ELL Parent Outreach

Including parents as partners in their child's education has been proven to have a powerful impact on student achievement. Reaching out to parents of ELLs is especially important, since families who are new to the country may not be familiar with how schools in the US function and what their role in the school should be.  Communication with parents of ELLs can be challenging due to language barriers, cultural differences, and long work hours of some parents, but the rewards can be great. 

Below you will find links to free bilingual resources to help you make meaningful contact with the parents of your English language learners. These handouts are intended to be copied and shared, so if you've been wanting to reach out more to ELL parents, this is a great place to start!

Raising Children in a New Country: An Illustrated Handbook (Available in simple English with graphics)

A Guide to Your Children's Schools: A Parent Handbook (Available in English, Arabic, Bosnian, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese)

Reading Tip Sheets for Parents of Elementary-Aged Children (Tip sheets available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Korean, Navajo, Russian, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.) 

Reading Rockets Family Guide and Other Printable Resources (Family Guide available in English, Spanish, Somali, and Hmong. All other guides on this page are availble in English and Spanish only.)

Parent Information Letters in 14 Languages (Created by NY City Schools) (Some of these resources are specific to NYC schools so please read over carefully before using.)

Calendar of Holidays Worldwide (This site allows you to search holidays by country or religion so you can be aware of important dates in the lives of your students' families.)

The Family Involvement Network of Educators (FINE) (Look here for many more free resources on family involvement and an online network of teachers.)

The Chalkboard Project Running Start Training Program (This site has everything you need to hold your own staff and parent training programs about parent involvement at your school, including ready-made power points and brochures and information on how your school can be granted a stipend to fund your training.)

A Collection of Parent Information Letters (Created Locally) (Please see Related Files below. Available in English, Spanish, and Ukrainian.)

Ten Ways Parents Can Promote Language Learning at Home (Please see Related Files below. Document includes handouts in English, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu.)

What about translators? For confidentiality reasons we can't post translators' phone numbers online. Please call BETAC for translators. We have a list of all the translators who are registered with BOCES along with feedback on many of them from districts who have used them in the past. We can also help you locate low-frequency languages through other agencies. 

Ten Ways Parents Can Promote Language Learning at Home (PDF file - 985kb)

Parent Letters in ENGLISH (pdf file - 249kb)

Parent Letters in SPANISH (pdf file - 293kb)

Parent Letters in UKRAINIAN (pdf file - 402kb)

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