Daycare

I am a firm believer that a daycare, when chosen carefully, can be a great place for children to spend their first few years of life. Before my wife and I began our search for the right place for our kids, we sat down and made a list of the things we wouldn’t compromise on when it came to the daycare our children attended. I’d encourage all parents who are considering daycare for their children to do the same.

By sitting down together and listing our priorities, we were able to begin our search with a better picture of the kind of daycare we were looking for. We knew that we wanted our children to be in a safe, healthy environment where they would be cared for well and encouraged to build friendships with other kids and to learn new things. We insisted that our daycare was smoke free and we looked for a daycare that gave the children many opportunities each week to get outside and enjoy playgrounds or other fun events for children.

Take your time and be intentional with choosing a daycare for your kids. If you are unable to care for your children in the earliest years of their lives, in some ways by choosing a daycare program you are choosing a substitute parent for your kids. You cannot afford to make the decision about daycare lightly because I guarentee your kids will be shaped and formed by the daycare they attend.

My wife and I settled on a small, private daycare that was run by one woman out of her home. Our two children made a total of six children that she was watching each day. Our daycare provider had a clean home that was filled with a variety of educational toys for children of all ages. Twice a week she took all of the children to events somewhere outside her home. Perhaps they would attend a book reading at the local library or go to the park on a nice afternoon. We were happy that her daycare service prioritized feeding our children healthy foods and helping them have a healthy, active lifestyle right from the start.

Determine your priorities for daycare and then stick with them, because choosing a daycare for your kids is one of the most important decisions you can make for them.

Teaching Child to Read

It is never too early to begin teaching your child to read, or at least laying the foundation for early literacy skills, and it can definitely be left too late!

If you are not sure then think about this. Statistically, more American children suffer long-term life-long harm from the process of learning to read than from parental abuse, accidents, and all other childhood diseases and disorders combined.  In purely economic terms, reading related difficulties cost our nation more than the war on terrorism, crime, and drugs combined.

Reading problems are a further challenge to our world by contribute significantly to the perpetuation of socio-economic, racial and ethnic inequities. However it is not just poor and minority children who struggle with reading. According to the 2002 national report card on reading by the National Assessment of  Educational Progress (NAEP), most of our children (64%) are less than proficient in reading even after 12 years of our attempts to teach them.

Even without knowing these worrisome statistics we are aware that reading proficiency is essential to success–not only academically but in life. As the American Federal of Teachers states: “No other skill taught in school and learned by school children is more important than reading. It is the gateway to all other knowledge. Teaching students to read by the end of third grade is the single most important task assigned to elementary schools. Those who learn to read with ease in the early grades have a foundation on which to build new knowledge. Those who do not are doomed to repeated cycles of frustration and failure.”

More than any other subject or skill, our children’s futures are determined by how well they learn to read.

Reading is absolutely fundamental. It has been said so often that it has become meaningless but it does not negate its truth. In our society, in our world, the inability to read consigns children to failure in school and consigns adults to the lowest strata of job and life opportunities.

And just when we thought the stakes could get no higher, over the last decade, educational research findings have discovered that how well children learn to read has other, even more life-shaping, consequences. Most children begin learning to read during a profoundly formative phase in their development. As they begin learning to read, they’re also learning to think abstractly. They are learning to learn and they’re experiencing emotionally charged feelings about who they are and how well they are learning.

What does that mean? Most children who struggle with reading blame themselves. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, the process of learning to read teaches these children to feel ashamed of themselves–ashamed of their minds–ashamed of how they learn.

And the sad truth is that they have nothing to be ashamed about. As Dr. Grover Whitehurst, Director Institute of Education Sciences, Assistant Secretary of Education, U.S. Department of Education (2003) says: “Reading failure for nearly every child is not the child’s failure; it’s the failure of policy makers, the failure of schools, the failure of teachers and the failure of parents. We need to reconceptualize what it means to learn to read and who’s responsible for its success if we’re going to deal with the problem.”

Do you want to wait for the policy makers to find a solution? Do you trust that they will? Or would you rather make sure that the job is done right by taking charge yourself?

I know what my answer is because I know first-hand from witnessing my brother’s life-long difficulties what an irrevocable impact a reading struggle early in life can make. It can mark your child for life!

I’m not promising that your child can learn to read early or that they won’t experience difficulty. After all, there is a significant number of children suffering from learning disabilities. These children will struggle. However, early instruction may ease their suffering and make the struggle a bit easier to handle. At the very least you will know that you did everything you could to help your child-and your child will know that as well. That cannot be wasted effort!

And you have a head-start on every educator because you know your child–herr temperament, her strengths, and her weaknesses. You are the person best equipped to begin teaching your child.

So we come back to the central question-when should your child’s reading education begin?  Traditional American Education models call for teaching a child to read between the ages of 7-9. Obviously we cannot begin teaching a newborn how to read. However, we can begin in infancy to lay the foundation for literacy which will in the end make your child a stronger reader.

Literacy is defined as an individual’s ability to read, write, and speak in English, compute, and solve problems, at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job, in the family of the individual, and in society.

Many of the simple things we do at home with our children support the development of literacy so you are already working to make your child more literate even if you are not actively beginning the process to teach your child to read. This includes simple activities such as reading to your child, reciting nursery rhymes, and singing songs.

But what if you do want to become a more active participant? There are many things you can do and it doesn’t mean you need to invest hundreds of dollars in an expensive reading program. You don’t actually need to spend much money at all to teach your child to read at home-or at the least prepare your child well for the beginning of reading instruction in school. Most parents already have the tools you need in your home to begin today!

This is why I stress that it is never too early to begin-if you work with your child’s development and make learning fun and interesting as well as challenging.

My essential strategy as an educator is to create learning opportunities and then to get out of the way of my students so they can learn. Learning is an active experience that should fully engage the participant. I believe that when I am “teaching” that the student is only passively involved in the learning process. I see myself much more as a guide and a resource than a teacher in my classroom. I have taken this approach with my son’s education and it has been very successful.

We have various learning toys and aids in our home and there are many lessons taking place each day (at home and away) but I have never drilled him on facts or even used flashcards.

If you can find ways to make learning fun and exciting-something that your child actually wants to do with you-then begin as soon as possible.

Your child will have plenty of opportunity for dry lectures, mind-numbing repetitive drills, and boring lessons as they grow older so don’t even go there. If you can’t make learning fun and more like play than work then don’t even go there. Trust your child’s education to the professionals and hope for the best. Remember, there are many wonderful teachers out there so you child is not doomed to failure even if you don’t intervene. However, the system is not a success and it is likely that at some point during the process your child may be adversely effected by it! That’s why I take an active role in my child’s education.

Preschool

There is a simple answer to this complex question. No.

Children don’t need preschool to gain admission to kindergarten or to succeed in life. In fact, the wrong preschool experience could potentially set a child back by creating a negative perception of school, learning, and socializing. However the right preschool experience can give a child a headstart academically and socially over peers without preschool.

In order to make the right choice for your child you need to look at what a preschool program should do for children. Ideally, preschool should help integrate children socially so they learn about the rules and structures of society in general and school society in particular. In addition, preschool helps students begin a foundation of academic knowledge including literacy, numbers, and culture.

The actual content, focus, and structure of preschool programs varies widely from community to community (and often even within communities) but most programs achieve these two primary goals for students. However a parent can easily accomplish similar goals without the confines of a specific preschool program.

Obviously many families need to arrange some type of day care for the preschool age children and if this is the case then it often makes sense to combine day care and preschool. Children who regularly attend day care programs with other children are less likely to need the social aspects of a preschool education. They likely learned how to play with others, the rules of sharing, and how to follow instructions and other key social lessons. Similarly children who belong to a large family or live in a neighborhood where a group of children regularly interact need less social education than children who do not regularly interact with their peers. Parents can replicate these social situations by seeking out play groups and community activities.

It is fairly easy to create a home preschool program for children. There are packaged curriculums available for purchase, materials available from local libraries, and information available on the internet. You can choose a program created entirely by someone else or create your own individual program to suit you and your child. Some television programs even offer additional material on the internet to supplement programming that would be suitable for a homeschooling project.

A motivated parent can certainly create a quality preschool program for their child that exceeds the results of any professional program. It is simply important to keep in mind your primary goals. What do you want your child to learn? What skills do you want your child to master? Do you simply want to prepare your child for kindergarten or do you have more advanced goals in mind?

The right preschool program can definitely give children a head start on long-term educational success, but not all programs are created equal and sometimes even a wonderful preschool program isn’t right for certain children. Some children may benefit more from spending another year or two in a more nurturing atmosphere, such as home or a small day care. When making the preschool decision it is important to consider the individual child as well as the individual programs available. It is not a one-size-fits-all decision.