Family Message Journal Article Summary

In this article it discussed the importance of using family message journals in order to strengths aspects of student writing as well as having the parents become involved with responding to their children. Valerie and Swanson discussed that family message journals are little writing excerpts students write about their day. Bringing their message home to their parents so they can respond and share it with the class. This writing exercise helped condition the students into improving their writing skills and making the activity fun and interactive with including the student’s parents. This was an exercise to expand the student’s writing skills and this also gives the parents an idea of what their children are doing at school each day. This will give parents open communication with the school and feel like they know what is going on with their child’s education.
Reaction and Implications
What I found interesting about this …show more content…
Having practice on something challenging everyday will in turn make the students better writers. I also liked that the authors mentioned using these messages as assessments. This is helpful to see if the students are strong in one area and weak in another. Parents can also see their child’s writing progress everyday, which keeps parents up to speed. I also liked that the authors came up with alternative scenarios for students if their parents are not willing to write them back. Having a student in the grade above write back to the student still gives them motivation to write a message to someone even though it may not be a family member. This aspect I agreed with the most was from these messages the students learn more about the family dynamic. From these messages teachers can see if the parents are involved in school or might not be as involved. Overall I agreed with the authors in this article and their points made about family message