AmeriCorps for Community Engagement and Education

January 2007

Supporting Parents as Their Children's First Teachers

Thanks to the support of the Webber Family Foundation, the Silverton Foundation, and the KDK-Harman Foundation, ACEE will be able to expand our work with parents of prekindergarten and kindergarten students in 2007 and beyond. Beginning in January and continuing through May of this current school year, ACEE will implement bimonthly workshops that engage parents in learning how early reading develops, what the school reading curriculum expects of children, and what parents can do at home to support their children's learning. We will engage up to 25 parents at each of five ACEE project schools for bilingual, one-hour workshops to be held on the third and fourth Fridays of each month. ACEE members have taken the lead in preparing materials for parents, and will be in charge of delivering the workshops, with support from ACEE staff.

Carolina Guajardo, ACEE Bilingual Training Specialist, engages parents in learning how to teach their children the ABCs.

The first workshop was held at Lucy Read Pre-K Demonstration School on January 19, 2007, and was a huge success. The focus of the day was on teaching children letter identification, one of the cornerstones of early literacy development. The parents practiced learning the ABC song in Spanish and English, and how to use the song to introduce and reinforce learning about letters. They learned why it's important that children learn letter names and sounds, created a letter-matching game to take home and use with their children, and practiced playing the game. Parents' responses were overwhelmingly positive, and they expressed great appreciation at being given tools to help their children.

Parents of students at Lucy Read Pre-K Demonstration School enjoy the literacy workshop.

It is our goal to create the materials, curriculum, and infrastructure so that ACEE members in future years can provide workshops to parents throughout the year.