Home visits

I am writig this after a presentation in class last week. A classmate researched and presented on home visits in her school. I feel home visits are an excellent way to build good relationships between families and teachers. In conducting home visits, the teachers are abe to see, firsthand, the environment in which their students live. Also, in conducting home visits, the teachers are able to show the students that they care and are concerned about their learning.



Having home visits, families feel their children's school are really concerned about their children as well as are taking steps to assure their children are valued members of the school. Also, families are able to ask questions or have concerns addressed by their children's teachers. Families can be directed to services they may need and the teacher can have a hand in making sure the families are benefitting from the services provided.



Children feel empowered and important if their teachers are taking the time and effort to come to their homes and sit with them. Teachers are doing such a service to their families when they are conducting home visits.



When researching this topic, I found one school that conducts their home visits prior to the start of school. Each of students are visits and the teachers are able to conduct interviews with the parents as well as plan for the upcoming school year. I think it is fantastic that this school initiates extending their hand even before the students enter the classroom. In doing, so I think they are starting the year off in much better position. In many cases, students will perform better if they know their teacher and/or parents really care about their school. Also, parents and teacher get more involved if they know they have a partner in educating the chidren.



I visited another website that was focused on advocacy of home visits. The guide went on to talk about many benefits of home visits. Listed below are a few of the points made by the article. They included, but were not limited to:



- Prevention of child abuse. There may be a lower chance of child abuse if parents know that there will be home visits during which child abuse can detected.



- Less children lacking medical attention. Research had shown that children that have home visits are less likely to medically neglected.



- Higher school performance. Children who receive home visits score higher in reading and math nationally than children who do not receive home visits.



-Increased school readiness. It had been shown that children that received home visits were better prepared to enter school.


The data above was retrieved from:
http://preventchildabuseny.org/pdf/AdvocacyParents.pdf

Additional resources

http://www.nga.org/cda/files/BENEFITSFINANCINGHOME.pdf

http://www.nea.org/tools/16935.htm