Email is a good way to communicate with many teachers. It removes the time pressure and it allows for reflection when necessary. My guidelines come both through experience emailing my children's teachers, but also from receiving emails from students (and yes, occasionally their parents).
*Keep it short. Teachers often try to squeeze in emails in little gaps in their day. If you make it too long, the email gets relegated to the “deal with it later” pile. My target is generally something that will not require scrolling on a typical computer screen.
*Keep it to one issue at a time. If you have a concern about how much lunch Suzie is consuming, make this a different email than a concern about reading levels. Make the subject line relevant and descriptive.
*If you are upset in anything besides an issue of safety, set the issue aside for a day. Have someone else read it for you to make sure your point comes across clearly and dispassionately.
*Make it a real letter. Salutations, capitalization, and punctuation all count.
*Keep the emails to a minimum. If you are emailing weekly, you rise to the "nagging parent" level. Fewer emails get more attention.
My basic outline is this:
Dear Teacher (use first name only if she introduces herself with her first name. Otherwise, keep it formal)
Compliment/appreciation
Statement of agreeing with the teacher
Statement of what I see at home/or statement of what my child reports
Generalized but leading request to address the issue. (while always being careful to not tell the teacher how to do her job)
Sincerely,
Name
So, for instance:
Dear Ms. Teacher,
Thank you for the update on {my daughter’s} reading scores. I appreciate you taking the time to do that outside of the regular reporting cycle.
I share your concern about impacting his love for reading. At home, we're indeed seeing a lot of resistance to reading the bag books sent home, which is a concerning trend indeed! However, we've noted that he takes great joy in reading books that he’s picked out for himself, most recently Diary of a Wimpy Kid and a variety of non-fiction science books.
I see that his reading level has increased by 2-4 months in the last year. Is there some way we can take advantage of his love of self-directed reading so that he can show more than 2-4 months of reading growth this year?
Sincerely,
Parent
*Keep it short. Teachers often try to squeeze in emails in little gaps in their day. If you make it too long, the email gets relegated to the “deal with it later” pile. My target is generally something that will not require scrolling on a typical computer screen.
*Keep it to one issue at a time. If you have a concern about how much lunch Suzie is consuming, make this a different email than a concern about reading levels. Make the subject line relevant and descriptive.
*If you are upset in anything besides an issue of safety, set the issue aside for a day. Have someone else read it for you to make sure your point comes across clearly and dispassionately.
*Make it a real letter. Salutations, capitalization, and punctuation all count.
*Keep the emails to a minimum. If you are emailing weekly, you rise to the "nagging parent" level. Fewer emails get more attention.
My basic outline is this:
Dear Teacher (use first name only if she introduces herself with her first name. Otherwise, keep it formal)
Compliment/appreciation
Statement of agreeing with the teacher
Statement of what I see at home/or statement of what my child reports
Generalized but leading request to address the issue. (while always being careful to not tell the teacher how to do her job)
Sincerely,
Name
So, for instance:
Dear Ms. Teacher,
Thank you for the update on {my daughter’s} reading scores. I appreciate you taking the time to do that outside of the regular reporting cycle.
I share your concern about impacting his love for reading. At home, we're indeed seeing a lot of resistance to reading the bag books sent home, which is a concerning trend indeed! However, we've noted that he takes great joy in reading books that he’s picked out for himself, most recently Diary of a Wimpy Kid and a variety of non-fiction science books.
I see that his reading level has increased by 2-4 months in the last year. Is there some way we can take advantage of his love of self-directed reading so that he can show more than 2-4 months of reading growth this year?
Sincerely,
Parent