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March 28, 2008
Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing Made Fun for Parents
Parents stopped to talk with the interpreter and to sign in as they came into the classroom for the evening’s session. The workshop was the second in a three part series for this mostly non-English speaking group. Lucy, our interpreter, was a huge help.
Elio and his wife were back to hear more. Two English speaking moms were back in the front row. A couple of new faces joined us. Three babies held the best seats on moms’ laps as kids ran in and out from the playground outside.
What looked a bit like chaos turned into a great session on language arts. My job, as it has been for the last year, is to make learning a fun thing parents can do at home with their kids.
For this session we made a booklet. I laid out a variety of magazines and asked the parents to find a picture they liked. They were to cut it out and put it somewhere on their booklet—the front cover or inside on the front page. Pictures they chose included a family outing, kids and mom tickling each other, a flower arbor, a garden and a whole lot more. Everyone had a different idea of what appealed to them.
Then we got busy. Each parent asked someone else to tell them a story about their picture. The idea was for them to just listen—listening being the first of the four parts of language arts. The next stage was for them to tell their own story about their picture. This is the speaking or oral language part.
Before I could even get to directions about reading, they were writing stories. They wanted to put their stories on paper. English and Spanish stories were coming from all directions. One mom who said she didn’t know how to write was connected with the interpreter so she could tell her story and have it written down. No one gets left out when it comes to reading and writing your story. Some were simple and some went on for a page or two, but each story was unique.
We finished with a flourish as each person read their story aloud to someone else. Spouses laughed over the stories they wrote, friends teased each other about their choices, and babies and children listened as their parents told stories they’d never heard before.
When I first started these workshops with parents, I would try to tell them about activities they could do. These days I find it easier to do a little showing and let them do it. Everything I wanted to say about language arts got said in a four page booklet with magazine pictures pasted on the front cover and their own story inside.
Posted by Dr Joni at March 28, 2008 08:21 AM