Wal-Mart's Teresa Jones donates books to ACEE.
May 2006
ISHK Share Literacy Program and HEB Donate Early Childhood Learning Materials to ACEE Parent Advocates for Literacy Program
Leslie Lockett, the H-E-B manager of public affairs for the central Texas region, presented the funds to Bob Rogers, a volunteer running the local Share Literacy Chapter. Share Literacy is a program under the auspices of ISHK (The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge) and was initiated to put high-quality books into the hands of children who are not likely to have many books of their own. "H-E-B is making literacy, and especially early-childhood literacy, a central focus of our outreach effort," says Leslie Locket. The funds will be used to provide Hoopoe books and home literacy kits for the ACEE-sponsored Parent Advocates for Literacy program this summer.
The Hoopoe Books Share Literacy™ program works to provide books to children in low-income schools and daycare centers. Hoopoe Books are beautifully illustrated traditional Teaching-Stories™ from Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East which were collected and written by Afghan author Idries Shah. Scientific research has shown how these stories can be used to develop higher-level thinking skills in young children. The literacy kits consist of a paperback book, an audio CD with and without page-turn signals, and a Read Together newsletter for parents and caregivers full of activities and ideas on what they can do to help their children learn and love to read.
The funds donated by H-E-B will be used to provide high-quality Hoopoe children's books and teaching materials to Americorps' ACEE which will distribute these books to parents and children participating in their family literacy project, Parent Advocates for Literacy program. This program will target families of Pre-K and kindergarten children at two ACEE project schools, Winn and Graham Elementary, in May and June 2006. ACEE and the Webber Family Foundation have committed funding for the project. The workshop will be a six-week series of parent-child literacy workshops that will explicitly teach parents about early reading skills and how to help support their children's literacy skill development at home. The program is highly interactive; with children and parents working side-by-side to make and practice games and activities that they can do at home. The program will be delivered in May and June because summer vacation is a time when many children lose interest in academic skills.
"We can significantly increase the impact of our intervention by involving parents as co-teachers and teaching them explicit ways they can support their children's literacy learning at home," says Share Literacy's Bob Rogers.
Research has consistently shown that reading aloud to young children significantly increases their readiness for learning to read and their future success in school. This program supports parents in their role as their children's first teacher and increases the likelihood that the parents see themselves as a partner with the schools in their children's education. Most of the families in the program do not have storybooks at home, library cards or access to bookstores. By providing them with the Home Literacy Kits, and involving the parents as co-teachers, this program will give the children a strong foundation for learning to read and give parents confidence as their child's first teacher and partner in their children's education.
The Hoopoe books are unique teaching materials that are especially well suited for the parent-child interaction. The material and books not only help attune the child to the written word, but the stories themselves provide patterns which exercise the mind and sharpen the child's analogical thinking as well. Analogical thinking is a basic skill just as is reading, and it is something which children do at a very early age. One example is when a child plays with a doll as though it were her child. It is one of the main ways we extend our understanding from the familiar to the unfamiliar and create meaning from new experiences. It is a powerful learning skill. By presenting an improbable series of events, these stories nurture and promote this important contextual mode of thinking along with literary skills.
By providing children with these books and parents with the teaching materials in the kits, we are providing a means for children and parents to take part in the teaching and learning process. The children will not only be exposed to material which can enhance their literary skills, they will also have exposure to stories they can use as a means to make sense of the world they live in.
For more information on Hoopoe Books and the Share Literacy program, please see www.hoopoekids.com and www.shareliteracy.org.