Mirror Indy is not including the last names of students in the class due to privacy concerns raised by Indy Reads.
Twice a week, Carlos and Maria round up their two kids and come to Daniel Webster School 46 in the evening.
Their daughter is in kindergarten at the westside elementary school, but the whole family is there to attend an English class for both parents and their children.
Carlos is bilingual, but Maria doesn’t know much English, and the parents speak Spanish to their kids at home. While the class is about improving their language skills, it’s also about showing their kids the importance of learning and reading in their house.
“For our daughter, it is a positive push forward to see her mom and dad come in and read books and take classes,” Carlos said. “It’s a positive push for our kids to see that this is where we’re gonna be leading you.”
Get the backstory
Local nonprofit Indy Reads is partnering with Indianapolis Public Schools to offer the class at Daniel Webster as part of an initiative to increase English skills for both parents and their children. Families start the class together. Then, for the second half, an Indy Reads instructor teaches parents while the kids work with tutors from local nonprofit Listen to Our Future.
The class structure is designed to bolster reading skills for the whole family and encourage parents to read to their kids at home, either in English or in their native language. But centering the program around family also opens it up to parents who might otherwise not be able to attend class because of child care.
Research shows that children whose parents have low literacy skills are more likely to struggle with reading and writing themselves. Parents who don’t speak English are also less likely to attend parent-teacher conferences or school events themselves, according to a federal Department of Education survey.
That’s a major concern for staff at Daniel Webster, where about 40% of students are English language learners, according to principal Allyson Peterkin. Indy Reads had been offering the class to parents since 2021, but had to stop last year because it didn’t have funding. When the organization reached out to the school to restart the class in fall 2025, parents were thrilled.
“It makes the kids proud of their parents and the parents proud of their kids,” Peterkin said. “It makes learning fun.”
Learning across generations
For Indy Reads, the class isn’t just about teaching parents English or encouraging literacy for families. It’s about making sure parents are able to be involved in their kids’ lives at school.
“When our parents are learning English as a new language or or have limited education experience themselves, they become invisible in their child’s school experience,” Ruba Marshood, CEO of Indy Reads, told Mirror Indy in an interview last year. “One thing that our model looks to do is to recenter parents as their child’s first teacher and advocate, which does get lost.”
That’s something Indy Reads instructor Greta Herbertz takes into consideration when planning her lessons. In one of their first classes this year, Herbertz and her adult students reviewed the Daniel Webster school supply list and learned the English words for everything on their child’s lists.
“It’s a lot of bringing in those things that already exist in the world,” Herbertz said. “Language exists, and we’re just here to help students unlock it and engage with it.”
Learning practical words and phrases is a focus of many English as a second language classes. But Indy Reads’ approach focuses on centering reading and language — whether English or Spanish — as part of family life.
At the start of class, parents and their children will participate in a group activity, usually reading a book together or playing some kind of game. The idea is that families working together during class will translate into more reading and practicing vocabulary at home.
“We’re thinking about the whole family here,” said Herbertz. “We are creating a community.”
Bringing families together
For Maria, who only attended school through ninth grade in her home country of El Salvador, learning English means being able to communicate with doctors and her daughter’s teachers.
Originally, Maria said she didn’t like coming to class. But at home, she’s been practicing on an app, and speaking English more and more with her daughter. Learning English is something they can share.
“The reality is that she’s teaching me now,” Maria said, with her husband translating.
When Carlos was in school, he often felt like he was being pushed through without fully understanding the material. Although he graduated from high school, he still struggles with reading and spelling.
When Carlos started coming to class with his family, he wondered if he might be able to learn something, too.
So, while the rest of the class learns basic vocab, an Indy Reads volunteer has been helping Carlos with his reading and writing skills. The two recently started reading “The Lightning Thief” by Rick Riordan together.
“I’d like to go back to school, maybe do more,” Carlos said. “But this, right now, is helping me a lot.”
Carlos hopes that when his son and daughter see their parents coming to class each week, they’ll feel inspired to read, learn and work hard in school.
“She will see and he will see that we’re putting an effort to learning, that learning is good, and we all can do it,” Carlos said. “I think, in the end, it’s gonna make better kids.”
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Claire Rafford covers higher education for Mirror Indy in partnership with Open Campus. Contact Claire by email claire.rafford@mirrorindy.org, on most social media @clairerafford or on Signal 317-759-0429.
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