Observing and Interacting with Families

The person I interacted with was one of the parents and her name is Amy. She has a child with special needs that was non-verbal until recently, with other developmental delays. The child did not speak, she just pointed to what she wanted and made sounds, she lack self-help skills and has low muscle tone which cause her to shake. The child is now enrolled in Head Start 75% of the school and the other 25% is spent in an ESE classroom. Before she started Head Start she was full time in the ESE classroom. The mother said she is extremely happy with the progress that the child has made since being in the Head Start program. Because not only is she talking more, she can have a simple conversation with her. She said that her daughter comes home from school and talks about random things, or things she thought to be random until she spoke with the teachers and found out that the child was talking about a story that was read to her that day. She said that with the teachers from both classrooms working together with the speech pathologist, her daughter has come a long way since last school year.

I asked her about her thoughts on advocacy in early literacy, and she informed me that she was not involved in any advocacy work at this time but she was very interested. She also told me that she does her part in helping the teachers and other parents by finding websites with literacy activities and other resources and give the list to the teachers to distribute to the parents and she donates electronic learning games and videos to her child’s classrooms. She also said early literacy is not just about learning to read and write, but it is also about learning to communicate. She was very happy that her child is communicating with more words instead of one word utterances.

Insights I have gained from the conversation I had with this parent is that having open communication with parents is very important. The parents need to be comfortable enough to open up to ask for help. I have parents of children in my classroom right now who are here illegally. They are most worried that we will call the immigration office on them. So, I feel that when you communicate with the parents and assure them that you are here to help them to help their children and nothing else, then that is a starting point for building communication and trust.

Observing and Interacting With Program Director(s) and Other Administrative Staff in Your Setting

Name: Rosalie Reid

Date: 2/8/13

Name of Program/Setting: Head Start/Title1 Prek

Who I spoke with: J. Bringger, S. Redditt, and L. Pena

What I learned:

Mrs. Bringger is the Education Coordinator for the Head Start program. While talking to Mrs. Bringger she talked about how important it is to introduce language and literacy skills early in children’s lives. She said we cannot wait too long to expose children to the basic elements of reading; and parents must play a critical role. Both parents and teachers should seek out daily opportunities to read with children.

She also said it is important for parents to realize they need to be involved in their children’s understanding of written language. She stated that print is a powerful means of communicating knowledge and information. What I learned from her is that I should never stop trying to get the parents involved in their children’s education. Continue to help them by inviting them to the classroom to see what we do and continue to encourage them to read and talk to their children often.

The other person I spoke with is Ms. Redditt, the Curriculum and Instructional Coach for a new Title1 Pre-k program. Ms. Redditt thinks that early literacy is very important and we as teachers should support and engage students in developing their oral language and language acquisition skills. She thinks that building a strong foundation in oral language and providing children and families with support can help to improve their early literacy skills. Also, making sure that the curriculum is rigorous and provide students with the skills to be proficient when they enter kindergarten, because the common core standards are at the top of everyone’s list and making sure that the early literacy curriculum is providing students with all the tools to be successful.

The other person I visited is Mrs. L. Pena, a Head Start teacher. I observed Mrs. Pena at center time. The students were engaged in various activities. I asked her about activities she use to promote early literacy as well as activities for the parents to use at home. She said they do a lot of shared reading and she also encourages the parents to do the same. She also said she tells the parents to check the local library for reading night and encourages them to make use of our parent resource center to check out early literacy activities to use at home.

While I was in the classroom she was working with a small group of children and they were “fishing for letters.” The children had to take turns using a toy fishing pole with a magnetic tip to fish for magnetic letters out of a basket. After catching a letter the children had to name the letter and then write it down. So, the teacher was reinforcing letter recognition as well as practicing printing.