Below is a reprint of an exciting email to Sara Schwabacher, Cornerstone's associate for parent and community engagement. We believe that what's happening with the families at South Conway Elementary can happen with the families at your school as well!! Dear Sara, At this last workshop, we played Bingo for Books with the kids. We have completed three so far. The first focused on "schema." I did a short PowerPoint overview and then Sarah Wiseman modeled reading The Relatives Came with her kindergarten daughter and her daughter in fifth grade. It was to demonstrate to parents how you can use the same book with kids of different ages. We then gave them a small packet of information to help and a copy of The Relatives Came for them to take home. In the second workshop Susan focused on "monitoring for meaning." She did a short PowerPoint as well and gave the parents a few tools to take home. At the end, parents could go to a first grade teacher's room to learn about monitoring for meaning at the word level or to a fourth grade teacher's room for monitoring for meaning at the whole text level. In this last workshop, though, I have found something of which I am most proud! Often you do these sessions with no idea if they will really make an impact or not. So....I again did a very quick PowerPoint overviewing "questioning." I then went through how families could use questioning in the content areas with their kids. (Change the headings and subheadings into questions, read to find the answers.) I went through several fiction texts as well and shared a little of how kids were using questioning in the classrooms. Then, I pulled out Mama, Where Are You From. I talked about it and the connections that I made to it. We talked about the types of during-reading and after-reading questions it could create. The parents could begin a conversation with their kids about memories from their early lives that formed who they are. Donna Hooks shared a great story of her own. We then discussed that they could use this text to ask questions (interview) parents, grandparents, other relatives, or friends. They each left with a packet and a copy of Mama, Where Are You From. The next day in one of our fifth grade classes several of the kids were talking about this book. The teacher questioned them about it and they all said their parents received it at the workshop and had come home and read it with them. They were sharing some of the things their parents had shared with them from their pasts. The teacher came down during planning to ask about the book since she was unfamiliar with it. I gave her a copy. She then capitalized on their excitement, refocused some of her work, and began a look at the text. They are now interviewing and writing stories based on the idea behind Mama, Where Are You From. I was so proud!!!!! It let me know that the work really was having an impact on the families and that their excitement about it was impacting our work here at school. We will have some of it in the display cases at Southern Regional meeting. Maybe this is not as big a deal as I think, but I know just how far we have come to have anywhere from 55-90 parents at a meeting where they are learners and not just watching their kids perform. We have also had over 50 kids each night as well. Donna Traylor will
lead our next one and the focus will be on inferring. |
