Daily Journals

I think that daily journal writing was the most detested part of my elementary school years. Oddly, I am not a horrible writer. I just hated journal writing. Honestly, I still don’t find journal writing to be a terribly inspiring pastime. So, it’s not surprising to me that lots of kids (and adults!) resist the idea of daily writing. However, it’s hard to argue with the valuable educational outcomes of writing. Barnabas Emenogu, summarizing current research on the benefits of writing in the early grades, concludes:

Amongst other things, I have suggested that a key benefit of getting elementary students to start writing early is that the amount of writing they do during their school years has a strong impact on the way they think, the amount they read, and the quality of their writing as adults. Motivating students to write in many forms for many reasons will enhance not only their achievement but quite possibly their life chances.

Just this summer, I again realized how much daily writing can help kids.  I was amazed at the progress Dillon with our consistent (not daily) journal writing.  It was definitely worth the pain it took to get the habit started.  Daily journal writing remained somewhat challenging for both of us, but I reassured myself with this tidbit from The National Council of Teachers of English:

The “language arts” develop in concert. Drawing supports writing, writing supports reading; opportunity to use multiple expressions of language increases language learning and ability.

So, I feel pretty good that any kind of literacy activity contributes to the overall goal of developing reading and writing skills.  With that in mind, I learned to be flexible about what constitutes a journal entry. After we spent a few weeks developing the basic concept of journal entries,  I let the kids do different kinds of entries. You can easily search online and come up with all kinds of creative journal ideas, but here’s a few that have worked for us:

• lists of favorite or most disliked things
• free association activities
• acrostic name poems
• comic strip stories
• riddles and jokes
• recipes
• maps
• sketches and explanations of inventions

As I mentioned in the video, two crucial components of a journal writing at our house are story paper and a decent list of writing prompts. I happen to like the calendar format of that link, but you can search online and find many excellent compilations of journal prompts for kids.

Now that school has started, I’ve slacked off a bit. I know that Dylan has daily writing in class, so I’ve kind of given myself a pass for now. However, if you need to help someone get over a hump in reading or writing, daily writing is almost certain to help.  And making it fun, is going to help even more.

So do you have any great ideas for keeping journals with kids?  Let us know, because it seems that keeping writing fresh and new is the best way to keep it going.

Tags: art, creativity, dylan, early elementary, reading, writing

After I Did Everything Right

Last spring, it became clear that we were going to have to figure out a different preschool for Anya. She turned four in January, and by late April, she was reading and doing basic addition and subtraction. This was not expected.  Dylan held out on us and refused to even try to read until 8 weeks before he turned six. Honestly, I really didn’t want her to learn to read, and I’d been stalling it. I know, I know…it makes me a horrible parent to not rejoice at my child’s growth. But we had just finished up an awful experience with my son being ahead of the game in kindergarten. I was loathe to have another uber-prepared child in kindergarten.

So, I started researching options. I was looking for a private kindergarten experience for her, since she would miss the deadline for enrollment in public school. With my hoity-toity college degree and all that research on what “good” early childhood centers are, I have a few opinions on the matter. I made a list of preschools, talked with other parents, assessed for developmentally appropriate curriculum, toured centers, interviewed directors and teachers, and (finally) made a choice that appeared to fit Anya’s needs and our financial constraints. Turns out it’s possible (maybe even probable) that you will to spend more on private kindergarten than your child’s first year of college.

Anyway, the point is: I did everything you’re supposed to do when choosing a preschool for your child. Everything!

Last week was Anya’s first week of kindergarten. It was a little rough at first as parents and kids and teachers figured things out. There were only three kids in her class which was not exactly what I was hoping for when I chose “small class size.” She hates not having enough friends to really play with. I figured we’d make it through the first week and then hopefully things would settle down. But I was wrong, sadly wrong.

On Monday of the second week, we arrived at the school to find (drum roll, please), no teacher there. In fact, nobody was there. Apparently, the kindergarten teacher quit without letting anyone know. For most of this week, Anya’s kindergarten has been combined with the 4-year-old class. Technically, that’s where she belongs age-wise, but it’s definitely not providing the kindergarten experience I had so carefully selected.

The good news is they’ve hired a new teacher that I like a lot more than the old teacher. Things do seem to be resolving and straightening out. Right now there is at least a 50% chance I’ll keep her there…though I did spend several hours this week figuring out what to do if it doesn’t work out.

Moral of the story:
Murphy’s Law still applies even after you do everything right.
Don’t ever assume it’s ok drop off your level of involvement in your kid’s education.

So what did you do perfectly right only to be thwarted by “circumstances”? Make me feel better…tell me your story.

Tags: anya, preschool, reading

Pointing Tools for Reading

Do you have a suggestion for a creative pointing tool? Share it with us all!

A few things I’ve used:

• Kitchen utensils
• Paint brushes
• Hair clips
• 3×5 notecard
• Straws
• Popsicle Sticks
• Pom-poms

Many of these items can be decorated or personalized by your child. Use markers, crayons, stickers, buttons, beads, feathers or ribbon. Often this makes the pointer even more novel and children more willing to read with it.

Tags: early elementary, reading