Increasing parent involvement

Okay, so there's not a whole lot out there about ELL students with learning disabilities, so I've divided my search into two different topics - supporting ELL students and their families, and support for families of students with learning disabilities. My search today has led me to an article dealing with how I, as an educator, can support ELL students in the classroom and encourage parent involvement. The article, titled "Five Things Teachers Can Do," by Kristina Roberston, provides information about measurable actions teachers can implement in the classroom to support the learning of ELL students. The five strategies Robertson lists are as follows:
1. "Increase ELL students' English production and peer interaction."
2. "Explicitly teach English language vocabulary and structures."
3. "Build on ELL's background knowledge to increase comprehension."
4. "Increase ELL parent involvement."
5. "Increase writing opportunities."
Robertson goes on to give a specific, measurable goal for each strategy and describes how to achieve those goals. The strategy that interested me most was how to increase the parental involvement of ELL families. The specific, measurable goal listed for this strategy is this: "Teacher will contact one ELL parent each week to share information on his/her student or to inform the parent of a school event." I like the measurable goals because it gives you a specific action you can take to achieve the goal, rather than abstract advice. I found it interesting that the article cautions that we not interpret parent "no shows" as a lack of interest in their child's progress. All too often this would be my first assumption, but with ELL families, you have to take into account that the language and cultural barriers make it difficult for ELL families to communicate and be part of the school community. However, this is not an excuse for us as educators because it is our responsibility to contact these families and maintain a line of communication. The article mentions that often someone in the home will be able to speak enough English to be able to interpret your message, but if not the school can find bilingual support to help you communicate with the family. If the ELL student has a learning disability, it is even more imperative to communicate with the family on a regular basis to offer support and to ensure that the student's needs are being met in and out of the classroom.
At the end of the article there are several links to other helpful resources, including three links that discuss how to increase parent involvement of ELL students. Each of the links provide further information regarding the five strategies the author listed in the article.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/29590/