Presentation for LA DoE Early Head Start Professionals October, 2011.

1. LITERACY ACTIVITIES FOR FAMILIES
WITH YOUNG CHILDREN
A Training for Even Start Program Professionals
September 30, 2011
Louisiana Department of Education

2. BROUGHT TO YOU TODAY BY:
Rebecca E. White, Ph.D.
Professor and Extension Specialist
Family and Child Development
Cooperative Extension Service
LSU AgCenter

3. WHO’S HERE TODAY ?
INTRODUCTIONS

4. TOPIC FOR TODAY:
FAMILY LITERACY AND RESOURCES
FOR EVEN START PROFESSIONALS
• Family Literacy
• Character Critters
• Family Storyteller
• Let’s Read Together

5. PREVENTING THE
30 MILLION WORD CATASTROPHE
Family Literacy Programs

6. MY INSPIRATION
• Tough, P. (2008). Whatever It Takes. NY: Houghton Mifflin Co.
• Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap
by age 3. American Educator, Spring 2003.
• Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Lives of
Young American Children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
• Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. (1999). The Social World of Children Learning to Talk.
Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

7. DAILY VERBAL INTERACTIONS
MAKE A DIFFERENCE
IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
• The average three-year-old has heard 20 million
words
• Three year olds from very talkative, socially
interactive families have heard 35 million words
• Three year olds of uncommunicative families have
heard less than 10 million words

8. THE 30 MILLION WORD GAP
tiEstimated Cumulative Words Addressed to Child
mated Cumulative Words Addressed to Child
Estimated Cumulative Words Addressed to Child
Professional
45 Million Words
(In Millions)
(In Millions)
(In Millions)
Working-class
26 Million Words
Welfare
13 Million Words
12 24 36 48
(Age Child in Months)
Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995) Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children

9. PARENT TALK
• Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the
everyday lives of young children.

10. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS
• “Any program to provide welfare children with experience equal to that of
working class children would have to start from birth and run continuously all
year long.” (Meaningful differences…, p. 202.)
• “Helping parents is an alternative worth trying. Rather than design or expand
early intervention programs, this country could focus on helping parents ensure
that their children get enough early experience so that differences never become
so intractable to even the most effective intervention.” (Meaningful Differences…,
p. 212.)

11. FAMILY LITERACY
• Parents and books are important –
for our world……
for our children……
for our families……
for our schools……
for our communities……
for our society.

12. FAMILY LITERACY
• Reading is a fundamental life skill
• Reading is key to living a successful, productive life.
• Our society relies on parents as the first and most
important teacher in their child’s life to develop the
foundation for literacy for their child.
• A love for reading must be fostered in first three
years of a child’s life by their parents to develop
their foundation for literacy.

13. FAMILY LITERACY
• Family literacy programs
targeting families with
very young children can
help our society, our
families and most
importantly, our children.
• Research supports the
notion that if you wish to
significantly improve life
for children you involve
their parents.

14. FAMILY LITERACY
• Research indicates that
the single most important
activity for building the
understandings and skills
essential for reading
success appears to be
reading aloud to children.

15. TWO OF MY PROGRAMS
INSPIRED BY THIS KNOWLEDGE

16. SHARE YOUR SUCCESS

17. SO I COMMEND YOU AND YOUR WORK

18. LET’S REVIEW THREE RESOURCES
• Character Critters
• Family Storyteller
• Let’s Read Together

19. CHARACTER CRITTERS
A character education program for
preschool children and their parents

21. WHY EARLY CHARACTER EDUCATION
FOR PRESCHOOL ?
Character education
has been identified
as a key need for children

22. WHY EARLY CHARACTER EDUCATION
FOR PRESCHOOL AGE CHILDREN?
Research show the foundation
for moral development is
strongly influenced in the very
early years of a child's life by
parents, early teachers and
caregivers.

23. PROGRAM OVERVIEW
• Developed for
pre-school children
and their parents
• Designed to be
implemented by
volunteers
• Comprehensive in
design with 5
components

24. PROGRAM COMPONENTS
• Children’s stories about character
• Parent-child interaction take-home sheets
• Educational presentations for parents
• Storybooks
• Program evaluation

25. LOUISIANA VISION FOR
CHARACTER CRITTERS
For all Louisiana 4 and 5 year olds to hear
the Character Critters stories from
teachers, volunteers and/or their parents

26. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES
• Increase children’s awareness of character
concepts
• Increase parents’ understanding of character
concepts
• Increase parents’ involvement in developing their
children’s character
• Teachers, volunteer storytellers, and parents’ to
tell/read character stories to young children
• Increase volunteerism in communities

27. CHARACTER CRITTERS PROGRAM IMPACTS
• Thousands of free resource kits
to teachers
• Thousands of teachers and
volunteers trained
• Educational Website developed
• Over 150,000 parents of young
children reached with storybooks
• Hundreds of thousands of young
children have heard Character
Critters stories

28. CHARACTER CRITTERS PROGRAM
IMPACTS - TEACHERS
• Learned activities to help with students’ development
• Learned to teach character concepts to their students
• Are conducting character activities for their students

29. CHARACTER CRITTERS PROGRAM IMPACTS -
CAREGIVERS AND PARENTS
• Childcare providers learned to teach concepts of
character
• Parents learned activities to help with their child’s’
development
• Parents indicated they will teach the traits of
character

30. CHARACTER CRITTERS
MATERIALS
• Volunteer resource
kits have been
developed by some
faculty to include
puppets and other
teaching supplies

31. CHARACTER CRITTERS
WEBSITE
• Go to http://www.lsuagcenter.com
• Click on ‘Family and Home’ topic
• In Family section, click on ‘Character
Development’
• On right side of screen under ‘sub-topics’
click on ‘Character Critters’

33. VOLUNTEERS
GETTING MATERIALS READY

34. CRITTER STORYTELLING
VOLUNTEERS

35. HEARING THE CRITTER STORIES

36. HEARING THE CRITTERS STORIES

37. Bunny Hop Activity

38. LEARNING TO PLANT A TREE LIKE
CARRIE THE CARING CAT

39. Kindergarten students hoppin’ round like
Fran and Freddie the Fair Frogs.

40. CRITTERS IN THE CLASSROOM

41. MORE CRITTERS IN THE
CLASSROOM

42. Kindergarten students learning about fairness

43. Kindergarten students talking about fairness

44. PARENTS TELLING STORIES TO
THEIR CHILDREN

46. LET’S READ TOGETHER
An Early Literacy Curriculum from the
University of California Cooperative
Extension

47. RESEARCH GUIDING DEVELOPMENT OF LET’S
READ TOGETHER
Research on Delivery Research on Content
• Start early • How to read aloud with children
(Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001)
• Target efforts
• How to extend the storybook
• Be comprehensive (Richgels & Wold, 1995)
• Intensive interventions • How to tell and use family stories
(Buchoff, 1995)
• Use highly trained professionals
• How to encourage language skills
• Provide compensatory learning (Jordon, Snow & Porsche, 2000)
• Hold programs accountable
Source: Susan Neuman, presentation at IRA 2005
Conference

48. LET’S READ TOGETHER
OVERVIEW
• Organized around a series of workshops for parents with children
0-5 years of age
• Each workshop is organized around a featured book, selected for
specific age group
• Each workshop features hands-on, interactive activities for parents
to learn skills
• Comes in English and Spanish
• Features Preschooler Series, Toddler Series and Infant Series

49. PROGRAM GOALS
• Let’s Read Together is an early literacy program that
helps parents of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers
prepare their children for successful lifelong learning.

50. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES
PARENTS WILL…
• Learn about their important role in their child’s early literacy development and
later school success.
• Learn how to interact with their children in ways that promote enjoyment, self
confidence and a joy of learning.
• Understand the importance of early literacy and the skills and knowledge their
children need to be successful learners.
• Learn effective read aloud techniques and use them to read everyday to their
child.
• Learn to use simple strategies and activities to enhance early literacy
development.

51. LET’S READ TOGETHER
WORKSHOP SERIES
Preschooler Series Toddler Series
• Alphabet Fiesta • Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What
• Do You See?
Frog On His Own
• Goodnight Moon
• Is Your Mama a Llama?
• Growing Vegetable Soup
• The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe
Strawberry and the Big Hungry • Numbers/Los Numeros
Bear • That’s Not My dinosaur
• Rosie’s Walk • Where’s Spot
• The Very Hungary Caterpillar

52. LET’S READ TOGETHER
WORKSHOP SERIES
Infant Series
• Animals to Count
• Baby Born
• My Colors / Mis Colores
• My First Real Mother Goose
• Read To Your Bunny

53. LET’S READ TOGETHER
WORKSHOP AT A GLANCE
• Welcome
• Introductory Activity – Animal Charades
• Book Talk – summary, type, author info
• Reading Aloud – Is Your Mama a Llama?, discussion
• Retelling the Story – What Does Your Mama Look Like?
• Literacy Theme – Ready to Read
• More Activities – Rhyming Word Game, Where do animals
live?, Fruit and Vegetable Animals Recipe
• Family Activity Booklet
• Closing and Evaluation

54. LET’S READ TOGETHER
• Let’s look at the
resources.

55. FAMILY
STORYTELLER
A family literacy program from the
University of Nevada Cooperative Extension
KNPB, Channel 5
Washoe County Library
Washoe County School District

56. MAJOR FEATURES
• Children’s literature
• Instructional video tapes (VHS)
• Flexible format (workshop, one-to-one, or home visitation)
• Parent-child involvement with related activities
• Designed for parents with limited literacy skills
• Designed for parents and preschool children ages 2 ½ - 6 years
• Emphasizes and models carefully selected book reading
techniques

57. FAMILY STORYTELLER
Family storyteller introduces families to the joy of
literature and language, showing parents techniques
for how to read with their children, providing time to
practice those skills and providing books and other
language activities for use at home.

58. FAMILY STORYTELLER MANUAL
• Introductory material and
suggestions for trainer
• Planning guides
• Detailed lesson plans for
parent educator with
handout masters,
instructions for parent
packets and forms for
program evaluation

59. FAMILY STORYTELLER GOALS
• To enrich parent/child
interaction and the home
environment to enhance
the language and
lifelong learning skills of
both parent and child.

60. FAMILY STORYTELLER ……
CAN HELP PARENTS CAN HELP CHILDREN
• Help their children do better • Increase their language skills
in school • Come to love reading and writing
• Watch their children grow in • Learn about their world through
independence carefully selected books
• Get a special private time • Do better at school
with their children
• Feel closer with parents
• Have fun and enjoy the
stories • Have fun and enjoy the stories

61. FAMILY STORYTELLER GOALS
FEATURED BOOKS
• Goodnight Moon
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What
Do You See?
• Peter’s Chair
• The Wheels On The Bus
• Have You Seen My Duckling?

62. FAMILY STORYTELLER
• Let’s look at the
resources.

63. HOW YOU CAN HELP!
• Take provided Character Critters resources and
develop your customized support materials
• Use the Character Critters resources, your
enhancement materials and ideas with your parents
and children
• Showcase parent-child activity sheets in child’s
classroom

64. WEBSITE: WWW.LSUAGCENTER.COM
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
REBECCA WHITE, PH.D.
EMAIL: BWHITE@AGCENTER.LSU.EDU
PHONE: (225) 578-3921