3 Ways Family Learning Guides Can Be Involved with K–5 Learners at Home

The saying: “It takes a village to raise a child” rings true when talking about student academic success. After all, it’s a shared responsibility between students, educators, or family learning guides when using Calvert Learning. Let’s take a closer look at one of those groups: family learning guides. The family learning guide is the parent, guardian, caregiver, or otherwise responsible adult who supports the student at home by aiding in accountability, supporting understanding, and providing general encouragement. As educators continue to adapt to delivering virtual or blended lessons, the involvement of the family learning guide also continues to be elevated. In Edmentum’s Calvert Learning, our project-based digital curriculum for K–5 learners, the family learning guide plays a special and essential role.

Once the school year kicks off, the school will send account and student enrollment information to get family learning guides started with Calvert Learning. Family learning guides also help in creating a learning environment at home, like setting up a designated space or gathering materials such as technology, accessories, and school supplies. While attending to immediate needs, such as accessing accounts, ensuring that the student has a work environment with limited distractions, and establishing a routine, the family learning guide also has three other key responsibilities that help pave the way for student success:

Review the learner’s daily schedule

Get into the habit of reviewing the daily schedule with your child each morning. This area of the Calvert Learning program will allow you to see all of the courses and lessons that your child has completed so far, as well as will give you a look at what is coming up next. The daily schedule appears in a calendar view for a comprehensive look at pacing and progress and uses friendly color-coding to clearly communicate where focus should be placed.

On the suggested daily schedule, you’re able to view five days of lesson content at a time for each subject area. Check in here to quickly see if your child is completing the expected amount of work each day. The lessons are hyperlinked, enabling easy access directly into learning content. An orange bar above a lesson indicates that it still needs to be graded by an instructor, and a green bar above a lesson indicates that the student has already completed the work for that subject matter and day.

So, if it’s day two but you see that day one hasn’t been completed, then you can work with your child to understand the color system and point to the right direction toward the lesson parts that have yet to be completed. Once all lesson parts are complete, a blue progress bar will move over to the next day’s work. As the family learning guide, you can also click ahead to view upcoming lessons for planning purposes and even print the suggested daily schedule for the week or the full course. This tool is designed to help your child stay on track, and with enough practice, you can successfully coach your child to make sense of the daily schedule, fostering learning independence along the way.

Check the student dashboard for performance, progress, and attendance

The dashboard within the Calvert Teaching Navigator (CTN) is where you can find all things relative to performance, progress, and attendance. As such, this essential hub is a powerful place to spend your time and attention, and it is a primary area to guide conversations with your child’s teacher. These three tabs of the dashboard yield a wealth of important insights to ensure that each student is meeting academic expectations and reaching achievement goals.

Performance: The performance tab allows the family learning guide to view and discuss grades with the student. On display in this tab is the student’s current average in the class, as well as scores and teacher feedback on each individual assignment that the student has submitted. The information can be used for family learning guides to reach out to the teacher with concerns or get the appropriate help. The data can also be useful for setting goals for the student to encourage productive changes.

Progress: The progress tab is designed to show how far along the student is in each course. Colored-coded bars indicate the student’s progress as it relates to the pacing guide: a green bar represents pacing that is ahead, gray means right on track, and red indicates that the student is behind. The system also notes the number of incomplete lesson parts, so the family learning guide can guide the student to jump right into the lesson part where the learner left off. The user-friendly progress tab makes it easy to facilitate pacing conversations and set daily goals for completion. Family learning guides can get the most out of the progress tab by checking the color bar at the end of each school day, as that will be a clear indication that the student is on track and up to date on lessons.

Attendance: The attendance tab will help determine if the student is logging in as expected and completing the work on time. The attendance tab also gives a look into any work the student has done in a course. A green line under the respective date on the calendar signifies that all work in each course has been completed for that day. The family learning guide should take a quick look at this tab each day to confirm that the student’s attendance is consistent and being reported accordingly. This is the perfect place to see firsthand just how much work your child has completed in the timeframe of learning.

Support the learner in navigating the curriculum  

Did you know that you can preview lesson parts and teaching notes? In the CTN, you’ll find a dropdown menu of all the courses the student is enrolled in. By clicking on the course, you’re able to review and familiarize yourself with projects, preview rubrics for expectations, and more. This option gives the family learning guide an opportunity to engage with the student to brainstorm and discuss ideas prior to starting work.  

There are also teaching notes embedded in the lessons that consist of answer keys and even suggested tips that the family learning guide can use to help guide the student through the lesson. The family learning guide plays an essential role in fostering motivation and driving accountability, so understanding the curriculum with the help of these options ensures the teacher is getting the best work from the student and that the student is meeting the teacher’s expectations.

For younger learners, the family learning guide plays a key role in reading and explaining the directions for each lesson. A read-aloud feature is also available. If the family learning guide requires further assistance, the guide can always communicate concerns and student needs to the teacher using the CTN portal.

The family learning guide is their student’s best advocate, so most importantly, always give yourself grace as you navigate through the added pressures and challenges that come with online learning. For more strategies on how you can amplify success for your child, check out the Calvert Learning Getting Started for Students, Parents, and Caregivers webpage.

This blog post was originally published on October 14, 2021, and has been updated.