This week in class we discussed how many parents want to help their young readers, but are uncertain about the best way to provide support other than reading aloud. One way to provide guidance to parents is to create a home-school connection and teach activities that translate between the two environments. Terry Kindervater is a literacy coach in Ohio, who developed a program for kindergarten teachers that taught phonemic awareness and alphabetic principle through the use of poetry and kinesthetic motions. Teachers introduce a poem that focuses on a specific sound. The class reads the poem a few times, and the teacher then adds a corresponding kinesthetic movement or hand gesture to match the sound. The movements were designed to match the articulation of the sound. For example because the /t/ sound is pronounced by flicking the tongue against the front of the mouth, the /t/ movement is produced by flicking the index finger against the thumb. Multisensory activities like this one engage emergent learners, and get them excited about demonstrating and performing their new skills.
By teaching the students a demonstrable skill, they were able to go home and perform for their parents. The teachers encouraged the kindergarteners to teach their parents the hand motions, and many parents reported back that they began using the hand motions when reading environmental print or when sounding out words in a read aloud story. The activity was simple and informal enough that families could do it in the car or out running errands. The teachers even created a short online video of the different hand motions and their corresponding sounds to help parents participate in the activity.
I think that this is a great way to informally create language connections between school and home. The children were proud of their ability to perform a sound, and the movement was also a great way to focus their energy. Parent involvement came naturally with little facilitation from the teachers. Because the task is short and simple and requires no additional materials, it is easy for busy, working parents to provide support. I think it is important to bridge the connection between home and school because it helps children to recognize that reading and language occur in all environments, not just school.
Kindervater, T. (2010). Models of parent involvement. The Reading Teacher 63(7), 610-612.
Using a kinesthetic approach to teaching is a great way to get students involved in their own education, and the program that you mentioned in your blog this week fascinates me. Parents want to help their children be successful in school, and to have the students take their newfound knowledge home is a great way to help parents reinforce the skills learned in school. It also supports open and respectful communication between parents and teachers. If the parents know that the teachers want to support them as well as their children, the relationship will be one of mutual respect and support. I think that this program would be a great addition to any school, but especially those in low socioeconomic areas. I’m interested in finding out more about this program and bringing it to my school!
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