NIU interns are teaching parents of elementary students to expand a child’s learning from the classroom to the home.

The program, Home-School Connection, is intended to expand a child’s learning outside of school, and to ease interns’ nerves about communicating with parents, said Portia Downey, NIU’s teacher in residence.

“Teachers-to-be are very wary about working with parents,” she said. “It isn’t something we’re preparing them enough for.”

Home-School Connection is a program within a partnership between the Harlem School District in Machesney Park and NIU, while NIU has seven other partnerships with other school districts, Downey said.

A Home-School Connection night was hosted Nov. 25 at Machesney Elementary School in Harlem School District 122 as an effort to pilot the program.

Downey said the night was a success, with about 130 students and parents showing up to participate in games combining what children learn in the classroom with fun activities.

Laurie Elish-Piper, director of NIU’s Reading Clinic and coordinator of the partnership, also said the night was a success.

“It went very well,” she said. “The pre-service teachers indicated that it was a good learning experience.”

Jim Nordstrom, principal at Machesney Elementary School, agreed.

Downey said the program and the night fulfilled some needs for both the elementary school and NIU.

“It was a combination of the district’s need to get parents more involved in their student’s education and the university’s need to give NIU students who want to be teachers experience working with parents,” she said.

Elish-Piper said funding for the program and the event came from Northern Illinois Reading Council and School grants and the university partnership office.

Also, she said whether the program will carry on depends on funding.

“Next semester, we’d like to see it happen, but we’re waiting to see the outcome of some grants we’ve applied for,” she said.

Nordstrom thinks students benefited from the event.

“I think it really goes back to the fact that when [families] participate and are knowledgeable about their children’s education, the student’s achievement will be much stronger because of it,” he said.

Nordstrom said he didn’t know how the partnership would turn out when it was established eight years ago, but logically it seemed beneficial.

“Any time you have an additional set of hands in the classroom, [it helps],” he said. “Over the years, I’ve become a huge supporter – the partnership has helped everyone involved.”