YOU are your child’s best teacher.

Question posted in recent forum I frequent: I heard that up until about 20 years ago, you could buy from the Broerderbond in South Africa a child development pack for the first 6 years of you’re child’s life so that they can read, write a bit, etc… by the time they go to school (as well as exposing other parts of the brain to development). Does anyone know if there is anything good around like that today? I suppose there may be more than one company competing with that sort of thing. Does anyone know who the market leader is?

My response: Do you really think sitting your child in front of a computer is the best way to go? I teach kindergarten and my experience has been that children gravitate to reading and writing when they are developmentally ready. This happens between 4-7 years of age. My own children love to read. (They are older teens.) I attribute this in part to my good friend Pam who insisted I start reading to my kids from the day they were born. I took her advice and my children began to associate reading and listening with the pleasure of bonding with their parents and caregivers. I read to my children until they were 12 and they no longer had time. We all missed the togetherness. Visits to the library and bookstore were frequent. Gifts of books were common and interest in books praised. And yes, they also read independently! The read aloud experience is invaluable. If there had been http://www.starfall.com when my children were small I would have exposed them to it, but never require them to do it. My kindergarten students enjoy the program and the students who entered as readers tell me they learned to read from http://www.starfall.com which is a free phonics based reading program. I also know from meeting their parents that education is an intrinsic family value and they have exposed their children to countless classics in children’s literature. I can guarantee for FREE that if you take the time to read to your child and elicit their responses to reading by asking them to predict, identify common words and engage them in the illustrations they will love to read and learn to read more easily and more naturally from intrinsic motivation. You are your child’s best teacher. Model enthusiasm for reading and the power of the written word. Don’t completely outsource this very important role in the early years. By the way, I am very high tech in the classroom and do lots of great things with my students using technology to extend literacy skills so I am not opposed to a little software extension or intervention.

What’s in your junk drawer?

This video runs just under an hour but the premise is revealed within the first several minutes. Are you an organizer? What kinds of systems do you use? It isn’t easy particularly for those of use who find themselves struggling with where to put the ‘good’ scissors. Personally I hide them so no one will inadvertently dull them by cutting pizza, the dog’s hair or perhaps sticky contact paper. I hide them and can’t find them when I need them. I do envy the organized individual who know exactly where to find the seldom if ever used … well how should I know? You see this is precisely why I am enjoying David Weinberger’s book, Everything is Miscellaneous! My secret is out, all of my drawers are junk drawers. Weinberger delves deep into the origins or organizational systems.

Whoa to Dewey and his out dated decimal system or what’s his name, the scientist who divided species by invertebrate and vertebrate. A very disparate separation. Each of these people were simply trying to make sense of the world by creating classification systems. So where does this all lead? Why to tagging of course! It is a wonder that tagging came along just in time to help us all create our own personalized, multifaceted classification systems using the internet. If you are very well organized then undoubtedly you will become a proficient tagger as well. While I consider so many things to be miscellaneous I also tag things a bit too indiscriminately. So if your New Year’s resolution is to become more organized… why not begin with a light hearted look at the characteristics of 21st Century organization. I wonder, can I delicious my life?

Kindle, Kindling and Book Burning

This week I am taking the easy way out! Here is my response to another notable post on the TechLearning Blog by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. Can you imagine a world without paperbacks, big books or magazines? How is technology enhancing the desirability that digital print? Isn’t a paperback created using digital print? Discover what generated my response by seeking her post The Future of Reading.

I used to be far too impatient to read. I too wanted to “unlock the secrets” more quickly. Actually I really wanted to live the book, not read about it! Now I can see the beauty of listening to a story unfold inside my head. It is an extraordinary experience and like you Sheryl, I wanted my kids to absorb the wonders of reading so I amassed a varied collection of children’s books and read aloud to them until they reached middle school.

My first impressions of Kindle, from what I can tell by its’ size, shape and concept are appealing. The preview, however, reveals a black and white screen and I recoil slightly wondering how I would manage to live without seeing the book cover in color. It occurs to me that the new book smell would also be absent and while this could be remedied with a spray my reluctance festered. The texture of cold plastic, versus the feel of soft, smooth paper sheets made me wonder how comfy I would be propped up on my pillow viewing a screen like the one I stare at most of the day. The words organic and sensual came to mind. Not that I read lurid, torrid tales, I prefer engaging tales of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The kind with human struggles, drama and hard won happiness.

No, Kindle holds little interest for me. I like variety in my modes of reading from cereal boxes to traffic signs to computer screens to good old fashioned paperback books. I hope I don’t offend anyone if I admit that I prefer the real thing in bed. (books that is) Recently I wrote about an electronic magazine medium which I do think has promise. It is every bit as satisfying as a high quality glossy magazine. See what you think. http://preview.tinyurl.com/3834c7

The surveys quoted perplex me. I wonder how they account for the text messaging explosion. If all of the messages could be converted to book quantities then would we find a decrease in reading and writing or just a change in the way we read and write? If literary readers are more likely to engage in politics or volunteering then how do we account for the recent Pakistani protests coordinated by massive texting networks? Things are changing, shifting and the quality is changing. If people decide they love the Kindle then it will continue to be on Christmas lists for years to come. If not then it may just become kindling for a bigger fire.

Posted by: kathy shields | November 27, 2007 2:06 AM