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Earlier this year, my son began preschool with The Grove School. From the moment that I walked in to the school, I was impressed with The Grove Schools passion for their students and the constant efforts that the school makes to provide a safe, fun, educational and healthy environment for the children. It was when I first met my son’s soon to be teacher; Mrs. Opal that I knew The Grove School was going to be the right school for my child. Mrs. Opal has a special love for her students like they are her own. It was with her unwavering patience and direct attention to my child that he thrived. I remember walking in to Mrs. Opal’s classroom and seeing that the other students were writing their names. My son was not even close to writing his name. In a matter of 3 weeks, he was writing his name, I couldn’t believe it! Mrs. Opal knows how to guide her students in to healthy decision making along with providing them a secure and safe environment where they can learn and flourish. Mrs. Opal has a knack for art and is extremely creative. Through her creative efforts, my son has learned about different cultures, animals, plants, senses and the list goes on. As a working Mom that misses her son all day, there is no bigger reward than seeing my child happy to be at school with Mrs. Opal.

Sincerely,

A happy and satisfied Mom

 

 

I turned on the TV at 2 in the morning to discover the infamous commercial that I have been asked about: “Your Baby Can Read”, a revolutionary new product that guarantees children of all ages will be able to read through some phenomenal brain/eye stimulation process.  I thought it certainly looks amazing, so I began to do some research.

What did I discover…what I already knew.  You can teach association to children of all ages.  Pavlov did the same thing with a dog…remember from Psych 101?  Pavlov teaches a dog that when it hears the bell, it gets food.  Eventually, after only a few sessions, the dog begins to salivate at just the ding of a bell.  This is called, in fancy child development language, association.  So, with this program, a baby sees the word, sees the object or action and associates this set of letters with the object or action.  Is that reading?  Not hardly.  That is merely a teaching tool that relies on the child’s memory to produce results.

I taught 4th grade for about 4 years at the beginning of my teaching life and I used to see this all the time – children who new the words when I asked, but when I asked a question about the story itself or what might happen next, the children gave me blank looks.  They knew the words, understood that this combination of letters equals this object/action, but they missed the concept.  There was no comprehension or ability to make meaning of the written print.  Most of these children were taught the words by flash cards alone.

So what is reading and how can my little one read?  Reading begins with foundational communication.

An infant begins to learn communication on the day of his birth.  He cries and is comforted.  He learns right away that his actions, even instinctual result in an action.

When an infant first learns language, they are actually building on their understanding of this basic communication.  He hears the parent say “cat” and sees this fur ball that meows.  He says “cat” (or at least his variation of the word) and the parent produces this same fur ball.  He begins to learn that these two things go together.  He also learns that when he says “cat”, he, in return, receives the cat.  Eventually he will use the word to communicate what he wants.

Yet, a child with little exposure to the world will think anything furry is a cat if this is his first experience.  Why is that?  Because he associates what he has heard with what he was shown and since his experience is limited, a cat to him looks like anything furry.  It is the child’s experience that leads to the understanding that there are categories, like animals, a group of things that look the same, but are fundamentally different in nature.

So, how do we get to reading from there?  Well, reading is communication.  It is the relaying of ideas through written word and sometimes pictures that leads others to understand the world from someone’s perspective.  It is more than just matching a picture with an index card.

I see it everyday.  I have this book…I read it every night and have done so since my son was 2.  It is Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss.  Normally, I wouldn’t suggest a parent read a Dr. Seuss book to a two year old.  They are LONG and attention spans are short and Nathan has been fascinated by books his whole life and so I encouraged that and started to read it.  That was 18 months ago.  Today, I can tell you the story without the book and I inwardly groan when he discovers it buried behind his toy chest (my feeble attempt to move on from it!).

Recently, Nathan has taken to “reading” on his own.  He turns the pages and tells the story, almost verbatim!  And, God forbid, I try to skip a page.  He will again recite word for word what I missed.  So, is he reading?  Absolutely!  He is not recognizing the printed words, but he comprehends that a tale is being woven through an intricate mixture of words and pictures.  He makes up things about what the characters are doing at really weird times (he is associating this character with some other event in his life) and he even asks questions about the things that happen in the book.   That’s the key to true reading…building an understanding that the author is relating a message and that the message is meant to incite other ideas.

When we think that reading means knowing all your letters and matching a picture or an object to print, we devalue the human reason for needing to write in the first place.  How do we communicate with others?  We text, we email, some author books.  Reading is about the fiber of communication…someone has something to say…they want to share with others their thoughts, their ideas, and their worldview.

Teaching a child to read starts with teaching a child to know that the story is more than just words.  Eventually, my son will learn the words, too.  I mean, already, when I read a title and point out each word….he can go back and point to the word that I ask for.  But that’s not what will truly help him gain knowledge.
No, true reading doesn’t start with memorizing words and regurgitating facts.  Reading is about connecting with another person’s perception of the world and indulging that ideas are born from our interaction with others.

So…your little one can read!  Just read to them and continually encourage their ability to think about what others have written.  Ask them questions about their reading and encourage them to ask questions as well.

Who knows, maybe you are growing the next Dr. Seuss.

As our Education Manager in Cary, Sarah supports the teachers in implementing curriculum and individualizing instruction to meet the needs of every student. She's been a teacher trainer and curriculum specialist for the last 5 years, and in education as a teacher for 10. Her family includes a husband and 3 children. Sarah loves to garden, sing, and most of all, meet new people.

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Back to School…

When I sat down to write about back to school…I thought about all the things that back to school really means…freshly sharpened pencils, new clothes, notebooks with pretty tabs, and excitement for a new start.  Then I thought…at The Grove School…back to school means something totally different, not because we’re a preschool, but because we are a preschool in the year 2010 when the world’s expectation for our babies is beyond the 3 Rs…our children are now mini-adults.

Over 30 years ago (I won’t tell you how much over), I started preschool.  Back then, preschool was just a word put together to mean daycare.  My mom made a “cubby” for me…two pink terry cloth towels sewed shut on three sides to make a hanging bag that I kept my mat and a change of clothes in…When I arrived each morning, we were served breakfast and given paper and crayons.  The preschool was about keeping kids busy until parents came back at 5…whatever kept us entertained and quiet was the key.   I don’t remember much about the daily schedule, but I remember something that haunts me since I now have three children of my own.

One crisp December morning, I arrived to find a well-meaning teacher eagerly ready to share a craft.  She drew a Christmas tree on a blank piece of paper – complete with a perfect star, ornaments, and presents with bows.  After breakfast I was instructed to draw a Christmas tree just like this one.  I remember working on that tree.

What I didn’t remember is what my mom told me last year.  I worked on that tree for 6 months after that…every morning after my breakfast I sat diligently at a small wooden table and laboriously worked on crafting a Christmas tree just like the one on that page, a cookie cutter ideal of someone else’s handy work.

The next year, I started Kindergarten.  The tree was forgotten, but the feeling still lingers.  You know what I mean…that feeling like you just can’t get it right…this thing you’ve done doesn’t look like it’s supposed to, doesn’t match up to what was expected…so you’ve failed.  As a four year old, I took that to mean I wasn’t good at art…not just drawing a tree, but at art.  Years later, I took a required art class in college…I had a professor who challenged me to dare to draw what I experienced and not what others expected…suddenly I was an artist because the pretense was based on my own perception, not on the limit set.

Today, all these years later, the world is different, but the message is still somehow the same.  Before I started this journey at The Grove School, everywhere I went there was a commercial, a flyer, a brochure, or a song that told me what I was expected to look like, how I was expected to feel about certain things, what intelligent children do, etc.  I realized in a really strange way, that while our world is so different…so many people want our children to be carbon copies of perfect little trees.

Funny, though, that’s not what we mean when we say “back to school” at The Grove.  What we mean is introducing the reason that we all have individual ideas and personalities in the first place.  What we mean is growing children through their own devices.  Each of us is born with thoughts and actions that mold and shape our knowledge about things.

At The Grove School, starting the new year is exciting…not because of the new books and spiking enrollment, but because we have the chance as teachers to create an experience that leads children to think and, in turn, create.  Rather than say, “copy this tree”…we say, “Look, a tree…what do you see?  What would this tree look like if we used clay, paper, rocks, or string?”  Rather than tell a child what a thing should be, we encourage the child to use tools, like their senses and their own background knowledge, to understand and transfer ideas.

Today our children are in a fluctuating process.  The world is not looking for the exact replica of George Washington, but at the same time, our education system seems to scream…be exactly as this person is.  In reality, to gain in this world is to be a person who can survive through critical thinking and openness.  We need a school that recognizes children are facing more battles than ever, environmentally, academically, and socially.  Children must grasp key concepts, but also be able to transfer what they learn to new situations.  A worksheet or a perfect picture of someone else’s idea will not provide our children room to think and grow.

I look everyday at the progress my 3 year old and 2 year old are making at The Grove School.  I am so excited about back to school…because what I see is a place where my children are learning to think for themselves.  They are gaining the valuable skills that will help them be successful in their future educational life, but they are also gaining the ability to solve simple and complex problems; they are learning to appreciate and preserve the natural world around them; they are developing a sense of what they possess that makes them unique and adds value to their community.

So, when I think about back to school…I now have this totally new view…back to school is still all those fun things…a new teacher, a new class, new learning experiences, but now…it includes the knowledge that I am a part of a grand plan to pave the way for the future generation.

As our Education Manager in Cary, Sarah supports the teachers in implementing curriculum and individualizing instruction to meet the needs of every student. She's been a teacher trainer and curriculum specialist for the last 5 years, and in education as a teacher for 10. Her family includes a husband and 3 children. Sarah loves to garden, sing, and most of all, meet new people.

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One of our parents forwarded me a link to a blog entry titled, “What a 4 Year Old Should Know?” by Alicia Bayer.  (Click on title to read the blog.)

My favorite line is the following: “That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. “

Years ago I started a small campaign in a small community geared toward reading to children.  It was in 1999 and I called it R2K (yes, a knock-off to the Y2K bug hype).  The R2K stood for Read to Kids.  I tried to shared statistics about the cons of television versus the pros of reading to children.  Since you probably have never heard of it, you can infer how successful my initiative was!

I hope you enjoy the blog as much as I and the parent who sent it to me did.

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All of us at The Grove School hope you will give a warm welcome to Shelley Hill, the new Education Manager at The Grove School of Plano.

Shelley recently moved with her family all the way from Wyoming where she has worked for the past 11 years.  Shelley most recently served as a Community Outreach Coordinator for a  school district.  She has also served as a preschool teacher and director and has also been the director of a Boys Club.  Perhaps her most important job is the mother of two children.

Shelley has a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration and a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education.

Please give her a warm Texas-sized welcome as she joins The Grove School family.

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We are honored to have Ms. Hunter Bullock join our Grove family.  Ms. Hunter is one of our Preschool teachers (3-yr olds) .

She has a two degrees from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.  Her Bachelor’s is in Counseling and Psychology and her Master’s is in Child Development.  Lesley is a very highly regarded university in educational pedagogy.

Ms. Hunter has a rich experience base that she brings to our school.  She has worked as a classroom teacher in a variety of public and private settings and has a deep fund of knowledge that will not only benefit her students, but will also benefit our staff and parents.

Please join me in welcoming her to our school.

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