Parents Supporting Children's Literacy

I recently read about a very interesting project in England that empowered parents to help their young children improve their literacy skills.  The REAL (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy) Project is interesting in several ways.

• The focus of the project is teaching parents how to teach their own children.  Seems like overall, this would be a pretty cost-effective way of improving early literacy.
• The parents are taught through workshops as well as home visits by the teacher.  A lot of parents and children find this to be highly motivating.
• While, overall, the children showed positive results, the results dissipated over time.  However, in families with a reported lower socio-economic status of the father or lower educational experience of the mother, the results were more positive and longer-lasting.
• Even though this project is intended for early literacy, I think the format could be used with learners of any age or development level.

What I find particularly appealing about this project was that it was very well received by the families.  It's often difficult for schools or other education programs to find ways to connect with parents that are meaningful for both.  This project seems to do just that.  

Additionally, I like the approach that this program takes to teaching literacy.  They use what they term the ORIM (Opportunities, Recognition, Interaction, Model) framework to focus on four specific elements of literacy; environmental print (street signs, product packages, etc.), books, early writing, and oral language.  Opportunities are simply having print and oral language opportunities available for children.  Recognition involves teaching (and modeling for) parents how to recognize literacy milestones in their children.  Interactions are real opportunities for parents to share literacy tasks with their children, such as reading a story together or writing a note to a friend.  Modeling for their children is nothing more than showing their children how they use literacy in their own lives; reading the newspaper, talking with a friend about a book they read, following written instructions to put together a bookshelf, etc.

The goal of the program was to reach 60 families; the program reached 6,000 families.  Apparently they did something right.

For more information, you can find the REAL Project at: http://www.real-online.group.shef.ac.uk/aboutreal-text.html

Misty 

Image courtesy of: www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Natural, Functional Literacy Development

 

What is the first letter of the alphabet that most young children learn? The first letter of their name.  Why?  Because they care; it means something to them.  This concept kind of defines natural, functional literacy.  It's natural because it's part of the child's everyday life and it's functional because it serves a purpose.  The child can say "This is MY name."

Our question as educators and/or parents is how to maximize the opportunities for natural, functional literacy development in our programs.  We have to provide a print-rich environment.  We should set up an attractive  library that is in a quiet part of the room and offers a wide variety of books that cover a wide range of reading abilities.  Ideally, some of these books will stay the same to provide continuity and repetition, but some of the books will rotate, perhaps according to the season or according to concepts being taught.

In addition to reading, children can learn to read by writing as well.  Writing stories may be interesting to some students, but this is certainly not the only way to encourage writing. How about simple recipe cards and blank cards for children to write their own recipes?  Long strips of paper for children to create shopping lists? Maybe a menu from a local restaurant and an order pad for the child to take your order or jot down their own?   You could also include stationery, envelopes, cards and postcards so that children can write letters to parents, grandparents or friends.

If you take a mental break and let the child spend a few minutes building with blocks, you can also provide books about architecture or particular interesting buildings.  Or paper and pens so that children can label their buildings.  How about graph paper so that they can draw "blueprints" of their creations?  Did they build a McDonald's or Home Depot?  Let them make a sign for the building.  Adding cars to the mix?  How about including maps, auto repair manuals, or receipt books for those auto repairs?  

Look around and think of other ways in which you can make language more meaningful for your children.

Misty

Neuroplasticity--Shaping Young Minds

For 400 years, we were wrong.  We believed that our brains were hard-wired.  We believed that brains that were injured remained that way.  We believed that if we just didn't "get" math, or reading, or whatever, that was just the way we were wired and we never would "get it".  We were taught that about our own brains and we based our way of teaching children on that idea.  

Over the past 20 years or so, we have learned that we have been mistaken.  Our brains are, in fact, changeable.  Scientists call this neuroplasticity--neuro, meaning involving the brain, and plasticity, meaning the ability to be shaped or molded.  So our brains can be shaped or molded.  And we're not even just talking about the wiring of the brain; we are talking about the actual structure of the brain that can be changed.

So, what is it that shapes the brain?  It is the experiences we have throughout our lives.  EVERY experience we have helps to shape our brains.  For me, as a teacher, that is an awesome, yet very humbling concept.  Every single thing that I do or say around my students has an impact on them.  I have the opportunity to help shape the very brains of my students; to help them not just compensate for, but actually overcome some learning challenges.  However, a brain that is changeable is also vulnerable.  If I misspeak, am just not "on top of my game" one day, or heaven help me, speak in less than a kind manner to a student, I am also shaping that student's brain, but in a negative way.  As Voltaire said (and Peter Parker's Uncle Ben in Spiderman), "With great power comes great responsibility".  

With the understanding that a person's brain is structured according to that person's experiences, the task of a teacher is much more clear.  Appropriate interventions, especially early interventions, do result in measurable changes in students' brains.  Therefore, we must provide our students with a multitude of rich experiences, particularly if the students come from environments in which those experiences were not provided.  The challenge, and therefore our professional expertise, comes in determining which students need which experiences and planning appropriate activities to provide those experiences.  In doing that well, we can have an impact on our students that previous generations never dreamed was possible.

Misty

Image courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Five Finger Rule--Choosing a "Just Right" Book

How do you help a child to choose an appropriate book to read?  Unfortunately many children, especially young or struggling readers, want to read books beyond their ability.  A Harry Potter book may be very intriguing, but most young or struggling readers couldn't read it successfully and would just become frustrated if they tried. 

The first step in selecting an appropriate book is to have the child look at it, read the title and see if it looks appealing.  A book that is simply not appealing is going to be a tough sell, regardless of how well a child can read it.

The next step is to turn to a random page in the book and have the child read it.  The child will hold up one finger for every word he struggles with or simply can't decode.  If the child holds up 0 to 1 fingers, the book is too easy.  If the child holds up 4 or 5 fingers, the book is too difficult and an easier book should be selected.  But...if the child holds up 2 to 3 fingers, the book is at just the right level of difficulty!

The final step is to talk with the child about the book.  Does the child understand what he just read?  Can he read it fluently or is his reading slow and choppy?  Is it interesting?  If a book has met all of these criteria, congratulations; you have found a "just right" book!

Misty

P.S.  If a child insists on a book that is too difficult, read it with him.  You can read it to him or share reading with each of you reading a page or a paragraph and you helping the child with any difficult words.  Our goal is for children to learn to love reading.  This can only happen if they are taught how to avoid frustrating books and find ones that they will enjoy.

Back-to-School Tips

Last weekend's USA Weekend (the one in our local Sunday paper) included an article entitled "Your A+Back-to-School Action Plan".  I found many of the suggestions to be a good annual check-up for education specialists as well.

The author, Peg Tyre, makes the following suggestions:

• "Make contact with teachers by Week 3."  Hopefully, we already have open lines of communication with our families.   Even so, back-to-school is a good time for a refresher; check-in with your families and evaluate whether there are any families with which you don't have good communication.  If so, what can you do to try to improve it?  
• "Check that your child is reading at grade level."  While our students may not be reading at grade level yet, we do need to regularly check each student's progress.  We have to make sure that our individual intervention plan is helping the student to demonstrate expected growth.  If not, it's time to modify our plan.
• "Understand the importance of downtime."  I know that I find the need to take an occasional mental break, especially during a particularly challenging task.  Recent research on the brain indicates that dyslexic students exert at least 4-5 times as much energy during reading as non-dyslexic students.  Students who are working this hard must have an occasional mental break, so recognize the value in playing a quick game or reading a poem or a few pages from a story. 
• " Analyze test scores".  In this, Tyre suggests that parents look at the overall school philosophy; are they all about test prep activities or are they focused on "helping kids understand, analyze and write about complex subjects"?  This, too, should be our focus. 
•  "Stay on track for college".  My first thought was to skip this tip, but we are preparing our students for college and/or careers.  How?  By empowering these students to be self-motivated active learners; the most important skills they need to be successful in college or a career.
• "Don't trash-talk about math", or any other subject.  Recent brain research reinforces what we have often told students; you can do anything you set your mind to doing.  If we can show a student success in an area that has been challenging, like reading, the student can build on that success.  Similarly, we have to be very careful that our students do not develop negative associations with learning; those negative associations are just as powerful as the positive ones, if not more so. 
• "Be part of the learning community".  How are parents involved with your work with their students?  Are they empowered to assist with the work you are doing with their students?  Similarly, are you continuing your own education through classes, workshops or conferences to demonstrate to the students your own commitment to learning?

An annual review of your program will help you stay on track.  Back-to-school time can be a good reminder for that review.

Misty

 Image courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What Is the LiPS Program?

 

Now that I’ve announced that I’m trained in the LiPS Program, what is it?  The LiPS Program is designed to develop phonemic awareness.  Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are composed of individual sounds (phonemes) and that the sounds within words can be manipulated to change the words.  For example, if you change the first phoneme of “cat” to a “b”, you get “bat”, then, if you change the middle phoneme to an “i”, you get “bit”, and if you change the last phoneme to a “g”, you get “big”.  Frequently, a student hears a word as just one unit that cannot be changed, which creates a lot of difficulty in reading.   As Patricia Lindamood and Phyllis Lindamood, the authors of the LiPS program, explain in the LiPS Program Teacher's Manual, “For students who lack phonemic awareness — the ability to think about and manipulate the individual sounds within spoken words – phonics information and rules appear to have no logic.”  So, trying to teach phonics to a student who does not have phonemic awareness is very difficult.

One unique aspect of the LiPS Program, and the piece that I consider to be most valuable to struggling students, is a focus on how sounds FEEL.  When you are working with a student who is having difficulty hearing the individual sounds in a word, asking them to say the word again and tell you what sounds they heard is very difficult.  If they could hear the individual sounds, they probably wouldn’t be struggling.  What the LiPS Program teaches a student to do is to become keenly aware of how each sound feels, in their mouth, their throat, and even in their nose.  For example, /p/ and /b/ are called “brother sounds” because the mechanics of making the two sounds are the same; you pop your lips (hence the reason they are called “lip poppers”) and release a short burst of air.  The only difference between the two sounds is that the /p/ is unvoiced and the /b/ is voiced.  (Feel your throat while you say each sound and you will feel it.)  So, if a student tries to read a word and substitutes a “d” for a “b”, the teacher can ask the student to feel what his or her mouth is doing for that sound.  In this example, the student’s lips are not popping, so he or she needs to take another look how that word is read.

When a student is having difficulty hearing the sounds in a word, it just makes so much more sense to teach them how to feel that word than to keep trying to get them to hear it in the same way.  Once they learn to feel the difference, hearing the difference will be much easier.

Misty

LiPS Program

As I write this, I am in San Luis Obispo attending a three-day training on the Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing® (LiPS®) Program.  The LiPS program is recommended by Susan Barton as an intervention for children who are not able to pass the Barton Screening and are, therefore, not yet ready for the Barton Program.  LiPS can help fill in the necessary gaps for a child to be successful in the Barton Program.

The Lindamood-Bell website offers the following description of the LiPS Program:

Problem

John is unable to read and spell words to his potential.  He has been labeled "dyslexic" or "learning disabled."  Despite numerous attempts to teach him, John cannot decode written words and has to guess from memory or context cues.

 

Cause

A primary cause of decoding and spelling problems is difficulty in judging sounds within words. This is called weak phonemic awareness.  This weakness in phonological processing causes individuals to omit, substitute, and reverse sounds and letters within words. This is also a cause of difficulty in learning a second language. Individuals with weak phonological processing cannot get the words off the page: they cannot judge whether what they say matches what they see. 

Symptoms

Many children and adults have difficulty judging sounds within words.  Although they see letters correctly, they cannot detect and correct their errors in reading and spelling.  This causes:

• Weak Decoding--Errors such as "steam" for stream, "imagination" for immigration, "claps" for clasps, etc.
• Weak Spelling--Errors such as "gril" for girl, "cret" for correct, "equetment" for equipment, etc.
• Pronunciation Errors--Errors such as "death" for deaf, "flusterated" for frustrated, etc.

Solution

The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing® (LiPS®) Program successfully stimulates phonemic awareness.  Individuals become aware of the mouth actions which produce speech sounds. This awareness becomes the means of verifying sounds within words and enables individuals to become self-correcting in reading and spelling, and speech.

Misty

http://www.lindamoodbell.com/lindamood%20phoneme%20sequencing%20reading%20phonemic%20awareness%20phonics%20dyslexia%20dyslexic.aspx