Pre-K Literacy Goals

"The process of becoming literate is not a one-time event that begins when children start formal schooling and reading instruction in kindergarten or first grade. Rather, the acquisition of literacy occurs as part of a developmental continuum that begins early in life, as early as birth and the first attempts at communication between a parent and child." -- Birth to Five Literacy Plan, Oregon

As stated in the above quote, preparing children for kindergarten is a process that begins many years before entry into formal schooling. Young children need opportunities to be active in learning, which will help them develop emergent skills for kindergarten. According to the Birth to Five Literacy Plan of Oregon, these are the emergent/readiness skills that pre-k children need to acquire:

• Recognizing letters of alphabet
• Identifying beginning sounds of words
• Identifying primary colors
• Counting to 20
• Writing own name
• Amount of time read prior to kindergarten
• Accumulated experience with words

Education.com also lists goals for  pre-k children -- important skills that they should obtain prior to kindergarten. These goals are worked on in many preschools across the United States. Here some that are listed on the website:

• Simple sentence structure
• Ways to handle a book
• Numbers and prewriting skills, shape identification, letter recognition, sounds and rhyming
• Oral language skills
• Vocabularies
• Conversations with other children and adults
• Proficiency in language
• Literacy skills related to writing and reading
• Letters of the alphabet
• Listening to comprehension
• Motivation to read
• Print awareness
• Ways to use and appreciate books

Being knowledgeable about the skills that pre-k children need to acquire gives a sense of purpose to the time and type of literacy activities that parents/guardians provide for their children. The amount of time in literacy activities in the early years greatly affects the the child for the rest of his or her life: "...a poor reader at the end of first grade has an .88 probability of being a poor reader at the end of fourth grade" (Juel, 1988, Birth to Five Literacy Plan of Oregon) A poor reader in the elementary years leads to the likelihood that the child will eventually drop out of high school due to not meeting the basic expectations or state standards. High school drop outs often become engaged in negative behavior such as drug abuse, teen pregnancy and can get arrested for poor choices.*

The bottom line: Parents/guardians must consistently engage their children in quality, meaningful and engaging activities to boost literacy skills. Being a literate individual prior to kindergarten greatly affects ones academic achievement for the rest of his or her school career, and ultimately success in life.

Keeping these goals and skills in mind for young learners, I will provide parents, guardians and educators with resources and advice this month.

Go read with your children! :)

*Many thanks to the Birth to Five Literacy Plan for excellent information for my blog post

September Focus: Preparing Pre-K Children for Kindergarten

As children from all over the country are starting their new school year, I want to focus this month on how parents/guardians can prepare their young children for learning how to read in kindergarten.

The kind of support that a child does or does not receive when they are young can greatly affect them for the rest of their school career. Parental/Guardian support is critical in the early years. With that said, socioeconomic status is a major factor in the amount support that children will receive when they are young and as they go through their elementary, middle and high school years. I am an advocate for free resources for all parents/guardians, access to high quality texts, free literacy programs for children and for all educators to be knowledgeable of strategies to help children that come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I also feel as though their are little excuses for parents/guardians [who have the means to provide for their children's basic needs] -- they need to be active in engaging their children in literacy activities.

These startling statistics should have educators, parents and educator stakeholders alarmed:

37% of children arrive at kindergarten without the skills necessary for lifetime learning 1

By the age of 2, children who are read to regularly display greater language comprehension, larger vocabularies, and higher cognitive skills than their peers 2

Across the nation just under half of children between birth and five years old (47.8%) are read to every day by their parents or other family members 3

The most successful way to improve the reading achievement of low-income children is to increase their access to print 4

There are many more statistics on Bookspring.org, where I found these. So many compelling statistics. All children deserve good quality books from a young age, time and attention to literacy from adults and literacy support throughout their school career. 

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1 - Laundry, S.H. (2005). Effective Early Childhood Programs: Turning Knowledge Into Action. Houston, TX: University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston.

2- Raikes, H., Pan, B.A., Luze, G.J., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., Brooks-Gunn, J., Constantine, J., Tarullo, L.B., Raikes, J.A., Rodriguez, E. (2006). Mother-child bookreading in low-income families: Correlates and outcomes during the first three years of life. Child Development, 77 (4)

3- Russ, S., Perez, V., Garro, N., Klass, P., Kuo, A.A., Gershun, M., Halfon, N., Zuckerman, B. Reading Across the Nation: A Chartbook (2007): Reach Out and Read National Center, Boston MA.

4- Newman, Sanford et. al. (2000) Americans Child Care Crisis: A Crime Prevention Tragedy, Fight Crime; Invest in Kids.

Bookworm Benefits for the Brain in Old Age

Recently, on Facebook, a friend of mine shared an article about how being a bookworm can boost brain function in old age. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article, "Being a Lifelong Bookworm May Keep You Sharp in Old Age."  The author of this article, Marina Koren basically summarizes the findings from a brain study, published in Neurology. I suggest you read her post as it is only a page long (and reading is good for you!) and I'm only going to share a few tidbits*.

• "In particular, people who participated in mentally stimulating activities over their lifetimes, both in young, middle and old age, had a slower rate of decline in memory and other mental capacities than those who did not."  -- Makes sense! Use it.... or (say it with me) lose it!
• "Those who didn't read or write often later in life did even worse: their memory decline was 48 percent faster than people who spent an average amount of time on these activities." -- This is a profound finding. Wow. 
• "Reading gives our brains a workout because comprehending text requires more mental energy than, for example, processing an image on a television." -- I want to post this everywhere in addition to the above quotes from this article. How many hours do you, me, children in this country spend in front of a TV? We have got to get our brains churnin' and burnin'! Reading and writing are the gym for our brain. Both develop our memory and stimulate it in critical ways. From what I gather from the article, reading is like running and writing is like lifting weights/doing weight bearing exercises.
• Koren ends her post with a finding from a 2009 brain research study and leaves us with this scary finding: "By 27, mental processes like reasoning, spatial visualization and speed of thought begin to decline." -- So.... who fell off their chair with this? Our brains going downhill at 27?! I'm just about 26.5 years old. Yikes!

So I think the evidence is clear, folks. I know this is one study but it has some excellent points: READ and WRITE often! Do it for your brain now and when you are older!!!

Think I'll go pick up my book now :)

*bold words and emphasis was added by me for fun effects