Andamio!: Using Brain Based Learning to Engage Hispanic Families for ELL Academic Success

This pragmatic and comprehensive book integrates my research, my parent trainings and my "boots on the ground" experience working in some of the largest and most diverse school districts in the country. Based on my doctoral dissertation, "Andamio " represents a breakthrough application of brain-based learning research for helping parents with their ELL children, specifically in Hispanic communities and in support of Title I programs.Andamio is the Spanish word for scaffold. As a noun, it is the perfect word to describe a framework, platform or structure for creating parent engagement. This book is a scaffold, written to explain the requisites imperative in how to structure, why you structure, what you structure, when you structure, and for whom you structure training to create real engagement for the Hispanic stakeholders in your community. Once your scaffold is in place, you can choreograph, organize and plan around that meaningful nexus, a community of stakeholders, who come wanting and ready to learn."For decades, educators have wrestled with issues related to the academic achievement of students. The role of parent engagement in the education of children has long been one of the challenges faced by school district administrators, support personnel, and teachers. How to engage parents in the students' learning process can seem overwhelming to Superintendents, Administrators, and the Parent Coordinators who are charged with designing and implementing the programs. The issue also includes the teachers who interact with parents on an almost daily basis."This national opportunity for parent engagement encompasses a growing population of Hispanic parents, where the child's first language is not English, adding another layer of complexity. Fortunately, we now have a book that contains a balance of thought leadership and pragmatic guidance to administrators, parent coordinators and teachers. " from the Foreword, by Dr. Ana Maria Rodriquez