Sobering Statistics

Before kindergarten:

• More than 30% of low-income children have no familiarity with print -- they don't know which way up to hold a book, or where the story starts and ends, or that we read from left to right. 17% of middle-income kids and 8% of those with college-educated parents also lack this knowledge.


• About 60% of low-income kids don't know the alphabet. More than 30% of middle-income kids don't know it either. That's one in three for middle-income kids.


• Only a mere 6% of low-income and 18% of middle-income kids understand numerical sequence. (Stats compliments of Kappan Magazine, Nov. 2010)
  

What does this mean? It means that children don't all start at the same point when they begin kindergarten. And it means that a lot more kids are falling through the cracks than we used to think.

The good news is that we have the tools to fix all these problems right at home.

• Read to your child every day. 20 minutes is an absolute minimum. Aim for 30 or 40. Spread it out during the day, if possible. If your child is in daycare, ask how often the daycare provider reads to the kids. Talk about how we hold books, point out which side we start reading from, look for the beginning and the end of each book.


• Invest in or check out some alphabet books. Read them. Get or make some alphabet flash cards (use 3x5 index cards, write each letter on one card in clear, block form. Cut out magazine pictures of things that start with that letter, or draw a picture if you're artsy.) Sing the alphabet song -- here's a whole bunch of people singing the classic version, or watch this version on YouTube, or SuperWhy's version.


• I don't say this very often, but some TV shows do a nice job of reinforcing letter and number concepts. On PBS, Sesame Street, SuperWhy and Between the Lions would be my picks for the basics. Martha Speaks and Word Girl are good vocabulary builders. On Nick Jr., Dora the Explorer does a lot with counting, so that might be a good choice. The classic Blues Clues (the Steve years) also does a lot of counting and some letter recognition. Be intentional with TV and videos here: most kid's shows aren't really all that educational in nature.

• Look for counting books at the library or bookstore. Here are some titles to get you started. Count stuff. Count socks as you put them in drawers. Count your child's toes. Count plates as you set the table. Count the burgers in your fast food order. Count stoplights on the way home. Buy or make number flashcards just like the alphabet ones. Have your child put stickers on each card to represent the number shown.

• Some people disagree with this, but Bookivore is a firm believer in the importance of preschool. If your state offers universal preschool, take advantage of it. Participation in a preschool program offers tons of literacy benefits, as well as social benefits. If you don't have universal preschool, consider enrolling your child for at least one year in a private program. Even if you are a homeschooler, consider sending your child to a preschool program. Keep in mind that the focus of preschool is not academics -- it's learning through play and experience -- and some of that experience is hard to provide at home, at least not to the same scope and degree to which a good preschool can. Experiences are a huge part of cultural capital. I realize this is not a home-tool per se, but it is a big predictor of whether kids will begin kindergarten with gaps, so I would not be doing my job if if didn't mention it
  
  

Keep reading to your kids. Keep offering them whatever experiences you can. We're getting there.

Literacy Bags

Literacy bags go by different names: Book Bags, Story Bags, and Book Buddies are just a few. The basic idea behind them, though, is to provide story enrichment activities around a particular theme. They can be used in the home or as part of literacy centers in the classroom. In the home setting, they help you, the parent, show your child that reading is both desirable and fun.

Literacy bags work well in preschool and kindergarten settings, and even in up to 3rd grade if the activities are carefully selected. Above and below are some pictures of the contents of a literacy bag my 4 year old brought home from preschool.

The book was Down By the Bay, which is based on the Raffi song by the same name. The literacy bag contained 3 types of activities: a matching activity with rhyming words, a puzzle activity, and a second rhyming activity that went beyond the rhymes in the book. The picture above is the first rhyming activity -- matching a picture with another picture that rhymes. We had a picture of a pear and a bear, a bat and a hat, and so on.


Then we had a set of very simple puzzles -- just line drawings of animals from the story cut into pieces and laminated. The final activity, below, was to come up with some objects from around the house and then think of words that rhyme with them. The theme here was "things that rhyme."


Another bag that she brought home the following week was for the book The Gingerbread Boy. This one was even more simple -- just the book and a selection of felt pieces depicting characters or objects necessary to the story.

We used the pieces to retell the story, then we used them to sequence the events of the story -- first the Gingerbread Boy met the cow, then the horse, then the farmer, then the fox. First he sat on the fox's tail, then his back, then his head, then his nose...and we moved the gingerbread boy each time to the right position.

If you are a homeschooler, or a teacher, or a parent volunteer, Literacy Bags are something you can make yourself. You could even throw some together for vacation days and summer activities if, like me, you are desperate for stuff your kids can do when there's no school. Below are a couple of resources for creating your own bags. Neither are in print anymore, but they are readily available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble's used book sellers and from Better World Books.

Also, here's a link to a teachers' discussion board with some interesting ideas for literacy bags (also math and science bags, though that's out of the scope of this blog). Some of the discussion assumes training in teaching methods, but several entries are basic, easy-to-apply suggestions.

Literacy bags are wonderful tools to make stories come alive, to help kids think more deeply about what happened in the story, to practice retelling and sequencing, and to build those connections that increase their chances of success in school.