2. The Parent Meeting

The parents need to be welcomed as partners in their children's education. Name tags are useful, and if it does not already exist, a spirit of co-operation needs to be established between the teacher, the parents and the animator. Helping to arrange the chairs can break the ice and start the working together. It is better not to have everything prepared ahead of time i.e., the room management and the set up for refreshments, in order to have some tasks to share.

The meeting is chaired by the teacher who is assisted by the animator in explaining the project. The parents need to understand that they are not being asked to teach their child to read but to further develop the enjoyment of reading. This is a key point because:

• some parents resent being asked to do what they think is the teachers job;

• other parents may kill the child's love of reading by over-teaching.

Suggestions for parents are included in Annexes 6 & 7.

Parents are simply asked to be loving parents and enjoy reading with their children. At this point it would be useful to show the video "Story Time" and use the discussion guide as it is appropriate for that particular group. (Annex 8)

After the discussion is finished, it would be useful for parents to be told:

• if the children are going to be tested;

• if there will be feedback on the project given to the parents - i.e., a second meeting with parents is often held to share results and celebrate together at the end of the project.

The teacher may want to ask for a volunteer to help check the reading sheets and/or help with organizing the books.

The animator needs to have time to talk about the difficulties of parents who don't read well, how common the problem is, and what services are available. Parents can be invited to meet with her afterwards. The animator should be alert to the reactions to her presentation and make herself easily accessible during refreshments. Once "Parents-as-Partners-as-Learners" projects have become routine in the school, the parent meeting is not so essential. At the beginning it is very important in developing co-operation and works much better than individual discussions on meet the teacher night. The support of the principal for the meeting and the project in general gives them greater credibility.

3. On-going Communication Between Teacher and Animator

It is most helpful with a new project if the animator and teacher can meet regularly to share information. The animator needs to be told of any children who are not participating and which children's parents were not at the parent meeting and should be visited.