Develop Teacher Parent Communication With Your Teacher Letter To Parents!!

A teacher letter to parents is an essential method of parent teacher communication and key to a successful and productive year.

Effective communication starts with a teacher introduction letter (a welcome back to school letter), to parents at the beginning of the year.

In the letter, I introduce myself, my teaching philosophy, and the student agenda (where many a letter to parents is written). To see the full letter please read my page on classroom newsletters .

After that, I send home a variety of letters, for example;

1. During the first term, another letter to parents is sent home, describing the classroom newsletters that they would be receiving from their child during the school year (1st, 2nd and 3rd terms).

Each student's newsletter highlighted the numerous things that they had been doing in school; such as, learning the times table up to 12, working on a poetry unit,etc. (The student's newsletter is NOT edited or corrected by me.)

2. I know my kindergarten teachers send home a monthly teacher letter to parents, stating what has happened during the past month and what special events are coming up in the next month.

3. If my students are involved in completing a project (e.g. Medieval Times) or lengthy assignment (e.g. Science Fair), usually from Grade 3 and up, I compose a letter to parents providing them with the details of the project/assignment, the due date, a grading rubric and other important particulars.

Parents and child must sign the letter and then it is brought back to me. Be sure to keep all letters in the student's file for future reference.

4. If I am industrious enough and not preoccupied with everything going on at the end of the year (you know what I mean), I send a final teacher letter to parents showing my appreciation for their support and thanking them for communicating with me both personally and through the student agenda (not too sappy though).

The body of the letter (really a note) is generic, but it is addressed to the parents (e.g. Dear Mr. & Mrs. Krumholz). Also include their child's name and a little anecdotal comment at the end - e.g. "I really enjoyed Alicia's sense of humour". It makes for a really nice closure.

I then include that letter with their final report card which is given out the last week of school.

Please be sure to read my page on parent teacher communication to get more of my teaching strategies on developing open communication with your students' parents.

In addition you may want to consider enhancing your communication skills through some effective communication training. Check out my page on career development for some of my suggestions on self improvement training courses.

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