Keep the communication lines open with the professionals who work with your child. As he gets older, the type or frequency of the communication may change, and more of the responsibility will fall onto your child's shoulders.

School-Home Notebooks

Purchase a spiral notebook at the beginning of the school year. On the inside cover, write your phone number with a message to call if the notebook is found. In order to protect your child's confidential information, it is not necessary to write his name.

The notebook will travel back and forth between home and school daily in your child's backpack. Make entries for important information for the teacher regarding things such as appointments requiring your child to miss school, events at home such as a relative visiting or a sibling's birthday, and if your child did not sleep well the previous evening. If it is something that will affect your child's day at school, it should go into the notebook.

The home-school notebook works well with young students who have difficulty explaining changes to their teacher. In the same manner, the teacher will note events, successes, and concerns of the school day.

Assignment Notebooks

When your child reaches third or fourth grade, he is ready to keep an assignment notebook. This is a great way to keep track of the required homework and upcoming activities at school.

As your child maintains his assignment notebook, he is learning responsibility and to ask questions regarding things that he does not understand. Some children need a teacher to check over the homework entries and help them gather their homework materials before leaving school.

Phone Calls

Phone calls offer a personable way to communicate with the school staff members. It is faster to make a phone call than write a lengthy note when you have multiple items to discuss.

Even so, phone calls are not always the best choice. You do not know if you are calling at a bad time. Also, you do not have a written record of what was discussed for your reference. Sometimes it is tricky remembering important details unless they're in writing. For example, which day will the physical therapist observe your child in the classroom?

E-mail

E-mail seems to be the current communication of choice. An e-mail can be read at the recipient's convenience, but sometimes will be read and responded to immediately. E-mail also provides the needed text for later reference. It can be easy to misplace a slip of paper, but it's pretty hard to lose a computer!

Conferences

Sometimes it is necessary to have a conference. You may wish to have a conference when multiple people need to be involved. This may be the case if your child has more than one teacher. Conferences can be held during formal parent-teacher conference dates or more informally at your request. Remember that you can request that the IEP team meet any time you have concerns.