Setting Reading Goals for 2014!

It was the Honorable Ruben Hinojosa, Member of Congress who told me the story of his visits to the ministries of education of various countries where he asked the question:  "What is the secret of your high graduation rate for high school students?"  Some of the countries he visited had a 90% or above graduation rate!  The answer to his question was simple - "Early reading plus early writing equals school success."  Congressman Hinojosa took this to heart and came back to his congressional district and organized the South Texas Literacy Coalition!

The next question you readers may have might be - "How 'early'?  Well, the literacy research confirms that a child's literacy skills begin the first time a story is read out loud to them.  Listening to the voice of the reader - hopefully one of their parents, the reader's intonation, pronunciation, and the drama used to tell the story - all of these factors contribute positively to a child's development of literacy skills including listening, understanding the stories by the illustrations, following sequencing, and recognizing that there is a beginning and an end to a story.  During this very valuable family time together, the child's brain is making cognitive connections listening to words and being able to recognize them again, understanding the plot of the story, and falling in love with the characters and even the illustrations and colors in a book.

The key is to have a variety of reading materials available to young children at home - where the home is the first classroom and the parents - the first teachers.  Children need to be exposed to popular stories by popular authors - Dr. Seuss, Berenstain Bears, Mother Goose nursery rhymes, and poetry.  They should also have  music, puzzles, art supplies (scissors, construction paper, drawing paper, crayons and markers, glue, etc.) available to complete a story time by drawing something that they remember about the story.  Younger children can be involved in singing or dancing or in puzzle activities that might relate to the story.  A story like Red Lemon by Bob Staake is a story about diversity but can also introduce a puzzle with fruits or even a recipe to make lemonade or perhaps lemon pie together.

If parents can arrange their schedules for one of their most important jobs - mentoring their children to help develop literacy skills early on - then indeed, their children can engage in "early reading plus early writing" to achieve success in school and life!

Take your child to the public library this next weekend and visit the Children's section.  It will open up a whole new world of communication, fun and quality time for the entire family!

Family Reading Night Story Time Tips

Getting Started

When trying to set up the weekly routine of having a Family Reading Night, some young families may not know where to begin.  Perhaps there aren’t very many story options, or you are having trouble keeping your audience engaged.  Keep on reading for tips that will make your Family Reading Night fun for everyone.

We All Tell Stories

Whether we are talking with our friends, sharing secrets or gossip, or telling someone else about something exciting that happened, we are telling stories.  You are already a storyteller!  The next step is learning to add these same feelings and emotions when reading and sharing stories during your Family Reading Night.  You have the ability to take these stories to another level and make them different and special for your family—and whoever else might be around.

Making Your Stories Come to Life

What makes the difference between reading a good story and being a good story teller?  There are many things a good storyteller can do to make the experience more fun for the listener.  Experiment with tone of voice—try using loud and quiet voices, or different voices for the characters.  Move around!  Use hand gestures and facial expressions to keep your listeners focused on you as you move through the story itself.  You will notice that people of all ages will enjoy your ability to make the story a unique experience for all.

Preparing to Share Your Story

Are you excited yet?  Are you ready to get involved and start doing some storytelling?  When selecting a story to share with a group of any size, there are a few factors to consider.  First, you want to make sure that most, if not all, of your audience will find it enjoyable.  Once you have selected something appropriate for all, read the story several times.  This is to make sure that you really know the story.  If there are any parts of the story that you find interesting or unfamiliar, use the internet to research and dig a little deeper.  This way, you will have answers to the questions that may come up as you’re giving your performance.  Now, practice telling your story and really get into it—remember, storytelling is a performance!

The Big Moment – The Performance

Now that you’ve practiced and prepared, it’s time to share your story.  Before getting started, you may want to describe the characters and setting of the story.  This could save you from being interrupted too often if there are any complicated ideas to explain (Remember the internet research? This is why!).  Stimulate your audience by keeping the space close—unless you have some spectacular moves planned for your big debut.  Make sure to keep things moving at a pace every person can follow.  The best rule is to keep things going fast enough for the youngest participating audience member to follow.  Now, share your story!

Wrapping Things Up

That was fun, wasn’t it?  This is a fantastic way to share stories in a family setting.  Leave time afterwards to have a discussion and answer any questions your children might have.  This will help if anything was confusing and make sure that Family Reading Night stays both fun and informative for the child.  Feel free to ask questions of your own.  If the story was hard to follow for the children, perhaps next time your choice will be a different type of story.  Once you start doing this regularly, you will see the benefits of this kind of interaction for all involved.

Have any experiences to share? We would love to hear about Family Reading Night in your home.  Feel free to post comments below or email your testimonials to stxliteracy@gmail.com

 

Summer Time Family Reading Challenge

 

 

A Break from the Typical Summer Break

For some people, summer time brings to mind images of the beach, swimming pools, and daytime camps to keep children routinely engaged, focused, and active.  During this time of year, many parents have to continue working as their children take a long break from the daily school routine.  Keeping children occupied in a constructive manner can be a challenge; it can be very tempting to rent a movie or just turn the television on.  This summer, we at the South Texas Literacy Coalition would like to challenge you to start a family reading night in your home.

Reading and Repetition Build Brain Power

Children learn in many different ways, and reading out loud to children helps to exercise the mind and develop neural pathways in the brain.  Language is learned through repetition and modeling, something that reading out to children helps accomplish.  Exposure to words, phrases, and concepts through books ensures that young minds realize that print media serves a vital purpose in daily life.  There is virtually nothing that we do in our daily life that doesn’t involve language; our level of language mastery determines how we are able to express ourselves. 

Another note on repetition:  Sometimes, parents can’t believe that their children want to continue hearing the same story over and over again.  This is how learning occurs!  If you begin to find a story boring or tiresome, remember how enthusiastic you were about your favorite stories as a child.  If your child must hear the same story every time you sit down, try introducing a new story into the mix; you may soon be re-reading several favorite stories!

Children Follow in Their Parents’ Footsteps

Taking a small amount of time once a week to dedicate to reading a story out loud and then sharing some quiet family time reading can bring a new dimension to the family dynamic.  According to Roger Desmond of the University of Hartford, children spend up to eight times the number of hours at home as he or she does at school.  He states that, “home as teacher is likely to be a stronger predictor of admiration for reading than is the school.”  Educating children begins at home, and children want to follow in their parents’ lead.

Conversational Literacy

Talking with your children opens the lines of communication and conversations help young minds to be able to grasp larger concepts. Literacy begins with parent-child interactions.  That means that “real world” language used with your children helps to start teaching them before school ever starts.  The language you and your child exchange with one another is helping them toward literacy later.  Take this a step further and discuss stories with your children.  Remember those stories your grandmother used to tell you?  Pass them on!  Continue talking about stories you read or tell aloud after you have closed the book.

Entertaining a New Idea

There was a time when reading was considered as enjoyable as sitting down to watch your favorite television show.  A New York Times blog called Media Decoder reported in May of 2012 that “in the last three months of 2011, the average American with a TV set at home spent 153 hours and 19 minutes watching ‘traditional TV’ — TV viewed on a set rather than a computer or a tablet.”  Spending thirty minutes to an hour reading with family 1-3 times a week no longer sounds like a strange request.  Even if you spent three hours per week reading as a family that would still only total 36 hours— 117 hours less than the average American spends watching TV!

Taking It One Step Further

There are many studies that demonstrate the stark contrast between children who grow up in a language-rich environment and those who don’t—but it’s never too late to get started.  Take a break from the summer break and make reading with your family part of your routine.  Tell stories, discuss characters, play “what if?” games and change the ending—whatever you do, have fun!  We look forward to hearing from you and how this is working with your family.

Interested in learning more about storytelling? Our next article will feature storytelling techniques and other tips to facilitate your Family Reading Night.

 

 

 

Life is a journey...

This past week I watched an interview with Diana Nyad, the 63-year-old swimmer who attempted to swim from Cuba to Florida, but because of some unexpected dangers was pulled from the water to safety.  In her interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America, Diana said "I'm not a quitter...", a comment which struck me given the degree to which she woked to achieve her goal.  My thoughts were, "you definitely are not a quitter; I could not even have fathomed that goal!"   If the truth be told - I'm not a even a swimmer!  Another thing that she said was that "life really is a journey--not a destination."   Who first said that quote?  A quick search on the internet came up with too many answers.  One source attributed the quote to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Aerosmith!   Other sources said the quote was anonymous!  At this point it does not matter who said it.  What does matter is the impact that quote can have on each one of us!  

The quote is about our dreams and goals and the whole idea that each one of us is evolving.  Every new experience creates a new dimension of our lives.  Deep in our souls we have dreams and those dreams can turn into goals; and those goals into challenges and eventually into success or failure.  When we are successful in our goals, what happens?  We usually set new goals--to do more, write more, go farther, fly higher; thus, we are always evolving.  That is the journey--the day-to-day, year-to-year collection of experiences that makes us who we are every single day.  Every single day--we are different from the day before because we have new awarenesses, new challenges, successes and failures.  The important thing is that we turn those failures into life experiences and work hard not to make the same mistake again.

Oh to get our students to think about their life's journey!  The research says that transtion from middle school to high school is the most difficult period in the life of an adolescent.  One source even says we need to save the eigth and ninth grades in schools!   These are the grades that are most challenging to students on at least two levels.  On the one hand, normal adolescent growth and development is hard at work changing a teenager's body.  On the other hand, interpersonal relationships are being affected by the psycho-social changes and impacting self-esteem, self-image, and self-concept.  Stress is at extremes for adolescents during this time.  With so many distractions fueling confusion and indecision, it is easy to see why teens just want to "give up."   Indeed, teens in the eigth and ninth grades are at risk for dropping out of school.  They lack a support system which only parents and a cadre of significant adults can provide.  This support system is a collection guidance, mentoring, support, life coaching, career counseling, friendship and unconditional positive regard--love to help the teens bridge over to their journey to young adulthood.  It's a challenge!  Is there a teenager in your life that you can guide through the journey?

Literacy and College Readiness

Literacy and College Readiness

Educational strategies these days are focusing on getting students ready for college and the rigors of coursework.  Programs in elementary, middle school, and high school are focusing on the idea of helping students understand pathways to college by providing information and skills on study skills.  Some school districts are sending teachers to "extreme" training sessions and conferences to help gain new knowledge and ideas on how to reach students and help them be successful in school and thus, ready for a post-secondary education.  All of these efforts are noteworthy because in the United States, we are trying to play "catch up" with many other countries that are at the "head of the class" in academic achievement.   I agree that we cannot let up and must continue to do what we can to help secondary students achieve.  However, if we are going to make any in-roads in educational attainment we must start at the beginning--at the beginning of the school journey.

One way that we will make a significant impact on graduation rates, college attendance, and college graduation - be it a technical, 2-year, or 4-year program, is to start now with our Pre-K through fourth grade students.  We must help them develop the literacy skills which will launch them into a well-executed plan to learn to read, write, communicate, and problem-solve!  These four basic literacy skills are connected to college readiness by big, bold dots.  We will not see the fruits of our efforts in this year's graduation rate; but we will see a difference in eight to twelve years when the Pre-K to fourth grade students are ready to graduate!   You might say - but wait - that's too long - we need results NOW!    You are correct.  We cannot drop the ball with our current students but somewhere along the way we have forgotten to help children love to learn, love to read for pleasure, express themselves through writing and speaking.  Most of all, we have forgotten to help them use what they know to solve problems. 

I remember asking someone, as I sat in a college Algebra class that I did not like, "when am I ever going to use Algebra in my life?"   As it turned out, when I was well into my family and consumer sciences program and majoring in nutrition, I used algebra in my quantity cooking classes to take a simple recipe and quantify it to serve 100 persons!  I finally "got it!"

College Readiness is defined as...the level of preparation that students need in order to be ready and to enroll and succeed without remediation in credit-bearing entry level coursework at a community college, trade school, or university.   College is rigorous!  College is designed to help students become professionals who will serve their communities in their respective careers and capacities.  These same rigorous skills are needed in the workplace.   So you are having surgery.   Do you want the student who earned "C's" in college or "A's" to perform the surgery?  

Reading is a given in college.   You must read chapter after chapter in a variety of courses.  Writing is a must in college.  You must develop scholarly writing skills and write in a manner that you can communicate your message in a professional, articulate manner.  Communications skills are so important because they manner in which you speak or communicate through your writing says a great deal about you.  And then there is problem-solving as a key literacy skill for college readiness.  Being able to read, comprehend, strategize and develop a plan to solve a problem by using what you already know plus what you read and learn is the key to life success. 

College readiness?  It starts by teaching very young children the magic information that they can find in books.  It continues by helping them learn to understand the message and re-tell the story in their own words.  Finally, it continues by asking them - "how would you end the story?  What would you do differently?"   The minds of young children are phenomenal!  They can learn so much; but they need their parents and other significant adults to help them read, write, and problem-solve to guide then on the pathway to college readiness.  We need to start NOW!

 

 

Reading Readiness

Do you remember the first book you ever read?

Do you remember the first book that was your very own to keep?

For many adults, memories of childhood often include things like favorite books, bedtime stories, visits to the library, and choosing books to read for fun. For others, story times at school, visiting the school library, and English class may be the only memories that exist.

It is a fact that children that do better in school are readers. The more they read the more they improve; and as they grow into adults they will have a more expanded view of the world. Reading helps children expand their vocabulary and their reading skills. They tend to read more and for longer periods of time. Best of all, readers do better in other subjects as well. The best way to raise a reader is to read out loud to him/her every day. Have them point to the words. Practice saying and spelling the words. If there are words that your child does not understand then you should both look the word up in the dictionary and find the meaning.

From the time they are toddlers children can learn how to hold a book. They can learn where the front of the book is and how to turn the pages carefully without tearing them. They can also learn when to turn the pages as the story is being read. Children should begin to expand their collection of books at home and learn how to select a favorite book from their collection.

A valuable part of reading is the expansion of our creativity and our imagine. When you read: "The wind was blowing hard and made the flowers move back and forth," the mind creates the image of flowers and bushes blowing in the wind. On the other hand, when you read: "As the wind blew hard, the roses swayed from right to left making their fragrance more prominent in the cool morning air." Both sentences create a picture in our minds of the action of the wind on the flowers. In the second sentence, our mind goes a step further and "sees" the roses swaying in the morning when it is cool and perhaps damp and we can almost smell the fragrance of the roses as our imagination takes over. Not only can we see the action taking place, any one of the main elements - wind, roses, the fragrance - can take us to places in our memories where we can recall past experiences!

I say all of that to impress a point: that reading helps us learn by taking our imagination to new levels of awareness. This is a powerful tool for children to develop as they strive to be successful in school.
Read to and with your children every day for at least fifteen minutes. It will be an enjoyable time of learning and quality interaction for all of you.

Financial Literacy - Teaching Children This Life Skill

Lately, I have been asked to present several programs related to financial literacy - learning how to manage your money.   It has been interesting because the most popular part of the program is the discussion related to each person's "spending personality."    What is a "spending personality?"   A spending personality helps answer the question - "Can you control your spending?"   Wellllll, can you?

The discussion in the lesson I present has to do with recognizing "needs" and "wants".   A need is something that is necessary in your life - food, shelter, clothing, electricity, etc.    A want is something that would be nice to have - but not necessary!   I want so many things!   I need so many things!   Your spending personality comes down to the question:  "Do I NEED to buy this (item)?"   "Is this item something that would be nice to have - but I don't really need it?"   

It is hard enough for parents and adults, in general, to try to ask ourselves the question as we contemplate whether to spend our money or not; but talking to teens about needs and wants?   Wow - talk to the hand!     Let's discuss what is normal about adolescence.  

It is normal for teens to have a need to belong.  They, however, do not want to stand out - just want to fit in.   That goes for clothing, shoes, knick-knacks and other things used as accessories for the body, as well as, the basics.   The other complicating factor is immediate gratification.  They find it difficult and do not want to "save" for whatever it is they want to purchase.  They want it NOW--not tomorrow or next month or "we'll see."   At this point communication begins to shut down between a parent and a teen and relationships are strained.  You also get the rolling of the eyes, the sighs, and don't forget - the dirty looks!

How can you, as a parent, help a child learn the essential life skills related to money management?
One way is to share the reality of your family budget.  Write down on paper (if you don not already have it)  your income (take-home pay) and all of the expenses that are NEEDS in the lives of you and your family.   Write down the other expenses - the loan payments, the credit card payments, and any other payments you may have.   Write down the amount you are saving.  Have them help you "pay the bills" next month by reading the expense and your write the check or pay on-line.   Watching the money "GO" where it needs to go first can be a real learning experience!  

Another way to help them understand the budgeting process is by using "money jars."   These are canning jars, mayonnaise jars, whatever clear jars you have.   Your child should label the jars - NEEDS, COLLEGE SAVINGS, SAVINGS FOR WANTS, and GIVING/DONATIONS.   These are only four jars but you could have more.   It is so simple but watching a money jar grow or get emptied is a hands-on, experiential tool to help children and teens develop a positive spending personality. 

The ground rule is that the College Savings, and Savings for Wants Jars - keep growing.  The College Savings jar never gets emptied until it's full and ready to be deposited in a savings account; and then it starts getting filled all over again!  The Savings for Wants jar gets emptied as the money accumulates to buy the wants - a new video game, a new trinket, or some other not necessary for life item.   The Needs jar also gets emptied as the opportunity arises to purchase whatever is needed.   And then there's the Giving jar.  It should grow, but it should also be emptied - perhaps 10% of the total at a time to help show children and teens that sharing what we have with others is a compassionate and important gesture.

The new money rules are: 
Live off - 50% of your income
Save - 20%
Grow - 10%
Have Fun - 20%

When you think about it these rules allow YOU to control your spending, cut down on expenses, and move to being more financially secure; while still having some fun!

Teaching your children to manage money is a life skill which they will carry with them the rest of their lives.   Start today and communicate your monthly budget process with your children.   All of you will learn from the experience!     Literacy for Life!