Actual People

Actual People

Teachers and parents generally get along. Both share the goal of supporting children. But once in a while, disagreements or misunderstandings arise. Once in a while, tempers flare.

When I began teaching, we had only one phone in the office for teacher-parent calls. Picture this: A parent, miffed about some issue concerning their child, sends a questioning note. The teacher, busy with several children, interprets the note as a personal criticism. Said teacher waits until her lunch break, charges down the hall to the office with steam pouring out of her ears, jabs the phone number into the phone, and waits as the phone rings. Boy, is she going to give this parent a piece of her mind!

Then the parent answers.

“Hello, Mrs. M? This is Mrs. C. How are you? First, let me tell you how much I enjoy having Tommy in my class. He is such a curious learner and has such good manners. I got your note. How we can work together to solve the issue you mentioned.” 

After a pleasant conversation, the parent and teacher hang up with a much better opinion of one another from which Tommy benefits most. What happened to the steam? It disappeared the minute Mom answered the phone. Why? Because the teacher realized that she was talking to an actual person. A person who loved her child. A parent who wanted the best from his teacher. A parent who was the greatest ally a child and teacher can have.

Actual people share the same qualities, worries, hopes, and fears that you do. Actual people are behind every note, email message, Instagram, and Facebook post. Actual people write the books and articles you love or hate. Politicians from your party and opposing parties are actual people. Reporters on all the news services are actual people. Children and senior citizens are actual people. Celebrities are actual people. Service workers who patrol, clean, or cook are actual people. Immigrants are actual people. Incarcerated persons are actual people. People in other countries are actual people. People with physical and mental challenges are actual people. People with differing racial, gender, religious, or national identities are actual people. People who disagree with you, work against you, or are disrespectful to you are actual people. Actual people are worthy of respect.

One of the first lessons taught in every classroom is to treat others the way you want to be treated. This golden rule is part of almost every social and religious tradition. When did it go out of style? Why do we today feel that our anger, our fears, and our righteous indignation supersedes this most primary of lessons? Why do we feel that others need to treat us right but that we can treat others any way we want? Have we forgotten that others are actual people?

Parents and teachers share many things. Both want children to succeed. Both want children to feel secure and loved. Both want children to act responsibly and kindly. They share the responsibilities of caring adults towards growing children. They know that they must work together. Children need to see actual people getting along.

We are all actual people who share many things. We want to succeed. We want to feel secure and loved. We want to act responsibly and kindly. We need to get along. We must work together. Actual people need other actual people. Before steaming up and charging in, remember to look at the other as an actual person worthy of respect. 

Just like you.

Open Your Ears

Open Their Ears to Reading

Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify the small units of sound (phonemes) which make up words and how these can be segmented (pulled apart), blended (put together), and manipulated (added, deleted, and substituted). Phonemic skills include rhyming, alliteration, and counting syllables. Hearing the sounds of language is important in learning to read.

When learning to speak, children accumulate thousands of sounds. In order to read, children must recognize these sounds as individual units which are used to make up written words. Teachers and parents can help with explicit instruction (teaching children to connect sound with the letters of the alphabet) but playing games with sounds is a lot more fun.

Even the youngest children love to play with sounds. Here are a few examples of some “sound games” for parents and children to share. 

1. Sound Rounds! Model sounds with exaggerated pronunciation. “I Love Pickles!” YuM, PoPCorN! Add movement. “Jump when you hear a /p/ sound.”

2. Mix Them Up! Combine sounds to make nonsense words: Brush-em-be-too-tee-boos! Doo-da-diddy-cums! Dr. Seuss’s books are full of nonsense words. 

3. Break Them Up! Pull words apart: Say, cowbell. Now say it without /bell/. Start with compound words and move on to syllables: Say platter. Now say it without /ter/.

4. Rhyme Time! Read rhyming books. Add new rhymes to those in the book. Ask your child to add some more. Rhymes don’t have to be actual words: Pop, stop, hop, mop, vop, yop etc.

5. Rhyming Riddles! These answers rhyme with /bat/. I sit on your head. Who am I? (a hat). I sit on your lap and purr. Who am I? (a cat). Kids can make up rhyming riddles too.

5. Clap, Clap! Clap if these words start the same: (cup, cow); rhyme: (neigh, bray); have the same beginning (or ending) sound (pool, cool) etc.

6. Strange Change! Start with a word (hop). Change the beginning (or ending) sound. (top, stop, hog, hot, etc. ) Challenge your child to do the same.  

7. Stretch and Blend! Stretch words into their individual sounds or blend them together. Stretch, cheep, (/ch/-/ee/-/p/); clack, (/k/-/l/-/a/-/k/); blend /s/-/p/-/i/-/n/, (spin); /b/-/u/-/k/,, (buck). Demonstrate stretching or blending with large arm movements.

8. Sing!  Learn some silly songs and belt them out with your kids.

As children become more aware of phonemes, games can be made more challenging. Sound games, which be done anywhere, keep children occupied and happy. Help your child become a great reader!

(This is the second in a series on reading success)

Mona Lisa's Smile

Mona Lisa’s Smile

When you think of a beautiful smile, who comes to mind? Someone famous, like Julia Roberts or Tom Cruise? Someone closer to home, your mother or father, your spouse or your child? One of the most famous smiles in history is that of Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Di Vinci. 

Leo (as a fellow Italian I feel free to be familiar) started painting Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a Florentine merchant in 1503 and continued to refine his painting until his death sixteen years later. Leo was a slow worker and often didn’t finish projects he started, but this one painting held his attention. Leo was more than a painter, he studied anatomy, engineering, mathematics, optics, warfare, literature, poetry and whatever struck him as interesting. His investigations into human anatomy helped him create Mona’s haunting smile.

Walter Isaacson, in his book, Leonardo Di Vinci, details Leo’s interest in bones, nerves, organs, muscles, and skin. Leo dissected animals and cadavers to unravel their mysteries. He was especially interested in lips: “The muscles which move the lips are more numerous in man than in any other animal.” In his journals, he includes detailed diagrams showing the many positions the lips can take “One will always find as many muscles as there are positions of the lips” he writes. He concludes that the positions of the lips convey the emotions behind them. 

This is what makes Mona’s smile so memorable. Leo shows us the inner emotion behind the smile but with a veil, a mystery, because Leo realized that, as Isaacson writes, “we can never fully know another person’s true emotions.” 

The lips do more than smile. They frown, they pout, they purse, they pucker. Each position of the lips is a signal for the emotion behind it. Our lips telegraph our thoughts and feelings, yet our signal readings may be off. Some mystery lurks — hidden in the minds and hearts behind the smile. 

Mona Lisa’s smile reveals little of her inner self. Is she happy, amused, pensive, reflecting, or planning? Does she think of someone special or of the artist painting her into immortality? We will never know. But we remember her and her smile. Isaacson writes that the painting, “became more than a portrait of an individual. It became universal, a distillation of Leonardo’s accumulated wisdom about the outward manifestations of our inner lives and about our connections between ourselves and our world.” Mona’s smile connects her world with ours. Our smiles connect us with others. 

Smiles may mask our true inner-selves, but as with Da Vinci’s masterpiece, it is the observer who benefits. Every beautiful smile adds light to the world. Mona Lisa’s smile inspired centuries of artists and poets. Your beautiful smile inspires also. Use it often. Make your smile as lovely a memory as Mona Lisa’s. 

(All quotations from Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, 2017)

Making Ourselves Clear

Making Ourselves Clear

Some of the best writers I ever knew were my second-grade students. Little kids express themselves in clear and sincere words. Their grammar isn’t perfect, their spelling is awful, and their syntax is skewed, but their ideas radiate from the page. 

Primary students’ writing is fresh, enthusiastic and inventive. It is personal and relational. “This was my experience. Do you share it?” Children love sharing their work. Sitting in the “author’s chair” and reading from a work-in-progress, students realize the power of writing.  

Harold Evans, writer, editor, and social-commentator, promotes good writing in his book, Do I Make Myself Clear?: Why Writing Well Matters. He writes that “the right words are oxygen.” Words give life to ideas, experiences, and wisdom. Like air fills the lungs, good writing fills the mind and soul.

So if little kids love writing, why do adults fear it? Simply explained: The Grammar Police. Traditional writing lessons focused on grammar, usage, and punctuation. Red marks on the page! Points off for missing commas! Subject and verb agreement! Composition classes, more often exercises in getting the rules right rather than learning to express ideas clearly, turned students off to writing.

Many budding authors abandoned writing because lessons focused on the craft of writing rather than the substance. Yet clear writing depends on the rules which allow it to be universally understood. Grammar rules support understanding. 

Good writers survived many grammar lessons. Today’s writing lessons focus on expressing meaning clearly. Teachers encourage children to write about their experiences, their feelings, their dreams, and their questions about life. Instead of wielding a red pencil, teachers share good books, pointing out how authors use words and the conventions of writing to tell stories, share information, and express ideas. Students, enthralled by these books, adopt the conventions that authors use. When they do, teachers and classmates applaud and confidence grows. The author’s chair is a place of honor, not a seat of fear.

Put down the red pen lurking in your mind, the fears that keep you from writing about the mysteries of your life, and sit in the author’s chair. Read good books and emulate the writing, not the structure, but the power of expression. Breathe oxygen into the world by sharing your experiences and ideas in writing. 

Every little kid has something to write about.  Every adult does too. William Hazlitt (1778-1830), considered to be one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, wrote, “Words are the only things that last forever; they are more durable than the eternal hills.” 

Sit down today and write. Write like a little kid, free from rules and sincere. Create a record of your life’s experiences and hard-earned wisdom. Be clear. Exercise your power of expression. Share what you write with your friends and your family. Become eternal. Leave something that will last. 

Mommy, how do you read?

Mommy, How Do You Read?

One long-ago day, when I was reading to my little girl, she looked at me and asked, “Mommy, how do you read?” I had no answer.

Reading came as natural as breathing to me. On the first day of first grade, my teacher put two words on the board and said, “This says the and this says cat.” From that moment on, I could read.  From listening to my classmates, I knew that reading didn’t come so easily for everyone. 

Many children struggle to learn to read. Research identifies several factors that put children at risk for reading failure: poverty, language barriers, parents’ reading skills and attitudes, word-processing difficulties, as well as biological and psychological learning deficits. Literacy is essential to success affecting health, safety, self-respect, cultural development, career advancement, and academic achievement. 

Studies show that children who are late to read fall behind as their schooling continues putting them at risk for frustration and failure. Early readers read more, learn more words, gather more information, and attempt more complex learning tasks. Reading is complicated. Key factors that influence reading development include phonemic awareness, decoding, automaticity, vocabulary acquisition, comprehension, extensive reading, and motivation. 

Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify the small units of sound (phonemes) which make up words and how these can be segmented (pulled apart), blended (put together), and manipulated (added, deleted, and substituted). Phonemic skills, generally the first children acquire, include rhyming, alliteration, and counting syllables. 

Decoding, or phonics, is the process of converting the printed word into its corresponding sounds or sounding out a word. Readers must connect symbol (the letter) to sound (phonemes). Many children sing the alphabet but can’t connect the letters with their corresponding sounds.

Automaticity is the ability to quickly and effortlessly recognize words leaving the reader’s mind free to gain meaning from text. Proficient readers don’t stop to decode every word. Automaticity affects the smoothness and expression necessary for comprehension. 

Proficient readers gain vocabulary at a greater pace giving them another advantage for understanding texts. Children who are read to and have a wide range of experiences build “word-banks” they can draw from when encountering new words and concepts in texts. 

Comprehension grows as readers master decoding, gain automaticity, bank vocabulary, and connect concept to print. Reading often and with varied texts and purposes builds vocabulary and comprehension skills.

Motivation is both the hardest and easiest skill of reading. Any new skill takes effort. Readers must have a purpose and a desire to read. Reading must be enlightening, instructional, exciting, and practical. Most importantly, reading must be fun.

Long ago, I had no answer as to “how” I read but I sure knew that I loved reading. The first step to starting children on the road to reading success is reading with a parent. My daughter reads to her children now. They’ve started their journey to reading success. Grab a book and start your children now.                                       (This is the first in a series about reading success.)

Clue Words

Clue Words

“Tony and Ann are playing in the gym. Their mother will pick them up in 30 minutes. They play basketball for 12 minutes. They play catch for 8 minutes. How much longer do they have in the gym?” Math word problems are tough. Words mixed with numbers often confuse young math students. Many give up. Tears can follow.

Overwhelmed students do not learn well, so teachers teach students strategies for decoding these problems. One strategy is to look for clue words to indicate which operation to use, such as: more, less, fewer, longer, altogether, sum, difference, etc.

“Tony scores 17 points. Ann scores 9. How many more points does Tony have? How many do they have altogether? How many more points does Ann need to score to beat Tony?” Clue words help students decide how to solve the problem. Having a strategy gives the students confidence to begin. 

Clue words in life are important too. Children are often overwhelmed by the stories which are their lives. We were a happy family but Dad is moving out. Our school is safe but we have to keep our classroom doors locked. She won’t be my friend anymore. Confused children look to their teachers and parents for help. 

Help is one of the clue words we can offer children. Mr. Rogers advised parents to teach their children to look for helpers in times of trouble. Children need to know that people care for them and will help them. Teachers and parents are on the front lines. Children must have confidence that help will come.

Trust is another clue word. Children need to know that they can trust and that they can be trusted. “Mom and Dad do what they say they will. I can count on the support of my teacher and friends.” Adults must be models of trust so that children will learn to be trustworthy. Adults must show trust in the children in their care.

Kindness is a big clue. Children who are treated kindly learn to be kind. Children who expect kindness learn to be polite, caring, and altruistic. “Golden rule” living makes life pleasant for all parties. Kindnesses offered echo back. 

There are many clue words that we teach our children: patience, joy, gentleness, dignity, responsibility, self-denial, generosity, compassion, empathy, self-discipline, sympathy, grace. Children find these clues in our actions and our words. Children get the confidence they need to solve life’s problems by learning to use these clues.

Tony and Ann are at the gym. Mom said she would pick them up at 5:30. At 5:25, they pack up. At 5:30, Mom greets them with a smile and thanks them for being on time. They chat about the day’s events on the way home. After dinner, the family cleans up together and Dad helps with their homework. They read together until bedtime. Kisses, hugs, prayers, and wishes for sweet dreams teach them another clue word — love. Tomorrow, and every day after, Tony and Ann will use the clue words they learn from their parents to live confident and fulfilled lives. 

The Outer Light

The Outer Light

We are an aging population. Many people live to a “ripe-old-age” in good health. Many continue to work in their chosen field or second or third careers. But some are not so lucky. Many suffer from failing health and limited prospects.

In Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande, asks what is it that aging people “need in order to feel that life is worthwhile.” Aging adults become more dependent on the help of others. Physiological and security needs are filled by caregivers. Belonging and esteem needs are harder to fill. The feelings of independence, competence, and self-respect which made living enjoyable can get lost when one is incapacitated by age or illness. 

Gawande writes: “We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being.”  Well-being means feeling needed, valued, and significant. Old age should be a time of fulfillment, not a time of waiting for the end. 

Many elders needing nursing care (at home or in care facilities) lack a sense of purpose. The sameness of days can lead to depression or despair. Activities may focus on keeping elders busy — not making them feel that they are still valuable and capable. How can we use the many talents of our elders to enrich their lives and ours?

Get to know them. Our elders are people with stories to tell, talents to share, and opinions to express. Ask them about their jobs, hobbies, and interests. Include them when planning outings and activities. Find out what makes them happy and help them get it. We live in community — everyone should have a role and a part to play. 

Share your projects and needs with them. A teacher friend of mine enlisted her father-in-law in cutting out shapes for her kindergarten students. Another friend started a knitting group at a nursing home whose members make hats for premature infants. Retired seniors can read to or with preschool or primary school students or tutor in after-school programs. If they can’t get out, they can record the books at home.

How many wonderful retired musicians might be found? One of my friends plays in a seniors’ band called “The Grateful Alive.” Another leads sing-alongs in retirement homes. Music enlivens and involves people everywhere. Our elder friends are repositories of much history. What experiences might they share? How can we record and honor these? The collected wisdom of age is waiting to be plumbed. 

One of my dearest friends is confined to a wheelchair and is restricted by a debilitating condition. She can’t do much with her hands or move freely, but she is fulfilled even in her restrictions. She has taken on the job of friend. She welcomes newcomers, visits the sick, and comforts the grieving. Residents and staff light up when she wheels their way.  

Everyone is valuable and necessary. Share your talents with the world. Ask the elders you know what they need to feel good and needed. Light up the world together.