Bringing Parents Onto the Team: What the Research Shows

Note: this entry is part of a series called "The Making of College Bound". Click here to read the series-to-date.

November 19, 2009, is National Parent Involvement Day, so what better time to talk about what it means to be an involved parent. Everyone agrees that parents influence children’s learning, but what is it, exactly, that they do that matters so much for their children’s education? Back in September I wrote about the four key roles of parents:

1. Cultivate character traits that underlie success,
2. Support learning at home and at school,
3. Set high expectations, and
4. Guide children in planning for college.

Why did we choose these four roles? We chose them because — along with common sense — a wealth of research points to them as mattering most.

Many parents would agree that developing character is crucial to helping children grow into kind and productive adults. Research shows, however, that character is also at the heart of supporting academic success. In fact, character traits such as willpower, self-discipline, and the ability to delay gratification have all been shown to be more closely related to academic achievement and other measures of success than IQ. (Nisbett, 2009) One of the most important things parents can do is cultivate a belief in the importance of hard work. It turns out that emphasizing native talent actually de-motivates kids. When children are praised for effort, they’re more likely to try harder when faced with challenges, choose more difficult work and stay focused longer than children praised for intelligence (Muller & Dweck, 1998).

Other parental roles are more obviously linked to academics. Early exposure to literacy, both through complex language in conversation and reading together, can produce dramatically different IQ scores in children as young as three years old (Hart and Risley, 1995). Once a child is school-age, they’re more likely to complete homework and have a positive attitude toward its value when parents provide a structured routine and a quiet and organized workspace (Cooper et. al, 2001). Parents are the key to promoting learning either afterschool or over that long stretch of summer vacation which some studies have shown is largely responsible for the achievement gap (Alexander, 2001; Burkham, et. al., 2004).

At school, student achievement goes up when parents signal that school matters by getting involved, attending teacher conferences and school programs (Steinberg, 1996). Parents who communicate with teachers and get informed about school resources are also more likely to get necessary support for their children (Lareau, 2000 & 2003).

Some research has shown that parents’ expectations matter more than anything else. High expectations — and students’ perceptions of these expectations — substantially influence students’ academic decisions such as their choice of courses, as well as overall student performance (Steinberg, 1996).

Last — but not least — when parents discuss and encourage attending college starting from an early, pre-high school age and help investigate and apply for postsecondary options, their children are much more likely to attain a college degree (McCarron & Inkelas 2006; Catsambis, 1998).

It's the practical application of this research that is at the heart of College Bound — our new program for involved parents. Stay tuned for our next installment, when we delve into the practice of cultivating character traits in children.

What's in the Kindergarten Beta?

Note: this entry is part of a series called "The Making of College Bound". Click here to read the series-to-date.

Recently we shared a sample tip from College Bound — our new online program designed to help parents raise college-ready high school graduates. Since the start of the school year we've been testing a beta version of College Bound with parents of kindergartners, and this week we'd like to tell you a little bit more about what’s in the kindergarten beta. Research shows that when parents support their children's education, teach them to aim high, and help them develop success-oriented character traits, they boost their kids' chances of success. We’ve built six topics with that goal in mind:

Aim High
In The ABCs of kindergarten learning, we ask first-graders to demonstrate the skills they learned in kindergarten so parents can identify how well their children are progressing through the school year.

Build Character
A positive attitude toward school will support a kindergartner all year long. In Nurture a love of learning, we show parents three simple, but effective ways to talk to their children and help them want to learn.

Recently more and more has been written about self-discipline, self-control, and self-regulation — and how they are related to success in school. But did you know that self-control can be taught? And it can begin in early childhood. Learning self-control shows parents an easy, and perhaps surprising, way to foster self-control in their children.

Support Learning
A parent's most important ally at school is her child’s instructor. By completing Partnering with your child's teacher, our moms and dads will be better prepared to establish this relationship for their children's school success.

In The road to reading, we break down the five fundamental building blocks of reading and provide specific activities that parents can do with their children to incorporate them into every day play.

To teach parents the five building blocks of early math, Math every day outlines the key skills and standards that children should learn in kindergarten. Then we show parents some playful ways to teach these skills.

As you can see, parenting for education success doesn't have to be a chore! College Bound inspires and guides parents to turn normal, everyday activities into opportunities for their children to learn and grow. As one of our parents enrolled in our beta put it, "College Bound gives me things for me and my daughter to do together. And at the same time, I'm teaching her. Now I know how to do it, I do it more!"

College Bound: How it Works

Note: this entry is part of a series called “The Making of College Bound”. Click here to read the series-to-date.

Last month, we introduced you to College Bound and the Four Key Roles of Parents, the framework around which College Bound is designed. Today, we’ll explain how College Bound actually works.

College Bound inspires and guides parents — regardless of their own educational backgrounds — to do what it takes to raise a college-ready high school graduate. It is an innovative web-based program that uses short video and animation to show parents, step-by-step, in an engaging, easy-to-understand manner, how to support their children’s success.

How it works:

1. Parents take free online courses and learn simple ways to help their children do well in school.
2. Parents put the lessons to work and try out the new tips they learned with their children.
3. Parents benefit from other parents’ experiences and share their stories with other parents online.

The lessons consist of short, simple videos that require only a few minutes a week to watch.

For example, the Kindergarten lessons fall into six topic areas:

• The ABCs of Kindergarten learning
• Nurture a love of learning
• Learning self-control
• Partnering with your child’s teacher
• The road to reading
• Math every day

Designed for busy parents, College Bound lessons include bite-sized, practical advice that parents can immediately incorporate into their everyday lives. Watch a sample tip here:


Parents are invited into College Bound in groups and experience the program together. For example, a classroom of kindergarten parents may be enrolled together or parents affiliated with a nonprofit organization, labor union or company may enroll as a group. Dedicated coaches guide and motivate each group through the program. Parents share comments and post questions about the lessons with one another and receive encouragement from their coaches. Weekly emails and printable activities engage parents to stay on track throughout the 12-week course.

We are currently testing a beta version of College Bound for parents of Kindergarten students. Soon College Bound will expand to serve parents of children across many more grade levels.

Stay tuned! College Bound Spanish BETA is coming in early 2010.

The Four Key Roles of Parents

A few weeks ago, we introduced you to College Bound, our new online program designed to help parents raise college-ready high school graduates. This week, we’ll introduce you to our ideas about how parents make such a difference in their children’s education. We’ve boiled it down into four key roles and we’ve designed College Bound to help parents play these four roles more effectively.

1. Set high expectations
2. Cultivate character traits that underlie school success
3. Support learning at home and at school
4. Guide children in planning for college

1. Set high expectations
Parental expectations can be the most influential element driving student performance. Expectations get communicated all the time; parents don’t have to be elaborate or formal about it, just consistent and frequent. Expectations influence children’s behavior and decisions and affect a range of outcomes from the rigor of selected courses to grades earned. One study of more than 20,000 high school students found that not only can students clearly articulate the grades they need to bring home to stay out of trouble — their “trouble threshold” — they frequently earn that threshold grade. In other words, when parents expect Cs, students earn them. The same goes for As. Parents also play a crucial role in having high expectations of schools. When parents advocate for college-prep curriculum, content, experiences, resources and supports, they improve both their own child’s educational experience and the schools they attend.

2. Cultivate character traits that underlie school success
Recent research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that about half of an individual’s intellect and ability is inherited or genetic, and the other half is nurture or a product of environmental and societal factors. In fact, teachable character traits such as willpower, self-discipline, and the ability to delay gratification are more highly correlated with high achievement and goal attainment than IQ. Parents support achievement when they cultivate a belief in the importance of effort instead of emphasizing native talent; children who develop this outlook are more likely to try harder when faced with challenges.

3. Support learning at home and at school
Literacy development starts early; the frequency and complexity of parental language, as well as the degree of encouragement, make a big difference in children’s development. As children grow, parents don’t have to become experts in algebra to help with homework — children are more likely to complete homework and view it as valuable when parents simply provide a structured routine and a quiet and organized workspace. How children spend their time out of school has a tremendous impact on their intellectual development, and a large portion of the achievement gap has been attributed to the absence of summer learning.

At school, student achievement goes up when parents attend teacher conferences and school programs. Parents who communicate with teachers and stay informed about school resources are more likely to secure necessary supports for their children. Informed parents are better able to make quality choices about the schools their children attend, the programs in which they participate and, in some cases, the teachers who can best serve their children.

4. Guide children in planning for college
When parents discuss college — starting from an early age — and help their children to investigate and apply for postsecondary options, children are much more likely to attain a college degree.

There’s no magic formula to parenting for education success, just a lot of little things every day. College Bound inspires and guides parents to do these things, beginning when their children are young.

Introducing College Bound

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Welcome to a new series on the GreatSchools blog called The Making of College Bound.

College Bound is our new program at GreatSchools, launching in beta this month, and we’d like to invite you to come with us for a behind-the-scenes look. Let's start by answering the question, Why College Bound?

As many readers know, GreatSchools is primarily known for its school information. One in three families turns to GreatSchools to search for the right school, track the performance of their children’s school, or get general information about K-12 education. Over the past decade, GreatSchools has emerged as the leading source of transparency about the performance of American K-12 schools. We’re very proud of this accomplishment, and we will continue to improve the quality and accessibility of our school information.

But we also know that much more needs to be done to inspire and guide the nation's parents to be effective champions of their children’s education at home and in their communities.

Several years ago, we began asking some key questions: Who is using GreatSchools? What impact are we having? For whom? What else can we do to help close the achievement gap — beyond helping families make informed choices about where to send their kids?

During that exploration, we learned that we have less impact on low-income families than we’d like and so have an opportunity — indeed an obligation — to reach further and inspire and guide those most in need of help.

So we allowed ourselves to dream: What could and should we do to make a more significant impact on low-income families? We wanted to continue to leverage our strength in online technology and media, but we recognized that we’d have to get closer to the customer to learn what we needed to learn. So we began to work in selected cities, including Dayton, Ohio, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to understand deeply the ways that low-income parents are involved in their children’s education. We held focus groups, we did ethnographic research, and we created prototypes. We learned so much!

College Bound, an innovative online-offline parent-training program and support group, is what emerged from this process. And we’re really excited to bring it to the world beginning this month. Stay tuned. In the coming months, we’ll be sharing lots more about what College Bound is, how it works, and what we’re learning.