Sunday, April 29, 2007

Get your child ready for kindergarten!

I just read an article in the University of Florida School of Education newsletter which cites research showing that children who have certain reading-related abilities in kindergarten are much more likely to do well in school.
Most of the students who struggle with reading had a lack of early exposure to print and language development.
Besides the all-important reading to children, the researchers recommend the bookStarting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Children's Reading Success which provides tips on teaching reading skills to your preschooler.
Such activities as rhyming, clapping out the syllables in their names, and taking apart simple compound words such as starfish (recognizing that it is made up of two other words) are important in preparing children for reading.

Monday, April 23, 2007

It's TV-Turnoff Week!

Ever since 1995, schools and other organizations have sponsored TV-Turnoff Week.
Today is the beginning of this year's turnoff week: seven days of finding other things to do than watching TV.
It's intended to make people think about how much time they, and their children, spend watching TV, and to spend a week focusing on other things to do.
If your child's school doesn't sponsor it, consider starting it yourself---today.
I first heard about this yearly event in Jim Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook but today's Washington Post KidsPost also discusses it.
According to the article in the Post, pediatricians recommend that kids spend no more than one hour a day watching TV, using computers, and playing video games. "The more time you spend in front of the TV, the less time you spend reading, writing and doing arts and crafts and sports.
If your kids are not familiar with The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg, this would be a great week to read and discuss it. In this book, sailors find a glowing stone on an island and bring it aboard the ship. Soon they are mesmerized by it, and all they want to do is sit and stare at it. Hmm---what could this symbolize?

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

books for Earth Day, April 22

It's so important to teach children about the environment. Even the youngest child can make a difference. There are many books on this subject, but these are some of the best:
The Day the Trash Came Out to Play by David Beadle and the similar story The Wartville Wizard by Don Madden. In these stories, the trash runs amok and gets back at the people who litter.
The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest and A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry are beautifully illustrated books with a somber message. The second of the books discusses the pollution, and eventual rescue, of a river in New England.
The Lorax (Classic Seuss)by Dr. Seuss..."I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees", says the Lorax in this, the granddaddy of Earth Day--Hooray! by Stuart J. Murphy --not only a good environmental lesson, but this book is one of the MathStart series, and also teaches about place value.
Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg explores two different possibilities for our future. This book is better for older children, and is yet another treasure from one of our most important author/illustrators for children.

Two of my favorite books are The Wump World and Farewell to Shady Glade by Bill Peet. With his instantly recognizable illustrations and clever verse, he brings home the message of caring for the earth. Unlike the animals in Shady Glade, and the Pollutians in Wump World, we may run out of clean places.

Shades of Shady Glade--in Where Once There Was a Woodby Denise Fleming, the animals are displaced by a subdivision.
Earth Day Birthdayby Pattie Schnetzler, is great! This book gives us a song, to the tune of Twelve Days of Christmas, featuring endangered animals.
The Great Trash Bash by Loreen Leedy is an amusing book for younger children that nevertheless has an important message.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Have you heard about the 1000 book project?

The 1000 Book Project is offered through many elementary schools. Families participating in the Project borrow from a series of 100 tote bags each filled with 10 childrens' books. The goal of the Project is for each child to have listened to 1000 books by the start of first grade.

The idea behind this is simple. Imagine that you read one book to your child almost every day from birth on. To make it simple, if you read 300 books a year to your child for 5 years, that will be a total of 1500 books. Many parents do much more than that. I remember that my husband and I each read to our daughters on most days, and on some days it was several books. Just think of the advantage many children bring with them when they start school: they have been read to 1000 or more times, they have favorite books and authors, they know how to sit and turn the pages in a book...And think of the DISadvantage so many other children bring with them to school: What if a child who has never been read to, and has no books in his home, is sitting in a kindergarten classroom next to another child who has been read to daily at home. It is frightening to think of how far behind that child is already, and whether and how he might "catch up".

If you have children in elementary school or preschool or work in a school, it is worth thinking about how such a project could be started very inexpensively. It's my understanding that it does not involve 1000 different books, but only 1000 books. Repetition is valuable, even essential, for children, and even a small number of quality books would be fine. Books and bags could be donated or found inexpensively at yard sales, library sales, and other book sales.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

All parents are teachers...

Yes, all parents are teachers, and as such, it is interesting to read books by the best teachers of our time, describing how they reach and teach children. In his bookTeach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56 Rafe Esquith continues the story of his inspired work with impoverished students in Los Angeles that he began in There Are No Shortcuts. Esquith is intense, devoted to his students, a true workaholic, and comes across as more than a little nutty. He spends almost every waking hour working with his 5th and 6th grade students, and achieves dramatic results. His book is both inspiring and disturbing to me.
There are a number of good ideas in the book, such as the best way I've ever seen to prepare kids for standardized testing. He is also to be commended for his accurate belief that all students can learn, and can usually learn a lot more than people expect of them.
On the other hand, he achieves his results by adding several hours to each school day and working with his students on weekends and in the summers. Now I understand the negativity about teachers who do as little as possible during the school day, stay at school as little as allowed by contract, and take no work home; however, his schedule is not realistic for many people. I must assume his wife takes care of things on the home front, which frees him up to do all the extras. His schedule is just not realistic for many teachers. Once I worked at a school where a teacher was repeatedly praised for staying until midnight on many evenings to make costumes for a school play. It was wonderful that she did so, but she lived alone and had no necessity to be home. If one must put in those kinds of hours to be rewarded, it is very discouraging for teachers with families or other responsibilities.
Nevertheless, his books contain good ideas for parents and teachers. Another such author is Ron Clark, whose book The Essential 55: An Award-winning Educator's Rules for Discovering the Successful Student in Every Child gives the 55 expectations he has for his students, 55 rules every parent and teacher should consider.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

My thoughts about IQ testing...

Recently someone asked in an online forum whether she should have her preschool child's IQ measured.
For one thing, IQ tests do not measure everything. There was an article I read several years ago (and remember at one time kids and their parents were not shown IQ test results) about someone who won a Nobel prize in science who went back to his old high school and got a copy of his files for some reason, and learned that his IQ, as tested by the school system was NOT in the gifted range. Obviously, his IQ test did not meaure him properly.

Also, IQ isn't everything. There are a lot of good attributes that are not measured by IQ. When I taught 2nd grade, a parent asked that her son's IQ be tested, and it came out around 100. Her response was to be very upset that he was only "very average". I replied that he was not average, he was a very well-behaved, kind child who was very considerate of others and well-liked by his peers and his teachers, that he was doing very well in his schoolwork, and that she should not focus on that number. There are many people with lower IQs who, by virtue of diligence, people skills, and sheer hard work have been more successful than those who have a higher number on a paper in a file somewhere.
Another issue is that IQ can change, depending on whether a child has an enriched or a deprived environment. I once knew of a child who was adopted at around age 6, after having a very chaotic earlier life of foster homes and adoptive homes that did not work out. At that time, his IQ tested at around 80, which is not indicative of future academic success. He was adopted by someone who gave him a very enriched environment and a lot of help with schoolwork. He eventually graduated from college and thus far has had a very successful career.
If you are concerned about whether your preschooler has a high IQ, your focus should be on giving him the most enriched environment possible, as long as it is done in a fun way, not by force feeding them flash cards or phonics whatever. Reading to them, visiting interesting places, a lot of conversation with older people, toys that require the child to do things (such as Lego, Duplo, and other building toys) rather than toys that the child just watches, are valuable. Arts and crafts which are creative--drawing and painting, rather than coloring in coloring books. (Now, coloring books are not fatal, children enjoy them and coloring within the lines helps hand/eye coordination but they should be a small part of a balanced diet of activities) Helping adults in any way that they can help safely is also valuable (see my earlier cookbook recommendation).

In short, do not be concerned with your child's IQ unless your pediatrician or a teacher has expressed concern about developmental delays. And in that case, they will help you locate testing.