Involved Parents Create Early Literacy
Numbers of Preschool Children Involved at Home on the Rise
May 19, 2009
In a survey done by the National Household Education Survey Program (Children's Involvement in Home Literacy Activities Survey, 2007), the numbers of children, ages three to five years old, that were involved in home literacy programs increased by 487 from 1993 to 2005.
According to Tabitha Seaman, who has been teaching preschool (ages 3 and 4) for the past 11 years, it is easy to tell which children are being read to at home on a regular basis and which are not. She said that there's a chance that children may fall behind their peers if they are not participating in activities at home and most parents have become worried about this issue.
"Parents are getting educated about their children's education," Seaman said, in an interview in November of 2008. "Children who are read to and have an excitement in literature excel in school."
For children who are not yet in kindergarten, home literacy activities can be beneficial for their advancement in school, according to the Colorado Department of Education (CDE).
On a national scale, 46 percent of kindergarten teachers report that at least half of their students have reading difficulties upon entering kindergarten.
According to the CDE web site, "Children, who start behind, typically stay behind."
Early Literacy Beneficial for Children
Patricia Froehlich, the youth services senior consultant for the Colorado state library, agrees.
"All the research that PLA (Public Library Association) has done says that the more that children learn before they go to school the better off they will be when they finally get there," she said, in an email interview in November of 2008.
Froehlich said that the increase in numbers could be dependent on how much use families get out of library programs. Since the state library began its early literacy initiative in 2003, there has been an increase in direct early literacy programming and activities done by public libraries.
One of the programs is the Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) program, developed by the American Library Association (ALA). The program suggests that it is never too early to prepare children to be successful readers.
"Early literacy is what children know about reading and writing before they can actually read or write," Froehlich said.
Reading Important Early On
When the Bush Administration implemented the No Child Left Behind Act, many schools pushed their students to be reading on a regular basis. Seaman said that her daughter, now 15, was sent home with 30 minutes of reading a night.
"It became an uncomfortable process," Seaman said. "When stories stop exciting us as humans, we start to lose the whole point. If children don't get excited about reading at a young age, it may take them a long time to get there."
Seaman said she made time to read to her daughter nightly and she also tried to read everything in her surroundings to her daughter, such as street signs.
"It's important for children to be literate, especially when it's so easy to do on a daily basis," Seaman said. "Even the simple task of reading the words on a stop sign while in the car is helpful."
Not all parents have a lot of time to read to their children, as many work full-time jobs and have greater financial concerns.
"Educated parents with decent incomes are probably more involved while less educated parents who are struggling with economic survival are more concerned with day-to-day issues," Froehlich said.
Additionally, Seaman said, some of the parents that have their children enrolled in preschool believe that they pay the teachers to work with the children and may therefore feel that their children are already getting what they need.
"About 50 percent of parents work with their kids at home, while the other 50 feel that what we do here is enough," she said. "However, if literacy is less important at home at the preschool age, parents are less likely to be involved later on when their children are in grade school."
Different literacy activities include reading or telling a story, teaching letters, words, and numbers, and visiting the library. These are ways in which parents can be actively involved in their children's education at any age.
