Government to fund Family-School initiatives

The Minister for Education has announced funding of $800,000 for a Family-School and Community Partnership Bureau that will help develop partnerships between parents, schools and the community.

The Rudd Government will provide the funding over four years to two key national parent bodies - the Australian Council of State Schools Organisation (ACSSO) and the Australian Parents Council (APC) - to conduct research and develop pilot programs to ensure schools are more welcoming to parents and the broader community.

The government recognises that while formal education settings are an important part of a child’s education, parents play a key role in bridging the education experience a child receives at school and at home.

The new Bureau will work with organisations across the country in developing and encouraging effective partnerships between schools, parents and the broader community to improve students’ learning experiences and outcomes.

In announcing the initiative the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard indicated that "the aim will be to reach the disengaged, the disempowered and those families that often are not drawn into their children’s learning."

Libraries and the book, 'green' resources for all

As a young Dad (25+ years ago) one of the most wonderful times each week was Saturday morning when I'd take my daughters to the local library to choose some books. We'd come back with 15-20 wonderful picture books that were read and re-read all week until our next visit. Today my grandchildren experience the same joy with their parents who are following the same pattern that they experienced as children. The local library is a wonderful resource.

An academic colleague of mine, Dr Allen Berger from Miami University of Ohio (USA), has recently written an interesting opinion piece in a US newspaper on the value of libraries and books. For many years Allen has taught and written about literacy. One of his current involvements is serving on the Board of Trustees of Live Oak Public Libraries in Savannah Georgia. In this article he makes a simple (but important) point. In an age where we are concerned about being wise with the world's resources, books and libraries reduce waste and increase shared use of resources with other wonderful benefits for children and adults. Here is an extract from the complete article.

Among our most precious resources are our books. It’s fascinating to observe how books already are recycled in libraries. Many books are read, returned, borrowed (and recycled) more than a hundred times.

“Right now 135 people are on a waiting list for James Patterson’s new novel, 7th Heaven,” said Diane Bronson, collection development coordinator for Live Oak Public Libraries. “Twenty-seven copies have been ordered,” she added.

Some award-winning children’s books are read so many times that they literally fall apart and have to be replaced. These include Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, Gertrude Chandler Warner’s The Boxcar Children Mystery series, and Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series, according to Judy Strong, youth services coordinator.

The public can buy used paperbacks for fifty cents and hardcover books for a dollar in many libraries regularly. Videos are available for a dollar and audios sell for a dollar on up.

People can also bid for used (or pre-owned, to use popular advertising jargon) books, videos, and audios at silent and live auctions. DVD’s are now so popular that three-fourths of the thousands owned by libraries are in continual circulation.

Years ago people were worried that movies would supplant books. But librarians know that when there’s a popular movie they had better have many copies of the book on which the movie is based. People see a movie, like Seabiscuit or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and then go to a nearby library to borrow the books.

Sometimes it’s the other way around: people see a movie and want to read or hear the book.

To enable the public to reach the Internet there are 300 computers available in the nineteen libraries of the Live Oak Public Libraries in Chatham, Effingham, and Liberty counties. Computer use is soaring with a total of 645,798 computer sessions during the most recent fiscal year (July 2006 to June 2007). That’s a jump of nearly 61,000 computer sessions over the preceding fiscal year.

In most libraries you’ll also find a variety of newspapers and magazines enjoyed by people daily.

I hope you get Allen's point. The library and the books within them are a precious community resource which we need to protect. Today, the library is an even richer resource than it once was with DVDs, toys, access to computers, databases and so on. I could go on to talk about equity issues; for example, the service that libraries provide to families that can't buy books, the importance of 'talking' books for the blind and so on. Maybe that's another post!

Let's use and defend libraries.

Importance of play - Part 2

I mentioned in my first post on the importance of play that while children's play is critical to optimal child development, increasingly children are being raised in such a hurried and pressured world that their development is being impeded. Major child rearing agencies, early childhood associations, paediatric groups, and government agencies with responsibility for children and families, have been raising serious questions about declining spare time, and in particular unstructured playtime for young children.

"In their play, children invent the world for themselves and create a place for themselves in it. They are re-creating their pasts and imagining their futures, while grounding themselves in the reality and fantasy of their lives here-and-now." (Jones and Reynolds, 1992, p. 129)

Play enables children to use their creativity while developing cognitively, emotionally and socially. It also encourages imagination, fine and gross motor skills, decision-making, problem solving and so on.

But what role do adults fill in relation to play. Elizabeth Jones in a useful article titled, The Play's the Thing: Styles of Playfulness, suggests that adults signal very clearly to children what their priorities are and can quickly take control away from children. She has many points to make about play but three are worth sharing here:

1. Children benefit from play with adults, and there are advantages in the experience of play situations with varied adults.

"As teachers or parents, we are never neutral; by what we choose to acknowledge and participate in, we are communicating to children what we think is important. Fortunately, adults have diverse interests, and children learn different things from the different people in their lives."


2. Adults need to be careful not to exercise to much control over play, otherwise it ceases to be play.

"It is important, however, that children learn that they are competent people with good ideas. They can be denied this right by adults whose need to play a starring role leads them to ignore the fact that play is the children's turf, which needs to be entered with care. Adults itching to play teacher are likely to interrupt children's play for the sake of their own wonderful ideas. Play is children's world, and adults who take it over are denying children's need to invent it for themselves. Yet children benefit from adults' ideas, and adults benefit from being free to do things they like to do."

3. Adults can enjoy play too and learn how to engage with children and learn about children as they too enter into shared play situations.

"Adults can learn to share their own playfulness with children without overwhelming them or performing for them, if they stay aware of children's developmental levels, children's interests, and what's playful for children."

I have built on this post recently and my first post on play with a third post that explores how adults can engage in play situations with their children, The Importance of Play - Part 3.

The importance of play - Part 1

Children's play is seen by psychologists, educators and paediatricians as so important to optimal child development that it has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child.

But in a clinical report to the American Academy of Paediatrics, Kenneth R. Ginsburg concluded that "Many of these children are being raised in an increasingly hurried and pressured style that may limit the protective benefits they would gain from child-driven play."

Major child rearing agencies, early childhood associations, paediatric groups, government agencies with responsibility for children and families have been raising serious questions about declining spare time, and in particular unstructured playtime for young children. For example, in a recent edition of the Belfast Telegraph a report from 300 teachers, psychologists and children's authors claimed that the erosion of "unstructured, loosely supervised" playtime is dangerously affecting young people's health.

Rather than being a waste of time in an increasingly 'time poor' world, play is vital to children's development. In an interesting article, 'The Play's the thing: Styles of playfulness', Elizabeth Jones has argued that:

In their play, children invent the world for themselves and create a place for themselves in it. They are re-creating their pasts and imagining their futures, while grounding themselves in the reality and fantasy of their lives here-and-now.

In his widely cited article Ginsburg concludes that:

• Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength.
• Play is important to healthy brain development.
• Through play children at a very early age engage and interact in the
• world around them.
• Play allows children to create and explore a world where they can achieve a sense of mastery.
• Through play children can also conquer their fears while practicing adult roles, sometimes in conjunction with other children or adult caregivers.
• As they master their world, play helps children develop new competencies that lead to enhanced confidence.
• Undirected play allows children to learn how to work and create with others, to share, to negotiate, and to resolve conflicts.
• When play is allowed to be child-driven, children practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover their own areas of
• Interest.
• Play is essential for the building of active healthy bodies.

So play is critical to children's development, and time is essential to create 'space' for play. There are challenges here for parents and teachers. How do we resist the temptation to structure children's life in and out of school so much that there is little opportunity for play? As well, how do we encourage children to spend time with other children engaging in play?

In a future post I'd like to say more about the role of adults in children's play.

Basic Literacy Support 2: Some great resources

My colleague Brian Cambourne from the University of Wollongong has reminded me that the National Council for Teachers of English (an international organisation for teachers based in the USA) has some great resources for teachers and parents. I have placed a link on the sidebar for the parent section of the organisation (there are plenty of resources for teacher too which I'll highlight in a future post), but I thought I would highlight some of the following useful links for parents and teachers:

Helping children to become better writers.
Helping children to become better readers.
Tips for parents to help their teenagers write better (you need to download this one as a PDF document).

Another brilliant resource is the Read.Write.Think section of the NCTE site. While those of us in the southern hemisphere (the top of the world!) will find that some of the ideas have a north American flavour, there are some great suggestions for holiday, weekend or after school activities. It's a shame I didn't post this before the Australian Summer vacation ended. This very helpfully provides ideas by grade and age group. Given the variations in the use of grade names and the different starting ages for children (see my last post), I'd suggest you choose the right section by age, not grades.

Back to School: Is there a best age?

In Australia many children will be starting school for the first time tomorrow. I can still remember the mix of emotions that my wife and I experienced when we sent our eldest child off to her first day in Kindergarten (the first day of formal schooling). Now she is 30 and this year she is sending her own son, and our first grandchild, off to school. And we were just as nervous about Jacob.

In Australia the school year begins in the last week of January or the first week of February and ends in the same calendar year (in mid December). The starting age varies from state to state. In NSW any child may commence school if they are five years old or turn five prior to the 31st July in that year. In South Australia children can start in the school term after they turn five. In Queensland there is a non-compulsory Prep year (like preschool) followed by formal school entry if the child turns six before the 30th June in that year. It’s all a bit confusing and the Federal government has been discussing a standard starting age for some time.

In other countries we see similar diversity. In Finland children start formal schooling in the year in which they turn seven. In Germany it is six, in Britain 5 and in the USA it varies from state to state.

So is there a best starting age? This is one of the most common questions I hear from parents. The short answer is that there probably isn’t. It all depends. Yes, children need to have reached a certain minimum stage of physical, intellectual and emotional development to cope with school, but variations across the ages 4 to 6 years don’t seem to make huge differences to children’s long term academic achievement.

One study conducted by Magliacano tested children in year 2 (the second year of formal schooling in the USA) who had started school in two different age ranges (young and old). They tracked those who started between 4 years 11 months and 5 years 4 months (the younger students), and those who started between the ages of 5 years 5 months and 6 years 1 month. The study found "no significant difference between the samples in reading test scores as a result of chronological age".

In a study published in the Journal of Educational Research, Sandra Crosser compared academic achievement indices of seventh to ninth graders who entered kindergarten at age five with similar children who entered at age six. There were some differences and "all statistically significant differences favoured older males and females, especially in reading for older males."

Sandra Crosser has also written a very readable piece for parents on this topic titled
He Has a Summer Birthday: The Kindergarten Entrance Age Dilemma.

It would seem that there is little evidence for a universal perfect age for starting school, so there isn't much pointing asking anyone what it is. It would seem that we need to make individual assessments. Here are some things to consider if your child has reached an age at which he/she can officially commence formal schooling.

Is my child physically ready?

Are they toilet trained?
Do they have the motor skills typical of the average starting aged child? Can they walk, run, jump, throw things, dress themselves (few can tie shoelaces – that’s why we have Velcro! And Kindergarten teachers are good at it anyway). Can they tear paper, apply some stickers, hold crayons and pencils and use them (even if not that well)?
Can they feed themselves (pretty much unpack their own lunch)?
How big is the child? Very tall children often struggle if held back when they eventually go to school. And very small children might struggle if they go early.

Is my child emotionally ready?

Is your child able to cope with separation? Going to school should not be the first time the child has not been out of the sight of parents or the primary caregivers.
Have they had at least some experience relating to other children? Can they share, communicate, show some control of anger and frustration?
If your child is keen to go to school there’s a strong chance that they are emotionally ready.
Can they communicate their emotions (frustration, fear, anger, affection etc)?

Is your child intellectually ready?

This is tougher but in general you would expect that your child could:

• Concentrate on activities for extended periods of time (say at least 10-15 minutes on one activity). This might include being able to listen to a story, watch some television, sustaining attention on a game or activity that they like.
• Hold crayons and show some interest in making marks or scribble (the early stages of writing), show some interest in print and symbols (e.g. “what does that say Mum?”), complete basic puzzles (maybe 30-50 pieces), try to write their name, count to five, recognise some letters.
• Show some interest in learning. This can show itself in many ways such as inquisitiveness, exploration, and observation of things around them.

At the end of the day, parents need to make this decision based on what they know about their child. There are some other things worth considering:

• What is the school like? Do you know the teachers and do you have confidence that they will be able to understand your child and help them to find their feet at school?
• What are your family circumstances like? If you have another sibling just one year younger you might want to make sure that you don’t have them going off to school at the same time.
• What was the experience that you had as parents. Did you go to school early or late and what was the impact on you? Given the common gene pool this is a useful consideration.
• What are your personal circumstances? Is there major upheaval in the family or some major change coming in the next 12 months (e.g. moving to another area)? If so, holding your child back might be justified.

If all has been considered and the way forward is unclear I’d advise not sending your child at an early age. After all, there is little evidence to show adverse effects from starting late, but conversely there is some limited evidence to show that starting early might have some adverse effects for some children. An interesting postscript to this matter is that the country in the OECD with the highest school literacy levels is Finland, where the starting age is seven!

Basic literacy support: Reading with children

When parents ask what they can do to help their children at home, my most common first response is "Read to and with them". While people are often looking for more complex answers there is no more fundamental way to support literacy. There are two related reasons for this:

First, time on task is important for success in anything. One of the most basic insights from literacy research in the 1960s and 1970s was the repeated observation by researchers like the late Dame Marie Clay in New Zealand and Richard Allington in the USA that struggling readers read less than successful readers. Less books and only about one third of the words. This doesn't seem too startling, but think about it. If a child is struggling with reading, how do they catch up with other children by doing less reading? The answer is that they don't! The gap gets wider.

Second, being read to and with an adult offers many opportunities for learning. Mem Fox talks about children needing to be read at least 1,000 books before the age of five to be successful readers. While we could quibble over the precise number, the principle is clear. Being read to teaches much about language (vocabulary, how language works at the sentence and text levels, the sounds and rhythms of language and so on, concepts of print and how it works), knowledge of the world and positive experiences with books.

The key is that reading should be enjoyable and the child needs to feel successful.

Over the next few posts I'll offer some basic advice (primarily for parents) about reading to, reading with and listening to children as they read. Much of this same advice can be found in my book written for with Lynne Munsie, titled Beyond Tokenism: Parents as partners in literacy. Note that this book is meant for teachers who want to help parents to support their children and was an outcome of our research on familiy literacy. It is not written for parents.


Reading to..

• Read early - at least from birth (yes some parents even read when their child is in the womb).
• Read often - at least daily.
• Make it special - treat books as if they are precious, anticipate reading as if it's the most special time of the day and make the text an extension of a warm and loving relationship.
• Choose books carefully - think about the things your children like, talk to other parents about books that kids like, consult lists like my list of 200 Great books.
• If you can, read the book before you read it to your children - reading out loud is a performance.
• Try to read the book with emotion, with invented sound effects, with different voices for characters and the narrator, changes in voice volume and tone.
• Be physically engaged - point to pictures (or parts of pictures) as you read, point to text devices and features.
• Make connections as you read with other books, experiences, TV etc (don't overdo this) - "This is a bit like the story....", "This is a bit like Daddy doing.....", "This sounds like...".
• Talk after you finish the book - again don't overdo it, it's all about response and reflection, it's not a comprehension test. "Did you like...?" "Don't you think this was like...?"

The above comments are written with parents of young preschool in mind, but the principles are pretty much the same for children of all ages. You can read to your children until at least 10-12 years of age. It will be less regular with older children and it is likely that you'll share the reading rather than just reading to them. But the basics are still read regularly and often > making it special > choosing books carefully and with your child in mind (or help them to choose) > reading as well as you can > being physically and emotionally engaged > making connections with other books and experiences > encouraging response.