Family engagement plays an important role in helping children develop the language, literacy, social, cognitive, and everyday skills they need to feel confident and prepared for school. In this article, you’ll discover practical family engagement activities that turn everyday experiences at home into learning opportunities, including the Four Es: Expressions, Experiences, Explanations, and Extras. You’ll also learn how shared reading, conversation, routines, and everyday responsibilities can support literacy and school readiness for young children.
Family engagement begins long before a child enters a classroom. Everyday interactions between children and their families in the early years provide opportunities to build language, communication, problem-solving, independence, and social skills.
These experiences can also help children develop the skills they will need to participate successfully in school. When families make learning part of everyday life, children have frequent opportunities to practice listening, communicating, asking questions, following directions, solving problems, and completing tasks: all essential skills for success in school and beyond.
Everyday experiences at home provide natural opportunities for children to learn, communicate, ask questions, and develop the skills they will need when they enter school. Families do not need elaborate materials or formal lessons to support school readiness. Simple family engagement activities can build important foundations for learning.
Families should understand the importance of teaching their children about the many aspects of the world around them. This is critical in early learning, especially from birth through age four—even before children attend school. Then, once in school, family caregivers should continue to provide these four critical components, outlined in Being Your Child’s Most Important Teacher: A Guide for Families with Young Children.
I call them the Four Es: Expression, Experiences, Explanations, and Extras.
These four important components of daily learning provide the foundation for learning. Families can use the examples below to build meaningful, lifelong learning experiences through everyday activities and interactions. These four Es are not just for early childhood. They apply to all ages of development. We are constant learners.
Expressions should include rich, meaningful, two-way communication with their children, no matter their heritage language. Here are some ways that families can provide expressions.
Families can use their kitchen or the outdoors to build experiences and support expressions (oral language necessary for comprehension in school). Here are some ways families can provide experiences.
Also connected to experiences and expression are explanations, necessary for understanding how the world functions. Explanations can be about the weather, clothing, life cycles, or whatever interests the child. Questions and answers build cognitive knowledge and expand the child’s ability to problem-solve. Here are examples of providing explanations.
The last E is what I call Extras. While the first three Es can happen anywhere and don’t have to cost any money, the fourth E takes children from their immediate world to the outside world. Extras can be going to concerts, the park, a play, a sports activity, the beach, the ocean, the desert, a farmer’s market, the zoo, or any community resource. These can take time and money, but they're investments in a child’s expanding world. Here are ways families can provide extras.
Family engagement also provides many opportunities to build the language and literacy skills children need for school. Reading together, talking about books, playing with sounds and words, and asking questions about stories can support foundational literacy and comprehension while making reading a shared family experience.
The Science of Reading is a body of research that helps us understand how children learn to read and the skills they need to become successful readers. Families can support these skills through simple, everyday reading and language activities. These foundational skills include phonemic awareness (hearing and working with the sounds in words), phonics (connecting letters to sounds), vocabulary (understanding and using words), fluency (reading accurately and smoothly), and comprehension (understanding what is read). Oral language, including talking and listening, connects these skills and gives children opportunities to build their language and reading abilities every day.
At home, families should absolutely support reading at least 20 minutes per day. These can be books read aloud, by the child, read together, or silently.
One session I have provided involves showing the PDF of a book projected on a screen. Each adult also holds a paperback copy of the book. In this interactive session, families learn how to turn a shared reading experience into an opportunity to practice foundational literacy skills and engage children in thinking about what they read. We go through the book and look for beginning sounds, ending sounds, rhyming words, and words that sound the same but have different meanings, among other skills.
We also look at vocabulary and think about comprehension questions to ask after reading the book. We look at the illustrations and think about questions to ask. We discuss the overall themes in the book. We discuss the message the author is trying to achieve. This discussion can be replicated at home.
Reading is only one part of preparing children for school. Children also need opportunities to practice the everyday behaviors and skills that help them participate successfully in a classroom.
Families can help at home by engaging with their children in providing opportunities to learn how to follow rules, routines, and directions and understand there may be consequences if not carried out. These skills are first learned at home to support a smooth transition to school readiness.
Readiness includes opportunities to interact with adults and children in a new environment. Every experience at home helps build a strong learning foundation for school.
Simple family routines can help children understand expectations, practice self-control, and recognize that rules help keep people safe and organized. Families can practice these skills through everyday activities such as
Predictable routines help children know what to expect and practice managing the steps involved in everyday activities. Families can encourage independence by giving children opportunities to participate in routines such as
Children need to practice both listening to directions and completing the tasks they are asked to do. Families can build these skills by giving children simple, clear directions during everyday activities and gradually increasing the number of steps they are expected to complete.
And acknowledging
Children also benefit from opportunities to focus their attention on an activity, listen to information, and talk about what they have learned. Everyday activities can provide natural opportunities to practice these skills.
Family engagement gives children meaningful opportunities to build the skills they need for a successful transition to school. Everyday family engagement activities turn ordinary moments into learning opportunities. The Four Es provide a practical framework for making those experiences purposeful, while family literacy activities help children develop oral language, explore sounds and words, build vocabulary, and support comprehension. Routines and everyday responsibilities give children additional opportunities to practice following rules, listening to directions, attending to tasks, and developing independence. By making learning part of daily life, families help children build the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to enter school ready to learn, participate, and thrive. Schools can reinforce these efforts by sharing resources and encouraging families. When home and school work together, children benefit from consistent support