Last Thursday 100 parents and twice as many children showed up for an EdSuccess workshop at Lincoln School in Yuba City sponsored by the Smart Start school readiness program. The topics were getting ready for Kindergarten reading and math. We needed two translators and even then we missed a couple of families who spoke something other than English.

Before the start of the workshop I chatted with some of the parents and met as many children as possible. One of the children was Isabel, a delightful, smiling 8-month-old. During the workshop it was easy to use Isabel as an example of how children learn. Even at 8 months she’s listening to everything and everyone around her. She turned her head as her mom talked to her and tickled her. She paid close attention to the lady next to them and was quiet, for an 8 month old, while I talked about listening. She turned to look when I mentioned her name.

Listening and speaking build a child’s vocabulary. A good working vocabulary is a major key to reading. I want parents to listen and talk with their child then when reading is introduced, it’s easier to learn.

When we started talking about recognizing letters as a first step to the reading process, I met Rachael. I often demonstrate an activity where I pretend to be a mom fixing dinner at the stove. I ask someone for the workshop to act as my five-year-old brand new kindergarten child. Rachael volunteered and was a wonderful five-year-old.

“What did you learn in school today,” I asked.

“Letters,” said Rachael.

“What letter did you learn today?” I asked.

“B,” said Rachael.

While still pretending to stir soup, I picked up a yellow sticky pad and a pen and wrote the letter “b” on the top page. I pulled it off and asked Rachael to go find something in the room that started with a “b.”

She looked and looked until she found a book. Everyone, all 100 other parents, seemed ready to help if she couldn’t find something. Then we tried a "d" and Rachael took her time finding a door. Applause were warranted for such great work.

The idea is to have fun with learning. Rachael and the whole group did. My last question to them, the one they had to answer before they could have the great dinner being served after the workshop was, “What are fun, learning activity are you going to do with your child this week?” So..."What are you doing with your child/grandchild today?"

I recalled times at Chuck E. Cheese when my four children were little and all clamoring for coins so they could go play the games. They’d return just in time to see Chuck E and all his buddies do their stage performance then they’d be off again. A dozen birthdays would be celebrated while we were there. My kids might wander into the party and half the time no one knew if they belonged there or not. We’d go rescue them, mumble an apology and a parent would say, “Oh, I thought they were Timmy’s friends.” Sure, good ol’ Timmy.

There was also the evening one of my children had been having lessons in school on drug and alcohol prevention. We had gotten our pizza and pitcher of soda when this same now learned child looked over at the table next to us. Those folks also had a pizza as well as a pitcher of beer. “Mom,” said the all-knowing child in a loud voice, “look they’re doing drugs.” Another mumbled apology was in order while trying to explain to a child that beer wasn’t a drug, but, well, yes it sort of was, but….. I wonder if they know Timmy.

As they got older, our pizza orders grew from a large pepperoni to medium sausage and pepperoni’s to Pizza Factory’s gargantuan extra large with everything but anchovies. Four teenagers could devour most of Cleveland if left unattended. Leaving them or a credit card unattended was never an option.

I walked in the Pizza Palace Monday evening to find four girls and their grandfather around one large table containing two large pizzas. The three boys sat in a both nearby taking care of grated cheese and hot peppers. Every child, ages eight to sixteen and the sixty-year-old, was attacking their favorite pizza slice and enjoying lemonades and sodas. Conversation ranged from summer work projects to sunburns, possible vacations, and upcoming fishing trips.

I had forgotten how much fun a night out for pizza could be. Thanks for the reminder.

Luther Elementary School in Live Oak is a Smart Start site. The parents turn out in droves for events and workshops at Luther and the workshop for Smart Start Literacy and Math was no exception. Three different languages were spoken but it doesn’t matter the language. What is spoken is love and support for their children. It’s a universal language learned in heart not head school. Luther and Smart Start staffs don’t teach it, they live it.

In the workshop parents learned about listening to their children, then listened to each other share about themselves. They heard about talking with their children, then practiced talking with each other. The focus was on building vocabulary, new words that light up a picture in a child’s mind when they hear the word. Only then did we turn to reading with an understanding that the more pictures a child has in their mind for words they hear and say, the easier reading will be.

Math games and puzzles were easy to add to an already interested group. They counted beans, buckets and bracelets. They were encouraged to count barnyards and all the animals in them, billboards on the way to the store, and babies in the park. Count toys, trucks, and tanks. Just count.

At the end of the hour long presentation we were about to break for dinner, but before pizza came a question. The parents were told they could go pick up their children in the classroom and bring them through the backdoor of the cafeteria. While in line they had to answer one question, “What fun thing will you do with you child this week to help with reading or math?” The question was asked in both English and Spanish. An answer was the key to unlocking the door to dinner, and with a child tugging at you, it had better be a quick and good one.

Parents said, “read a story at night,” “talk about magazine pictures,” and “count beans.” Each parent was ready for the week. Each parent had a Parent Playbook of ideas to work on for the rest of the summer, making this summer a real Smart Start for school this Fall.

My workshop over for the day, I stopped by Target to pick up a gift for a friend. I was wandering toward the toy and game section when I saw a Mom and baby in a cart coming around the corner of one of the aisles. Not wanting to run into them, I stopped short.

The little girl, Alyza by name, had the smallest, cutest, and pinkest ball glove I have ever seen. She was so cute I couldn’t help but watch. She held her glove by one finger, but in an instant she could have it on and ready to play.

I asked Mom if she was trying out for the team. Mom asked Alyza what she was going to catch in her glove. Alyza promptly pulled out the green ball that was next to her. She didn’t say the word, but that might be because she didn’t want to be talking to strangers, but she clearly knew what to do with a ball glove.

Alyza is two and a half. She hadn't talked with me, but she certainly wasn't missing anything in the conversation her Mom and I were having. After Mom and I chatted for a minute or two, she and Alyza went around the corner. As I was jotting down her name, I could hear Mom talking with her about Sponge Bob, items on the shelf, what to watch on TV, and probably what they would be having for dinner. Alyza chined in with her opinions on all of the itrms.

I’m at a preschool conference this week talking about preschool to K-3 transitions. Last week I talked to incoming kindergarten parents. Part of my message is the same for both. Reading skills really are based on vocabulary and vocabulary develops with talking and listening. Alyza will go to preschools and on to kindergarten reading with a full amount of vocabulary thanks to Mom’s interaction with her.

Yea Mom. Her comes your daughter ready or not.

The parents checked their children in with the playground supervisor and trudged into class. The room was quiet and not like the noisy playtime of the five-year-olds who frequent the place during the day. No one spoke. No one made eye contact.

This may be their first parent session, but the quiet wasn’t going to work. Kindergarten is a place of joy and spontaneity, and I wanted the parents to sense what their children would experience. I would only be their teacher for a short while, so they needed to talk and laugh before the evening was over.

Kindergarteners begin the process of learning to read and parents can help their child’s progress every day. Developing a vocabulary is a key. Listening to a child tell you about their newest pet, the batch of cookies they made, or their friend’s grandfather gives them both words to use and ways to use them that make sense. Talking to them about how your washing the dishes or painting their room give them more words and ways to use them. Both listening and talking develop pictures in a child’s mind attached to words he or she hears and uses.

When the letters and sounds they learn in kindergarten begin to fit together as words those pictures appear in a child’s mind. When they see the word “dog,” their dog picture appears in their head. When the sentence says “The dog runs across the yard,” they can see a dog running across the yard. Without the practice of hearing, saying, and connecting words to pictures in their mind, a child can “read” letters and sounds without ever knowing what the words say. No pictures appear.

So our group listened and talked and talked some more. For a group that didn’t know each other when we started, they had lots to say before the evening was over. Hurray! Before they left, each parent passed by the Smart Start Director, Mary Ann Hendricks, and provided her with an activity they were going to do with their child this summer, the summer before kindergarten, so their child would be ready for the first big step.

Last week I had the good fortune to work with a group of the Migrant Ed staff from our area while they were planning their summer program. Children of migrant families are involved in a number of summer projects-school, summer food programs, and field trips. There was one trip being planned for Turtle Bay and I was ready to go with them. I haven’t been there since they were still in construction. It sounded like fun.

My job for the day was to provide activities for parents to do with their children. We tried out a number of activities from my Parent Playbook series, played games, and made Dream booklets from magazines. All are activities parents can do, are easy, fun, and require little in the way of materials. Since the activities are matched to state learning standards, doing them will help the road based kids keep up with children who are in their neighborhood school. Now that the activities have been personally tested by the Migrant Ed staff, they can be shared with the parents.

They took this pretty seriously. There was a least one domino’s game where the winner got a Starbucks. I loved their involvement as they matched numbers and added scores. In the end we all agreed, the real winners will be the kids who can beat us!

The answer to the last question is NO, we’re never ready for letting our babies go out into the world, but school is a normal of transition that tries to make it easier for mom and child. But that transition usually happens in kindergarten.

These days a great deal of what used to happen in first grade happens in kindergarten. Much of what used to be taught in first grade is now being taught in kindergarten. The state English-Language Arts Content Standard for Concepts in Print at a kindergarten level calls for a child to: 1.6 Recognize and name uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet. The kindergarten standard go on the ask children to ben vowel-consonant sounds to make words and to read simple one-syllable sight words. Pre-reading and reading skills begin in kindergarten now.

For some of us kindergarten wasn’t even available when we started to school so there might be a tendency to think it doesn’t count. These days it does and many parents are surprised by homework, reading, counting and even addition and subtraction. I know what is the world coming to?

The question for any preschool parent today is not what happens in first grade, but how do I get my child ready for kindergarten. An answer to both questions is to have conversations, read, and play with your child.

Conversations build vocabulary. When children know and can mentally picture words as they are said, words that are written on pages take on more life and meaning and are easier to recognize. If I say the word “parakeet” and a picture of a charming little bird pops into your head the same will happen when you see the word in writing. If you see the word “trove,” you might be able to sound it out phonetically but there might not be a picture that relates to it. Too many of those words in a sentence and there is no meaning to what is written on the page. Vocabulary development for children makes the transition to reading easier. So talk and read a lot.

Playing games builds both vocabulary and concepts. Concentration is a great game for matching pictures. Dominos matches numbers. Go Fish matches numbers. I have a new favorite game for all ages-Blokus Blokus is a great strategy game, requires no reading, and allows kids to adults to see patterns, shapes and strategize ways to win. Just be careful of the vocabulary that might develop when adults lose to six-year-olds.

But those weren’t the reasons for it being special. It was special because it was a preschool. I find preschools to be the most exciting, supportive places. They’re filled with color, games, toys, and wonder. Children are so excited every day to come and explore this new world they’re discovering. Parents are supportive and full of questions about how to help and what to do. Teachers interact with the children from the moment they arrive until the second they leave. And the feelings are contagious. That wonder and excitement rubs off. Anyone arriving at the gate feels it. This preschool setting was no exception.

Special too was the enjoyment of the company of no less than four babies at the workshop. I’m sure George at the ripe old age of eight months might not consider himself much of a baby, and in an infant preschool program, he’s right. Having babies, toddlers, and children in a workshop is sometimes a bit chaotic for sure, but it’s real for parents who are trying to juggle two or three small children, the laundry and how to get dinner on the table. We managed to talk, share, play games and do a couple activities while learning some new ideas about how to their babies and preschoolers be successful in the next few years of school.

One of the questions I always ask is: “Now that you’ve been to a workshop on how to help your child with learning, what do you plan to do with your child this week?” From the parents of preschoolers I heard answers like read a story, play Go Fish, play games outside, and go to the park. From the preschool teachers I heard make a dream book and read more stories. All of those activities directly relate to and reinforce what they are learning at Chico Community Children’s Center.
The one question on everyone’s mind was asked at the end by a curious parent, “What can we expect in first grade?”

My answer is in next week’s blog…

I’m a big fan of games. They’re such a fun way for parents and kids to interact all the while they’re learning something. The parents in both of these groups laughed, won or lost, played again, and learned some math activities in the process.

Both evenings I asked a group to help me evaluate a game I had created. The game is designed to have a player’s pawn land on a square in the outside or Learning Circle. The square matches to a learning activity the parent can do with their child. If they can tell how they will do the activity at home they get two chips

Once they’ve gone around the board and “graduated” they can move their pawn to the center or Future Circle. In the Future Circle are things like job, promotion, wedding, children, and any number of adult kinds of fun events. Landing on a square in the center circle means you have to match one of the activities you did in the Learning Circle. Since we had been playing mostly math games during the evening, what math activity matched with a future event? Perhaps the math activity you planned in the Learning Circle will help with the future wedding by figuring out the catering bills or get you through the taxes you need to pay by April 15. Four chips to each person who can make the match.

The winner is the one with the most chips after someone matches all their Learning Circle activities with a future event.

Two sets of parents tried out the game and made suggestions. I decided it must have been a hit because there was a great deal of laughter from their direction. I got some good suggestions to make it easier to play, but both evenings the comments were good.

If games work, I hope this one helps parents and kids see how their learning in school and at home really does make a difference in their adult life. Maybe I should have included things like what would help when your car breaks down or the price of gas goes up to $4.00 a gallon. It’s math, but nahhhh. Why bring up ALL the stuff they get to deal with as adults. I think we’ll wait and let them figure those things out when they get there.

My thanks to the game players at Fowler: Inderjit Bopoarai, Gus Del Toro, Nirmaljit Gill, Adrian Ruiz, Christina Ruiz, Karmjit Ball, Maria Garcia, and Idalia Peña. And a special thanks to Magdalena Zorita who attended all six of the workshops for her two children.

David laughed as he scooped her up and put her back in her high chair, but even bit of a muffin couldn’t keep her from exploring. It wasn’t five minutes before she wanted down to explore again. Jessica, her mom, explained that she was the youngest of four and the one most likely to keep on trying even when the other kids would have given up. Mom and Dad both mentioned that Carmen had quite a vocabulary for her age and just that morning had very clearly said, “I love you.” I heard the words or at least the utterances most children at this age hear most “uh-uh.” In case you haven’t been around almost two-year-olds lately, that’s the early form of NO.

Children have few words available at this age, but don’t sell them short on what they are learning. Carmen touched everything in her reach; the table, chair, and the handcart for the books. The cups on the shelf continued to be on her list even if she couldn’t get around Dad fast enough to get to them.

Learning comes through two major modes, experience and words. Carmen needs the experience of what she touches, hears and sees. For example, she needs to touch the book cart, feel it, look at it, watch someone use it, and try it herself. She needs to experience all parts of it. Then she needs to have words to go with it. “Carmen, this is called a cart. It’s a green color. The cart carries the books or things that are heavy. See the girls carrying the books on the cart…”

No, she won’t get all of the words, but she will get some this time. When she hears them again, she’ll get more. The third and fourth time she sees a cart and hears the words, she’ll get more. It won’t be long before she will say the word cart when she sees it and because she’s had experience with it, she’ll know what it does.

Carmen is 16 months old and just beginning the process of building a working vocabulary. Watch out, it won’t be long before she’ll be talking her Dad out of the car keys and her Mom into a new dress for the prom.

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.

Elio and his wife have four children. One is already in college and a second in high school. They attended the third-fifth grade workshop for their third child. They are very serious about having their children succeed far beyond what they have been able to do.

So were the 30 or so other parents who attended the workshop. Magdalena Zurita, a mom who attended both last night and the night before at the K-2 workshop, said, “I want my child to study. I didn’t study. He wants to be a doctor.”

My message is always about helping and supporting a child’s learning, but in many ways last night I was preaching to the choir. I often am. Most parents really want to help their children do well, learn, get good grades, and succeed in life. I don’t have to work too much with a group like this on motivation. I only need to give them a few tips on how they might focus their efforts.

I usually provide activities parents can do at home to help. I’ve even written books about the topic with all kinds of fun activities to do. Everywhere I go I pick up new ones. No surprise from this group of parents, but last night I heard another one to share.

Josefina Lopez suggested a game she played with her child when she was learning the alphabet. She says they’d pick a letter then they’d have to come up with a first name of someone whose name started with the letter, then a last name with the same letter, a city, a flower, and as she put it “cual cosa,” another thing, that started with the letter. Josefina’s alphabet game could be a good one for driving to the store, folding laundry or doing the dishes. If you have a child just learning the alphabe try out this activity and let me know how it goes. I'm sure Josefina would like to know too.

Elio and Josefina have plans for their children. Their children know the importance of an education because their parents tell them and support them in making sure they learn. These are tomorrow’s adults and their skills are the ones we’ll depend on.

The morning's chorea including finishing a cement sidewalk project at a new house and planting trees made the busy morning, but the fun came with a drive, several drives, on the four wheel mule. Mules aren’t like they used to be. Equipped with engines, steering wheels, and a cart, they can take children into fields and along creek beds. These days a mule can help sow flower seeds or sit quietly by while children watch beavers build a dam.

On this particular afternoon, three of the four were collecting flowers. The girls came up with a bouquet of yellow-gold, purples, and reds. Who know what the names were, but the colors were delicate and bold at the same time.

The only boy in the group brought in a few flowers as well. He wasn’t going to be outdone by his sisters. Perhaps no one would notice how much he needed the mule to take him to the farthest reaches of beyond for just the right one.

On one of his last trips into the wilds he brought back only one lone flower, a poppy, the only one in his bouquet. As he handed to me he said, “The stem cracked.”

I could indeed see where the stem had broken almost in half. The poor little flower wasn’t going to be able to stand up with the rest of the flowers he carefully arranged. He looked disappointed, but his face lit up with an idea.

“Do you have any tape?” he asked. When I hesitated he turned to his Dad, “Dad, where’s the duct tape.”

He was out the door in a second without waiting for an answer. He came back with three rolls of blue tape. “Can I use this?” he asked.

I went to find scissors. I wasn’t sure how this would work, but I loved the problem solving. In less than a minute he had bandaged the stem with a very small piece of blue tape. The flower stood tall among its relatives and gave his array a great flair.

I chuckled all the way home commenting on men’s and boy’s propensity to find more uses for duct tape than there are bricks in the sidewalk they’d been working on earlier in the day, but what I most enjoyed was the way he figured out what to do in his own way. What a fun Saturday afternoon

Last night, though, I had all the feelings of a 12-year-old facing the “big test.” It was crunch time. Did I study enough? Do I know all the parts of speech? Will I pass?

I wasn’t the only one who was dealing with these feelings. There are nine of us taking a university class on improving writing. My guess is the average age in the class is 45+. We’re people who are working or retired. We have lives. We aren’t students trying to decide which career to go into. We’re professional folks trying to improve our writing. So why were we so up tight over a grammar test?

One man joked about not passing this test might ruin his chances for graduate school. Another said she knew she hadn’t studied enough. All of us were concerned about how much time he’d give us to complete the questions. None of us needs the units. We’re all taking this for content not grades. So why the anxiety?

Because we’re all 12-years-old again facing the big exam. That last sentence was a fragment, by the way, and it needs revising. I know that because my class taught me to notice sentence fragments and because my computer told me the same thing. I’m going to leave it alone. That’s the nice thing about taking a writing class; you can know when it’s wrong and leave it anyway.

Back to class-we were all feeling those old anxiety feelings about test taking. I couldn’t help but wish I had known different feelings in grade school. What if I’d been able to take a test just to see what I knew? What if the test was diagnostic and would show what the teacher could stop going over because I had it, but it also showed what areas I needed more work on? What if tests hadn’t been competitive and based on a curve? What if it tests were more about what and how to teach than about how much I didn’t know compared to the smart kid in class?

Hm…I’ve been in education for a long time. Where I haven’t been for a long time is on the other end of the test taking. This is going to mean some rethinking for me about all the tests we give and why we give them. I don’t have answers today. I have questions. I was supposed to answer questions last night. It seems I raised more than I answered.

I rarely solicit comments in my blog because I usually end up with ads for Viagra or reducing my mortgage so I send most of them to spam mail, but I’m open for this one. How do you feel about testing? What do you think of the testing we do in school? What would you do to make it better? Any comments?

So have you figured out what you’d like them to know and remember? If you haven’t, the California Department of Ed Child Development Division is here to help you. They started working several years ago to identify what preschools need to learn and what would be helpful for them to know when they start to school-big kid school. Two weeks ago the Learning Foundations, identifying learning skills for social/emotion skills, language and literacy, math and English language development, were approved and released.

Now you know. Well, you sort of know. The foundations are on the CDE website and available for use. Who’s using them? Probably not many folks yet. It takes a while for word to get out. It takes a while for the administrators and staff to be trained and held accountable for what’s being taught. It just takes a while.

How about you, Mom or Dad? Are you ready to help your child? I haven’t found many parents who don’t want to help, especially preschoolers. Here are a couple ideas for you that will give you some direction and are parent friendly. I’ll include the foundations, but, I’m taking the prerogative of rewording them a bit. We educators sometimes have a tendency to use more complex words than are needed. I want to make it easier for all of us.

Science Walk: Take a walk in your backyard. Say the words for what you see. “There’s a yellow flower. That plant is green. Fido is running across the yard. Here he comes. Throw the ball for him. There is a bird on the fence.” Plants and animals are all part of science and in this case are a part of language development.

Foundation: 1.0 Language Use and conventions
1.1 Use language to communicate with others in familiar social situations for a variety of basic purposes, including describing, requesting, commenting, acknowledging, greeting, and rejecting.

In “Parent Ease”-Kids learn to talk by listening to you and other people talk.

So the bottom line is talk about everything you’re doing with them. Oh, and enjoy the walk. The weather’s been great for it.