Observing and Interacting With Professionals, Children, and Families in an Early Childhood Setting

 

Name:  Christina graves

Date:1 / 24 / 13
Name of Program/Setting:  YMCA  day care

L.C., the director of The Y gave me several reasons to read to children and they include “bonding, develop listening skills and learn to inquire and answer questions relating to reading topics.”

Some of the suggestions that she mentioned was that

she also suggested that you “talk to your children about things they see like as your putting away groceries. For example, you would talk about the labels. One problem these days is that  some of the electronic devices can help them read so parents don’t really have to do anything but parents should do it together

I also asked a Kindergarten teacher to share her thoughts on this subject and she gave me a packet that she sends home to her parents at the beginning of the year that includes information on reading to your children. She wants to encourage her parents to take part in their children’s education. The package includes a page that is titled

“How you child learns to read”. It includes a great analogy about basketball and reading. It states that “if you want to teach your child about the game of basketball, how would you go about it? If you hand him a ball, he knows what a ball is. If you teach him to dribble, you have taught him one skill. If you teach him to pass the ball, he knows another. However, he still doesn’t know what the game of basketball is.

If you take him to a basketball game where he can see the players, the coach, the crowd the plays being put into action, the ball being dribbled and passed, then he knows what the game of basketball. After seeing the big picture, your child can see where dribbling, passing, and learning the strategies of the game fit in. It is the same with reading. Reading with your child lets him know what reading is. …….”

I have found several websites to help me in my research and one of the  two insights, experiences, or quotes that I have learned from one of them  comes from one of these and that is:

•  Reading to your child helps you bond with him or her
• Reading together promotes increased communication between you and your child.
• Pre-school children who are exposed to language by hearing words that are read to him/her and in conversation tend to do better in school.
• Reading to your child promotes longer attention span.

Reading with your child helps him/her build listening skills and imagination
http://blogs.greenbay.k12.wi.us/sullivanlmc/2010/12/16/youre-never-too-old-too-wacky-too-wild-to-pick-up-a-book-and-read-with-a-child-dr-seuss/)

the other is of a personal experience that happened to me this week which incorporated books into everyday experiences to help the children understand what is going one better…….Thursday night, my two dogs went missing. They got out of the backyard and when I got home from work they were gone. After looking for an hour or so, I found out they were out the pound and I had to get them in the morning. I was late to work the next day so I had to tell my class what happened. To make it easier to understand and help visualize, I brought in 3 or 4 dog books to read.

 

I am working at YMCA daycare in my home town of Galesburg, Illinois to do my field experience. We have ages of children from 6 weeks up to 5 years old in our center. The staff at The Y includes all levels of early childhood professionals from CDA to Associates Degree to Bachelors degree. I wasn't sure who would be the best to interview so I asked everyone what their thoughts were on issues in Early Childhood. Everyone agreed that parental involvement is definately a big issue. this would also relate to the issue of reading to children that I am contemplating on writing about. Deb, who has a CDA says "parental involvement is an issue now because parents work schedules interfere with them being involved and they lack the materials like books." (D. Raes, personal communication, Jan. 14 2013)  One more issue that they all agreed on is the lack of respect for others that the children seem to have right now. All in all, i am hearing, parental involvement, lack of respect and my own choice of reading to children. I don't think that i am going to let these interviews influence me too much on choosing a topic for my advocacy plan. I really feel that the choice that I decided on comes from the heart and I would be very passionate and interested in this topic.
Reading to your children is important and several related topics come to mind. One of them being the skills/ benefits that they gain from being read to at an early age. Second, the reasons why children are not being read to and what we need to do to change this. Third, parental involvement is a related issue in reading to children. Early Childhood educators can encourage parents to do this by sending home activities  and books to read.
 I have a good topic but I need to do some more research on the subject to become a better advocate. This should be an interesting time this quarter.

Hello

Hello, everyone out there!!! This is the start of my Internship at Kendall College. I am an Early Childhood Education Major. My blog is an Advocacy Action Plan on a topic that we feel is important for obviously children since I am an education major. My topic that I am an advocate for if you haven't guessed my my blog title is reading. I am very passionate on how important reading to your children even as babies can be. I have taught at the preschool level for 9 years so I have met lots of children and families. I also have two children of my very own and I am a single mother.