Literacy and Home

One of our Pine Glen community’s big focuses this year is literacy. Parents can be active team members in helping us with our literacy focus. One of leading causes of difficulty with reading, obesity, lack of attention, and sickness is related to not getting enough sleep. Please ensure your children are receiving an appropriate amount of sleep. A terrific idea is to have a set schedule on school nights for example, when teeth are brushed, children are in their rooms at a set time, and literacy occurs right before sleep. For example, with primary grade students it is great fun to have your child read one of his/her instructionally appropriate books to you and then after you read a book to your child. This is one of my favorite parts of the day that I do myself with my kindergarten daughter. For older students, it might be taking turns reading pages or chapters. Reading is not just about stating the words. Oral language is a big component of literacy. The rich, engaging and fun conversations you can have with children about what you read will be wonderful. If you think about how much time students spend at sports or after school activities during the week, it is interesting to compare this to how much time they spend on literacy during the week. To use another sports analogy, Tom Brady did not simply become a great quarterback by simply going to games and practices; he put in additional time above and beyond. This holds true for literacy as well.