Interaction with Children and Families

During the past 2 weeks I have observed children and families in a Head Start Program. I observed parents dropping off thier children and talking with the teachers about thier concerns and thier childs morning. There was  parent that was volunteering in the center and she read some books to the children. They were 3-5 year old children and they were very interested in the new book. The parent interacted with the children very well and animated the words in the book to keep the children's attention.

I asked the parent if thier child enjyed being read to at home and what her thinking was about teaching literacy from a young age. She said that her little girl loves books and that she reads to her everynight possible. I asked her how important  she thought that providing opportunites for reading and writing was? She said that she thinks it is very important and she wished all children had these materials and opportunites avaliable to them. I interacted with the children by helping them during journal time. I could tell the children that had crayons and utensils avalible to them and were being worked with at home. I knew this because thier drawings were way more detailed and advance than the children less fortunate. I also saw parents that dropped their children off that needed flyers read to them by the teacher because they lacked much literacy skills such as reading and understanding the print.

One insight that I learned was that famlies are all differnt and have different priortites. Some are very involved in thier child's education and others are more work oriented and they seem to use school as a daycare. I think for this reason is is most important to advocate for early literacy and let the parents know how important it its to read to thier children and expose them to print and writing utensils. Another insight that I gained was that children love to learn. When the new book was read to the children they were so excited and attentive. It is up to us as parents and professionals to give the children opportunites to read, write, and learn by providing a print rich environment.

Interviewed professionals and the director

I interacted with the ECE Teacher and the director at Head Start. I asked the director about how they incorporate literacy in thier classroom. She said that they have writing utensils in every center. They also read to the children and allow free time with the books too. I asked her about parent involvement and she said that they send home activites for the parents to do with their children and have them sign and return it to the teacher. The director also showed me their word wall and for each letter they have the children's names under them to go along with the first letter of their name. They also have many words under each letter to help the children identify sounds and words associated with the differnt letters.

I also got to talk to the speech therapist that comes and gets some of the children to work on thier speech. I asked her how she was able to help the children with thier speech. She said they read and draw and just talk about the pictures and she tries to find something they are interested in such as trains to get them to talk more. She talked about the improvement that takes place during one school year and often the children are able to get out of speech because they are able to speak more clearly and no longer need the extra help. I enjoyed spending time in the classroom and also speaking with the speech therapist.