On the Allendale Elementary School campus in East Oakland, in a portable classroom next to the playground, a group of non-native English speaking parents gathered together during a recent school day.
Their mission: develop strategies to improve their child’s reading while helping raise the school’s overall literacy so all students benefit.
The overwhelming majority of the parents in the room spoke little English, if any. Many had little to no formal schooling. Nothing like that was going to keep them away, though. These parents were brave, determined and focused on their goal.
“They are trying to learn for themselves, but they are also trying to learn how to support their children,” said Eve Garadis, the ESL/Family Literacy teacher at Allendale. “The goal is to affect generations.”
Left to right: Eve Garadis, Allendale Parent Van, and FIA Organizer Paulina
The parents – mostly Arabic and Spanish native speakers – were finishing up the last Lit for Literacy session of their Spring cohort.
Over the previous sessions, the Allendale parents explored the school’s vision for literacy, discussing (through interpreters) how strong home-school partnerships lift student success. They learned practical literacy strategies to use at home, and shared their own stories of their child and their experience in school.
A group of four Spanish speaking Allendale parents – Mireya, Floridama, Glenda and Santa – visited classrooms together.
They first stopped in a multigrade Special Education classroom. Students were singing an “ABC” song and then working on sounding out letters. The Allendale parents observed from the back of the classroom, taking notes.
From left: Glenda, Mireya, Santa, FIA organizer Susan Singleton, and Floridama observing a special education classroom.
“Some students got distracted,” Glenda noted after the class as the group discussed. “Could an assistant help in that class?”
Floridama, who also has a daughter in special education at Allendale, noticed a student in the class who was struggling to pay attention. “Could they use headphones to block noise?” she said. “That helped my daughter a lot.”
The parents then observed a 2nd grade class. The students were sitting on a rug, looking at a screen as the teacher led them through an exercise working on their inference skills – making educated guesses on what was happening without prior knowledge.
“I noticed that the teacher didn’t just give the students the answer, she waited for them to respond,” Santa said. “She was letting them demonstrate what they learned, and give evidence. That’s important.”
Mireya lit up as she described how she could replicate a strategy she observed at home. “I saw the teacher asking questions about the pictures in the book,” she said. “Now when we read together, I also ask my daughter, ‘What do you see here? What do you think will happen?”
Principal Ron Towns welcomes parents to school and outlines what they should look for while visiting classrooms.
Principal Ron Towns said that having the parents on campus was a small act that is designed to have ripple effects across the school. He said this cohort was intentionally planned for parents who don’t feel confident supporting their child’s literacy.
As the group gathered together back in the portable after the classroom visits, a father put it simply: “Now school isn’t a mystery,” and a mother added: “Now I know my English isn’t a barrier.”
The Lit for Literacy 2025 Graduates at Allendale!
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