Forget Mozart CDs and Baby Einstein videos, Boston’s mayor is urging parents to teach preschool children the old-fashioned way: by talking, reading, and playing with them.

Hoping to turn a new page on early-childhood education in Boston, Mayor Thomas M. Menino declared today as “Talk, Read, Play Day” in conjunction with Boston public schools’ Countdown to Kindergarten program and ReadBoston.

The day is part of a new public awareness campaign focused on the role of parents and their responsibility as their child’s “first teacher,” from birth until age 5.

The program’s three components of interaction meld to give babies and toddlers essential skills. Talking, reading, and playing help young children develop longer attention spans, larger vocabularies, and proper social interactions as well as foster creativity, imagination, and problem-solving skills, Menino said.

“Talk, Read, Play” is part of Thrive in 5, Boston’s new 10-year plan, spearheaded by Menino and the United Way, to ensure Boston children are prepared for educational success.

The program, implemented in March after two years of planning and $3.25 million in funding from the city, the United Way, and area hospitals, highlights the importance of a child’s first five years in five areas of growth: language development, cognition and general knowledge, approaches to learning, social and emotional development, and physical and motor development.

Source: Boston Globe, United States
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/11/12/mayor_to_parents_read_to_children/

Children are struggling at school because they don’t know if they are left or right-handed

The proportion of infants arriving at school not knowing whether they are right or left-handed has trebled in the past decade, researchers say. The situation has been made worse by excessive parental fears, driven by cot death, about letting them lie or crawl on their front.

“The most important thing parents can do is ensure that when they are being observed during the day, they are given a chance to be on their front.” Previous research by Portwood has found that 57% of three-year-olds are unable to carry out tasks expected at their age. She cited children’s inactive lifestyles as “a major contributory factor”.

Other experts have also raised concerns about children’s development. “Brain development is at its most rapid between the age of zero and three,” said Aric Sigman, a psychologist and a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He pointed to research showing that for every hour a day a three-year-old watches television, there is a 9% rise in attention problems.

Sigman has described television as “the greatest unacknowledged public health issue of our time”. He also believes video games have led to children spending less time working with their hands and failing to grasp concepts such as weight, volume and measurement.

“By using your hands, you can actually become more civilised,” said Sigman. “These are problems likely to persist in life, they are rather indelible.”

The problem was highlighted at the Conservative party conference when a restaurateur told a session addressed by David Willetts, the shadow skills secretary, that she was unable to find British employees under 25 who had the dexterity to peel a potato.

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5114484.ece

And here’s the proof: Use the JUMP program and enjoy the unaccustomed taste of success

Melissa Marsh is a special education co-ordinator at Gwa’sala-’Nakwaxda’xw School in Port Hardy, at the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Its students include some of the most challenged kids in Canada. Many struggle with learning disabilities, cognitive disabilities and behaviour problems. The community has its share of social issues, and parental involvement is low.

For kids like these, academic failure is depressingly familiar. “The shutdown mode comes extremely quickly,” Ms. Marsh says. But now, kids at this school are experiencing the unaccustomed taste of success in a subject that far more advantaged kids have grown to dread - math.

The JUMP program, pioneered by Toronto mathematician John Mighton, breaks almost every rule of current math pedagogy. It does not depend on the “discovery” method, group work or real-life examples. It is highly structured, relies on a great deal of direct instruction, repetition and reinforcement, and proceeds in small, incremental steps.

It also works.

“Repetition is crucial for many of our students,” says Wayne Peterson, the principal. He adds, “Your regular math texts have too much reading.” JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies) is structured so that every kid can solve the problems, one small step at a time. That builds their confidence and self-esteem, and keeps them motivated and engaged. It can get even low achievers excited about math. Teachers say their math skills dramatically improve - and so does their behaviour, their levels of engagement and their attitude.

“The kids aren’t fighting me tooth and nail any more,” says Ms. Marsh. “They know what’s expected. They have the steps set out in front of them and they know they are going to be able to achieve all of those steps. The kids in my special education class go, ‘Whoo-hoo! I did the bonus question and I got it right!’ One Grade 7 student has never been able to sit in math class without completely disrupting it. JUMP has changed that. Today, he participates in class discussion and does the written work by himself.”

The JUMP program is now being used in more than a dozen first nations schools in B.C., as well as in many regular schools in the Vancouver area. “We found that the regular textbook way wasn’t reaching all the kids,” says Christine Hammond, head teacher of N’Kwala School, near Merit. The program is especially effective with her ESL students, because they don’t have to wade through oceans of text. One floundering Innu boy, for example, quickly became a math whiz. The kids at her small band school are now performing at the regional average in math, she says. JUMP is also effective with adult learners, some of whom, after a lifetime of frustration, are getting their GEDs.

Liz Barrett is a South Africa-born educator who travels the province doing outreach and teacher support in first nations schools. For her, proficiency in math is a social justice issue. “These kids are falling by the wayside, and that’s unacceptable. If your students aren’t getting a Grade 12, the door is closed to them.” She discovered the JUMP program four years ago, when she heard Mr. Mighton lecture in B.C., and became a passionate advocate. She’s now helping to launch a JUMP pilot program in South Africa.

Mr. Mighton, 52, is an unusual man. As well as being a mathematician (currently in residence at Toronto’s Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences), he is one of Canada’s best playwrights. He got interested in math education because he thinks the state of numeracy in Canada is a disaster. Judging by the evidence, he’s right. In Ontario, for example, a third of community college students are in danger of failing first-year math. Mr. Mighton also believes we must reverse the “culture of failure” that permeates math education. “There’s no reason the vast majority of kids can’t learn math.”

Ten years ago, Mr. Mighton began tutoring inner-city Toronto kids in his apartment, with great success. The next task was to determine whether JUMP would scale up. He began working to persuade school boards, a far tougher task than he expected. But the initial results have been good. One British inner-city school district, in London, agreed to try it. At the start, the kids were performing an average of two years below the national level in math. After one year of JUMP, 60 per cent of them passed the national exams.

JUMP works for middle-class kids, too. One Toronto teacher used it with her Grade 5 kids, whose math skills at the start of the year ranged from Grade 3 to Grade 7. By the end of the year, every student signed up for the Pythagoras competition, which is written only by top students. Fifteen out of the 17 achieved distinction.

The JUMP program is founded on observation, evidence, teacher feedback, continuous improvement and rigour, combined with new research findings on how the brain learns. By contrast, most programs taught in school are not. For the past couple of decades, both math and reading instruction have been an ideological battlefield that pits the “progressives” - educators who favour good things such as discovery and creativity - against the traditionalists, who favour bad things such as repetition and direct instruction. The progressives have had the upper hand, which is one reason why JUMP has been regarded in some quarters - especially in progressive-minded Ontario - as positively dangerous. Last May, consultants with the Toronto District School Board dismissed JUMP as a form of “rote, procedural learning.” In Ontario, that’s the kiss of death.

Now the tide is turning, though not fast enough. Last spring, the U.S. National Mathematics Advisory Panel endorsed the seemingly obvious idea that, in order to succeed in math, children need to understand what they’re doing.

But the school system is plagued by other barriers that actively discourage best practices. One is the widespread use of consultants, who often write the very textbooks they then are paid to recommend. Some teachers are heavily discouraged from using instructional methods or materials their school board frowns on, even though they work. Many schools and parents are beaten into submission by claims that certain programs are “evidence-based” even though they’re not. There’s a lot at stake in how curriculum decisions are made - but parents and teachers seldom have a clue, or a voice.

So if you’re interested in JUMP for your kid, you may have to move to Vancouver or Port Hardy. You could also check out the JUMP website (jumpmath.org). And Mr. Mighton has written two books, The Myth of Ability and The End of Ignorance. The program survives on charitable support, and he is a more or less full-time volunteer.

“Teachers get so excited by this,” says Liz Barrett. “Suddenly they’ve got the tools to reach the students, and suddenly they’re all achieving.”

Source: Globe and Mail, Canada
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081108.COWENT08/TPStory/National

It is a question which worries every parent – what is the best way to prepare your child for their first day at school?
Now a psychologist has devised a checklist of 22 skills she believes children need to learn before beginning their formal education.

According to her findings, nearly half of parents would like more advice and information to prepare children for their first day at school.

Fewer than one in six parents have a clear idea about this, while one in five said they had no idea what skills children should have by the age of four or five. Only 18 per cent said they knew where to go for official advice.

Dr Spencer said: “Ensuring a child is adequately prepared for school is one of the most important things parents have to do.

“But it can be very challenging and daunting if the guidance and information needed is not there.

“A lot of the available material on pre-school development is focused on teaching child carers the skills, but can be difficult for parents with young children to access and understand.”

The list of suggested skills, called the Curricu-mum, was commissioned by the children’s television show Hi-5 which is designed to reflect pre-school learning guidelines.

Cecilia Persson, programme director for the Cartoonito network, which broadcasts Hi-5, said: “We believe the Hi-5 Curricu-mum is exactly what parents of pre-school children have been looking for.”

The list suggests that by the time they start school, children should be able to recite the alphabet, to count and use number and to write their own names. It also suggests children should know how to share, how to play with others and be able to dress and feed themselves.

It also claims children should be able to join in conversations, learn to sing songs, know which foods are healthy and be able to differentiate between past and future events and actions which are right and wrong.

However, Judith Gillespie, development officer for the Scottish Parent Teacher Council said she was concerned the list could create more anxiety and pressure for parents of young children.

“To a parent that is an incredibly daunting list. I think the trouble is it will make some parents feel like failures,” she said.

“Saying these are things children should be able to do is incredibly unhelpful. It would be more helpful to say that these are the kinds of things that many children learn to do before they start school. Children learn differently and develop differently and making it a requirement that they should be able do all these things is very bad news.”

Ms Gillespie said teachers did not expect children to learn the alphabet or to be able to count and use numbers before they started school and the list did not take into account the fact that boys tend to be more boisterous and learn at a different pace.

“In many respects, the most important things on the list are social skills like sharing – it is far more important that children go to school with social skills.”

Alphabet and dressing among 22 target tasks

These are the 22 tasks the report says children should be taught by the time they reach school.

1 Write their own name – a useful skill that helps confidence.

2 Know the alphabet. Being able to recite the letters of the alphabet will be a help when children begin to learn to read and write.

3 Sing/recite songs. Learning simple songs and rhythms helps children develop their learning skills.

4 Take turns and share with other people without a fuss. Learning to get along with other children is crucial.

5 Complete simple activities on their own.

6 Be sensitive to others’ feelings and know the difference between right and wrong.

7 Dress and feed themselves (even if they get it wrong).

8 Join in group activities with other children.

9 Make up stories (even if they make no sense).

10 Join in general conversation at home.

11 Tell the difference between past and future.

12 Be able to focus their attention on one thing for a prolonged period without becoming restless.

13 Count basic numbers and answer number-based questions such as: “How many carrots are on your plate?”

14 Complete simple puzzles such as jigsaws.

15 Ask lots of questions. Curiosity is a great asset in a pre-school child.

16 Know the difference between different groups; eg cats and dogs.

17 Experiment with basic technology, such as typing their name on a computer.

18 Have fun outside and be active.

19 Tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods.

20 Play “make believe” and use imagination.

21 Make things and get messy with paints and crafts.

22 Make music with toy instruments and experiment with different sounds.

Source: Scotsman, United Kingdom
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/The-key-skills-that-make.4652933.jp

Conventional wisdom says low-income parents whose children attend low-performing public schools do not care much about their children’s education and, therefore, are not involved in their children’s schools and their children’s learning away from school.

Now, a new report, “One Dream, Two Realities,” commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, turns conventional wisdom on its head. The report shows that instead of not caring, such parents are the most likely to see rigorous education and their own involvement as being essential to their children’s success.

The researchers argue that society needs to stop blaming parents when students in low-performing schools do not succeed and start considering how schools are failing both their charges and the parents.

To reach their conclusions, researchers conducted focus groups and a nationally representative survey of 1,006 parents of current and recent high school students in urban, suburban and rural towns and cities across the nation. Parents verified whether their children attend or attended high-performing schools, moderate-performing schools or low-performing schools, the major criterion being the proportion of students from those high schools who go on to college.

The report confirms what educators and scholars have known: Parents are the key to the educational success of their children.

One of the report’s critical findings is that most of the nation’s approximately 25-million parents with children in high schools want to be more involved but are frustrated when schools do not give them adequate information or opportunities to participate more effectively.

Not surprisingly, the report shows that 83 percent of parents with students in high-performing schools said their school was doing a very or fairly good job communicating with them about their child’s academic performance, compared to only 43 percent of parents with students in low-performing schools. Seventy percent of parents whose children attend high-performing schools say the school does a good job informing parents of the requirements for graduation and college admission, compared with only 38 percent of parents of students in low-performing schools.

Another key finding, again bucking conventional wisdom, is that most minority parents want their children to attend college. In fact, 92 percent of black parents and 90 percent of Hispanic parents consider going to college to be “very important,” compared to 78 percent of white parents.

As more students join the ranks of the estimated 1.2-million who do not graduate annually, educators are trying to find ways to get more parents involved. Among the report’s suggestions based on what parents said they want:

• Flexible parent-teacher conferences that consider the schedules of parents who work;

• Immediate notification when their children have academic problems, cut classes or skip school;

• Homework hot lines to assist both children and parents;

• More information about graduation requirements and college admissions;

• Conferences in eighth or ninth grade to discuss what it will take for their children to succeed in high school;

• One faculty adviser who tracks their student all the way through high school as a mentor and a personal point of contact;

• Incorporate homework assignments that involve families in every course.

The report concludes that “America itself has two school systems — one that is largely equipping children for the demands of high school, college and the workplace and another that is too often failing them; one that is effectively engaging parents in the education of their children and another that is failing to do so. … Schools and parents have clear pathways to begin to improve one element that we know has dramatic impact on the education of children — the sustained engagement of parents who play vital roles in educating their children and nurturing them into the future.”

“One Dream, Two Realities” may have flaws, but in light of the urgency it brings to the issue of parental involvement, those flaws can be forgiven. It correctly points out that the current state of our public school system is “inconsistent with America’s promise of equal opportunity.”

Source: Tampabay.com, FL
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/article884627.ece

You can help your child develop skills for reading and writing while doing ordinary chores around the house! Supporting your child’s literacy development is one of the most important tasks you have, and it can be done even when you are busy (and isn’t that most of the time?).

Following are some simple ideas that will help you make the most of every opportunity you have with your preschool child:

- As you put away the groceries, ask your child to name the items in the boxes. He may not be able to read the words on the label yet, but he will begin to recognize logos and pictures, which he will later associate with the printed word.

- While you dust the furniture, let your child write his name in the furniture polish.

- Give your child simple jobs to do as you cook; measuring ingredients or rolling dough are examples. Talk about the words in the recipe you are using; explain terms like mix, stir, or sift. This is a great time to also talk about cleanliness and the importance of “clean cooking hands.”

- When making biscuits, give your child a portion of the dough. He can shape the dough into letters and bake his name. What a fun way to learn to spell! You can also use leftover dough and add a little food coloring - instant play-dough (keeps in refrigerator a few days with kneading).

- Let your child place magnetic letters on the refrigerator while you cook. Talk about the letters and sounds he is using.

- Even bath time can be a learning experience! Let your child lather up the side of the tub with soap. Encourage him to write his name or draw pictures in the lather.

- Make a book with your child. Let him draw pictures and scribble (a toddler’s version of writing) a story. Place the pages in plastic storage bags and staple together like a book or punch holes in the sides and tie pages together with yarn.

- Let your child help sort the laundry by color. Talk about the colors. You can also sort into items (linens, clothes, etc.) and in sizes (large, small, medium) to nurture those all-important pre-math skills.

- Look for restaurant signs, toy store signs, etc., as you travel. Most children recognize their favorite fast food place simply by its outdoor sign! This is a child’s first reading experience (recognizing familiar signs and symbols). We call this “environmental literacy.”

Remember, you as a parent are your child’s first and most important teacher! Think about the simple ways you can support your child’s literacy development as you go about your daily activities! In doing so, you are nurturing your child’s natural curiosity and promoting a life-long love of learning. Happy Parenting! (…)

Source: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, MS
http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=281094&pub=1&div=News

Dear Dr. Fournier: I just came from a school council meeting where parents were furious because of low achievement test scores. These are the same people that put stickers on their cars saying their child is an A student. How can you love your child’s school one day and hate it the next? When they give our children good grades, they’re great, but when they flunk standardized tests, our schools are bad?

Grades and achievement tests are both important. A law school student might have graduated with top honors and even been the editor of his school’s law review but will not be able to practice law until he passes the state bar exam. The challenge lies in the fact that children must do well from day to day in the classroom yet they must be able to pass tests made by others from outside your child’s school in order to be deemed a success.

Neither of these accomplishments guarantees your child success as an adult because school systems and standardized test makers are operating on the 1940s structure of education in this country, which was designed for the industrial era.

Your children must learn skills that are not being taught in schools.

WHAT TO DO

Harper’s magazine reports in the article “Figuratively Speaking” by John MacIntyre that 77 percent of parents of school-aged youth say they are satisfied with their children’s education. If this many people are happy, why do politicians and international studies indicate that our schools are so far below world standards? Obviously not everyone is happy. The same report says that the number decreases when adults in this country are asked the same question.

Only 44 percent of this group is all right with primary and secondary education. That means 56 percent does not believe our school systems are producing well-educated young adults. Of course these are many of the people that are supposed to employ our kids when they are older, so we have to admit that their opinion counts.

Strong American Schools chaired by former Colorado Governor Roy Romer found in 2004 that 33 percent of this country’s high school graduates needed remedial courses in college. Even though they had the grades to get into college and may have passed the SAT or ACT, they did not have the elementary/high school skills to do college work!

Furthermore, 29 percent of all students in four-year colleges and 43 percent of those in junior colleges needed remedial courses. Every one of those remedial students took courses in high school, passed those courses but learned close to nothing.

Taxpayers are paying billions a year to educate our children while college tuitions are increasing in part because colleges have to provide reeducation services — that is they have to teach high school (and sometimes elementary school) all over again.

The bottom line is that schools in our country are so busy teaching and trying to prove that they have taught by raising achievement scores that no one is watching the store. Schools are for children to learn.

Do not let your child go to bed celebrating an A unless he can prove to you that they still know what was on that test one month after they received the grade.

The system is fighting the wrong battle and losing the war.

Focus your energy on making sure your child has learned and let the bureaucrats and “happy with their school” parents knock themselves out losing the war and their children’s future, as well. (…)

Source: Henderson Gleaner, KY
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/oct/28/parents-should-focus-on-learning-more-than-on/

‘Sex education’ is a much misinterpreted phrase. The idea is not to make children more proficient at sex, the way maths education should make them better at doing sums.

That is why, when Schools Minister Jim Knight launched a review of the subject last week, he referred carefully to ‘relationship education’. The government intends some kind of tuition in ‘personal and social health’ to become compulsory in English schools, taught from the age of five. It is already a mandatory part of the curriculum in Wales and Northern Ireland.

What the precise content of those lessons will be and what right parents will have to exclude their children from them are still open to discussion. But whatever language the government prefers to use, that discussion will really be about sex.

Children already learn the facts of procreation. What worries the government is that, outside the classroom, sex is increasingly seen as a normal form of recreation. Britain has the highest level of teenage pregnancy in Europe. It also suffers from high levels of sexually transmitted infection. According to the Health Protection Agency, people aged 16-24 accounted for half of all diagnosed cases of genital warts and gonorrhoea last year and nearly two-thirds of chlamydia cases.

A poll in today’s Observer reveals one in three has had sex before the age of consent.

According to moral conservatives, this is all symptomatic of a culture of sexual licence that rejects self-restraint and abstinence. By extension, they argue, teaching children about contraception in school legitimises promiscuity and undermines parents who want to impart more traditional values to their children.

There are three problems with that argument. First, the actual content of sex education classes is not licentious. They aim to empower children to resist social pressure to have sex and to understand the risks involved. Second, advocating abstinence is fine, but teenagers still have to understand what it is they are abstaining from. Upholding ‘traditional values’ often means treating sex as taboo altogether. Third, even if it is desirable for parents to teach a responsible approach to sex, many are clearly failing to do so.

It is true that British attitudes to sex are generally permissive, as The Observer poll also shows. There is nothing wrong with that. It is certainly better than a culture of sexual repression. The important thing is not to deny that sex happens, but to teach about all the consequences. It is ignorance, not education, that puts young people at risk.

Source: Guardian Unlimited, UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/26/sex-education-relationships

Nap time’s over for some Alabama kindergartners.

School systems throughout the state are doing away with the 30-minute afternoon snooze because they say it wastes valuable instruction time.

Henry County Schools phased out nap times for kindergarten students this year and replaced them with a 30-minute rest/reading time when students can relax or work on reading skills.

The state adopted a new data-driven reading series this year and continues to push the Alabama Reading Initiative in schools.

Headland Elementary School Principal Faye Shipes said losing nap time was necessary to keep up with increasingly demanding state goals.

“To be perfectly honest, there’s so much in the kindergarten curriculum that we need the extra classroom time,” Shipes said.

Henry County School Superintendent Dennis Coe recently polled superintendents of other school districts and found most of them had already done away with nap time.

Shipes said she’s only received a few negative comments from parents about the new policy.

But some educators don’t agree with the trend.

Montana Magnet School Principal Sue Clark said the breaks let students rest so they can later focus on schoolwork. Without the naps, students get tired and can become inattentive and easily frustrated, she said.

She said teachers at the Dothan school usually convert nap time into a rest/read time once kindergarten students enter their second semester. By then, Clark said, most students have adjusted to the length of the school day.

“It’s a developmental thing,” she said.

Source: Montgomery Advertiser, AL
http://tinyurl.com/5v9pkj

More than nine out of 10 private Korean kindergartens are disregarding the curriculum determined by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and are teaching English to their students.

Teaching English in kindergarten is illegal under the Early Childhood Education law.

In South Korea, the kindergarten curriculum is under the jurisdiction of the Education Ministry, but kindergarten is not compulsory at all and most kindergartens are run by private institutions. In addition, kindergartens are not part of elementary schools as they are in some Western countries.

According to figures released by the office of Democratic Party National Assembly member Choi Jae-sung, a study of 274 private kindergartens revealed that 262, or 95.6 percent, are teaching English.

Of those, 216, or 82.4 percent, began teaching English to their kindergartners in 2006 and 19 more began in 2008.

Some 173, or 66 percent, said they teach students English “because of parental demand.”

Another 13.4 percent responded that they teach English because they “don’t want to lose out in competition with other kindergartens,” while 10.3 percent said they are only teaching English “because of the government’s emphasis on strengthening English education.”

In addition, 43.9 percent, or 115 kindergartens, said they employ native English teachers.

Under law, kindergartens may only teach within the range of permitted curricula via ordinances set by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; currently, that does not include English.

“Given the emotional and mental development of children, at the kindergarten level they need an education method where they learn diverse areas in an integrated manner, and not concentrate on one subject,” said a ministry official. “According to the ministry, kindergartens should not teach English.”

“We have a situation in which ‘the law over there, while reality is over here’ with the continuing increase in kindergartens that teach English and private English academies that are sprouting up all over the place,” said Choi. (…)

Source: The Hankyoreh, South Korea
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/317869.html