1 Literature Review Kiersten Waller Rasmussen College Jamie Wendt 29 November 2020 EC311 EEC3011 Empowering Contemporary Families 2 Literature Review The article I have chose to review is Family Gatherings that Build Partnerships by Sandra Floyd The main points of this article are that it is important for children families and teachers to form relationships collaborate and get to know each other to effectively provide opportunities to build and grow a sense of community The reader speaks of his early childhood program and how getting parents involved in school events and activities was not enough to boost family engagement in early childhood centers and programs In efforts to create and develop partnerships with families the reader s early childhood program started having something they called family gatherings At the start of every school year they would have the teachers families and children all gather in a central place where they could host an event of meaningful conversation and dialogue in order to better get to know one another in efforts for future collaboration These main points support my efforts in building collaboration between homes schools and communities because allowing families to gather together and have conversations with the educators that influence their children will help their children learn and grow more successfully and also improve in their school life Forming these types of relationships will not only support each child s academic learning but also help to strengthen families improve the quality of education and build support within community families and early childhood educators Implications of the student s overall development in correlation to these points would be extensive and effective This means that these family gatherings that this program would host would help children to benefit by recognizing the home as a learning environment This is done in the fact that the program tries to welcome families to the program to better understand them The student s overall development is also affected socially By hosting these family gatherings at the program s facility it will give children a better idea of the sense of community they should be exposed to and also gibe them an example of how their peers families and teachers should interact and communicate with each other By 3 allowing these types of experience the children will be able to maintain and foster more meaningful relationships and social skills in their development It is essential and teachers and early childhood educators that methods like this article points out are continued to be modeled tested and experienced for us to form real and meaningful partnerships with families These types of methods help us to experience the real difference parent involvement family engagement and partnerships To authenticate true partnerships we must be willing to understand and realize the strength of families and maintain the openness to communicate with families through a variety of methods We need to take into consideration cultural differences communication barriers community resources and the academic future of the children in our programs to successfully create a sense of family engagement References 4 Floyd S 2013 Family Gatherings that Build Partnerships Exchange 19460406 209 61 63