Introduction
Parent-teacher communication is a very integral part of the preschool education system. The nature of the information that they exchange may have a great impact on the quality of the education for preschool students because they are dependent on parents or guardians. Establishing strong links between the teacher and parent is thus an essential effort towards improving the quality of education for preschool learners. An increase in communication helps to facilitate the development of trust between the two parties making collaboration easier which subsequently yields extremely productive outcomes for the learning process of children. A study by Sucuoğlu & Bakkaloğlu (2016) on parent-teacher communication revealed that most of the communication between is mostly non-verbal and occurs when they are exchanging pleasantries when parents drop their children at the preschool institutions. Consequentially, this has created huge problems of the inefficiency of the learning process for the learners because of issues of comprehension, complexity, and effectiveness.
As it is, there exist limited opportunities for inter-communication between the teachers and parent. The problem is further amplified by the low competency levels of the majority of preschool teacher when these exchanges happen. Effective communications require that teachers apply effective communication strategies including using the correct tone intonations, appropriate choice of words, and quality non-verbal communication.
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Overview/Background of the Problem in Preschool Teaching
Preliminary research on the parent-teacher communication between the re-school-teachers and parents in American ECD institutions indicates that it is inadequate because it is only limited to the daily exchanges when parents drop and pick their children. In addition, the periodic family-kids events do not offer adequate time for all the parents to interact with the teacher and share important information about their children. The over-reliance on the non-verbal forms of communication between preschool teachers and parents has created a huge communication between the most important people in the life of a child. Subsequently, the quality of learning has been greatly compromised and, in some instances, the parents will not share information with their teacher about their children because of the lack of trust and personal relations. Early childhood education is a critical stage of development for a child both physically and cognitively. The absence of a link of communication outside the parameters has further created a distance between the parents and the learning process of their children in most preschool institutions.
Target Audience
The target audience for this proposal targets mainly pre-school teachers and administrative personnel involve in the day to day decision making processes. The parent teacher model requires that they implement the new framework of the model that involves an increased use of non-verbal forms of communication through emails, newsletters, conferences, meetings, and daily verbal communications. Changing the standard practices for the institutions will help to improve the overall output of the pre-school institutions.
Importance of Parent-Teacher Communication
The paradigm of the introducing the PTC (Parent-Teacher Communication) model by the pre-school teachers have triple effects on the learning process of preschoolers. The model proposes the introduction of the use of non-verbal forms of communication through emails, newsletters, conferences, meetings, and daily verbal communications. First, it increases the participation of the parents in the learning process of their children. The development is critical to the success of the education processes. For example, the use of emails correspondence to maintain regular communication between the teachers and the parents helps to increase the free exchange of information between them about the progress of the child's learning.
As Sucuoğlu & Bakkaloğlu, (2016) notes introducing the parent-teacher communication models can play an active role in the learning process of their children. These partnerships are highly effective in promoting the quality of the participation of the parent in the learning process of their children. For example, a preschool teacher can suggest ways that the parents can help to facilitate the learning process of their children by helping them to complete certain tasks created to improve their cognitive development. Concisely, PTC strategies help to increase the participation of parents in the learning activities making thereby enhancing the interests of the children to participate in them.
Second, Sucuoğlu & Bakkaloğlu, (2016) also postulates that PTC is important to help improve the trust between the parents and the teachers. Trust is the foundation of effective partnerships between the teachers and parents.These partnership helps to create new value for the learning process by ensuring that both parties freely exchange information about the child (Sucuoğlu & Bakkaloğlu, 2016). Consequentially, this allows for early detection of any possible issues that may emerge to compromise the quality of the learning process. The teachers and parents always remain appraised on the progress of the behavior of children both at home and at home. When both parties are on the same page regarding the progress of the childs education, they can maintain a consistency of the learning that also helps to increase the quality of education for the child.
The PTC is also important because it opens a new two-way communication channel that helps to connect the parent to the teacher and the child learning activities. The connection between a parent and their childs learning process helps to inform them of the certain procedural processes that are beneficial to learning at home thereby improves their ability to implement these strategies (Sucuoğlu & Bakkaloğlu, 2016,). In retrospect, the new paradigms of communication become instrumental in facilitating the accuracy of the information exchanged between both parties. From this point of view, it is accurate to hypothesize that the communication model also generates benefits for the preschool teachers. The teachers can understand better the learners.
Through an advanced state of understanding of the student, the teacher can devise effective learning strategies that effectively work for the child. In sum, the proposed communication model that includes increased verbal communication using email, regular of has various benefits for the preschool education system especially in the context of increased parent engagement. In the end, the child benefits immensely from the new increased forms of exchange between the parent and teacher as the above discussions show. These sentiments are also shared by various experts who have extensively the concept. In the section below, five experts' views will be critically analyzed in the context of how the PTC model is not important in early childhood education but also in improving the quality of the relationships between the parent and their teachers.
With effective communication strategies, this paper proposes the introduction of a program whereby the pre-school teachers get to learn new ways to communicate with parents. Essentially, this could be a powerful tool in establishing trust and creation of a coordinated partnership that results in better quality education. Through this program, there will be an increased exchange of information between the parents and teachers helps to progressively advance the welfare of the children learners. Positive communication between parents and teachers is the foundation of trust and collaborative efforts to help improve the quality of the education.
Experts Views on Parent- Teachers Communication
Sandra Loughran published a journal article that focused on the various benefits of parent-teacher partnerships. In the journal, she asserts that it is important for the pre-school management bodies to come up with ways to encourage teacher and parent partnerships because of its potential to increase the outcome of the learning process (Loughran, 2008). She agrees that PTC increased involvement of the parent on their childs learning process. Also, in her publication, she postulates that partnership produces limitless benefits for the child.
Similarly, Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta (2005) critically discussed the role of parent-teacher relationships towards improving the education outcomes in preschool institutions. The article concludes that effective communication between schools and families is instrumental in finding amicable solutions to the potential problems that the children may face with the learning process (Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta, 2005). It uses various illustrations to show the value of the interactions such as exchange of information between the parties especially from the teacher to the parent on different ways to reinforce the learning processes applied. The researcher conducted an experimental study using the model that involved introducing email correspondences, regular phone calls with the parent, organizing parent-teacher conferences and observed that the was an improvement on the learning outcomes for the students.
In another publication of 2015, a group of expert scholars on early childhood learning, Lin et al., avowed that adopted communication models that encouraged a frequent exchange of information between the parents and the teachers. As a result, this increased collaborative efforts that help to find amicable solutions to the problems common with children with special care needs (Lin et al., 2019). In retrospect, these perspectives correlated with the perspectives of the proposal suggesting on the importance of the PTC model to increase collaborative partnerships between the parents and preschools especially in finding solutions and issues that may emerge.
According to Kuhn et al., (2016), the increased partnerships between the parents and preschool teachers help to increase home-based learning activities. Precisely, this arises from the fact that parents become more involved in the learning activities of their children. Thus, they became knowledgeable on the learning-related activities that helped to improve their cognitive development.
Lastly, an article by Einarsdottir & Jónsdóttir, (2017) covering the implications of increased partnerships between the parent and teacher concluded that the new partnership between the two parties contributes to an increase in professional collaboration between the two parties. Consequently, that helps to significantly increase their ability to help support their education by providing the children with the necessary support to help ensure they succeed. These perspectives correlate with the arguments of this paper asserting that PTC would transform the whole early education system by creating effective partnerships between the parents and teachers.
Proposal Example
Below is the example of a proposal:
Nurani, Y., & Utami, A. D. (2017). Early childhood education teachers' effective communication-based teaching skill. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference for Science Educators and Teachers (ICSET 2017). https://doi.org/10.2991/icset-17.2017.120
It is formatted as a research study with sections of data collected and analysis. Also, it discusses various results and methodological approaches that can be used to implement the proposal uses a very formal academic tone. The target audience is preschooler teachers.
Proposed Solutions to the Problem
This proposal proposes that preschool teachers in partnership with their school administrators adopt a comprehensive parent-teacher communication (PTC) model that will help to address this issue by creating new channels of communication. In retrospect, the solution to the problem requires that the preschool teachers come with creative ways to improve the communication between the two parties. The PTC offers various potential benefits for the early childhood education spectrum as the discussions below. However, before that it is important to define PTC concept.
The concept refers to a Collective process that incorporates policy framework changes that creates an active process of communication that encourages communication between the parents and teachers leading to an increase in the collaborative partnerships. The process has principal objective of increasing parent engagement to help improve the achievement of the learning process (Ozcinar, 2020). The PTC models suggest an increased use of non-verbal forms of communication through emails, newsletters, conferences, meetings, and daily verbal communications. Non-verbal communication helps to supplement the non-verbal communication especially when they apply the appropriate communication strategies during execution.
Conclusion
The parent-teacher communication model will effectively deal with the current issue of ineffective exchange of information and relations between them. As the arguments above show, the creation of a new channel of communication between the parties will be very instrumental in improving the quality of preschool education. Parents play an important role in the learning process because preschool students depend heavily on their help to learn new things. Undeniably, parents remain as the best teachers for the early childhood learners.
References
Einarsdottir, J., & Jónsdóttir, A. H. (2017). Parent-preschool partnership: Many levels of power. Early Years , 39 (2), 175-189. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2017.1358700
Ishimaru, A. M., & Takahashi, S. (2017). Disrupting racialized institutional scripts: Toward parentteacher transformative agency for educational justice. Peabody Journal of Education , 92 (3), 343-362. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956x.2017.1324660
Kuhn, M., Marvin, C. A., & Knoche, L. L. (2016). In it for the long haul: Parentteacher partnerships for addressing preschool childrens challenging behaviors. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education , 37 (2), 81-93. https://doi.org/10.1177/0271121416659053
Lin, J., Litkowski, E., Schmerold, K., Elicker, J., Schmitt, S. A., & Purpura, D. J. (2019). Parenteducator communication linked to more frequent home learning activities for preschoolers. Child & Youth Care Forum , 48 (5), 757-772. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-019-09505-9
Loughran, S. B. (2008). The importance of teacher/Parent partnerships: Preparing pre-service and in-service teachers. Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC) , 5 (8). https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc.v5i8.1239
Nurani, Y., & Utami, A. D. (2017). Early childhood education teachers' effective communication-based teaching skill. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference for Science Educators and Teachers (ICSET 2017) . https://doi.org/10.2991/icset-17.2017.120
Ozcinar, Z. (2020). Development of teacher-parent communication competence scale (TPCCS). Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences , 15 (2), 349-357. https://doi.org/10.18844/cjes.v15i2.4806
Rimm-Kaufman, S. E., & Pianta, R. C. (2005). Family-school communication in preschool and kindergarten in the context of a relationship-enhancing intervention. Early Education & Development , 16 (3), 287-316. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15566935eed1603_1
Sucuoğlu, N. B., & Bakkaloğlu, H. (2016). The quality of parent–teacher relationships in inclusive preschools. Early Child Development and Care , 188 (8), 1190-1201. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1261124
