefit a lot from the languages and cultures that you and your children bring. What we found is that the children tend to do better in class when the families are involved in that way.
