Newsgroups: misc.education,misc.kids,k12.chat.teacher
Subject: Re: Parental Involvement in Reading
From: kmushal@eis.calstate.edu (KAYE MUSHALIK)
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 04:51:50 GMT
Organization: Calif State Univ/Electronic Information Services

murthy+@EDRC.CMU.EDU (Sesh Murthy) writes:
> In article <00722044617@elgamy.uucp.taronga.com>, elg@elgamy.uucp.taronga.com (Eric Lee Green) writes:
> 
> 
> |> attitude seems to be "It's the school's job to raise my children, I gotta
> |> work for a living." In the meantime, well... so it goes.
> I am facing the opposite problem.  My daughter (6yrs old and in 1st grade)
> can read reasonably well and she likes to read to us.  I do not have time 
> to select books for her everyday, and I would like the teacher to assign her 
> two books a day to read.  The teacher agrees when I meet her but she does not 
> follow through.
> 
> It is difficult to buy that many books.  Her level of reading is
> constantly improving.  She will not read anything with more than one
> difficult word/sentence.  But `difficult' keeps changing.  
> 
> I guess I will have to go down to the library with her and get the books
> myself.
> 
> I have concluded that school is a place where my daughter socializes for
> 6 hours and that she learns things at home for 2 hours.  
> 
> I am not trying to force my daughter to do things she does not want to.
> She is intrigued by challenges and she likes to succeed.  Who does not!
> If we do not challenge her she will miss the positive reinforcement that
> comes with trying something hard and then succeeding.  The problem is
> to find something not so hard that she will fail but something slightly
> difficult.
> 
> If she refuses to do something we just leave her alone.  Eventually she
> decides that she wants to do it and gets it done.  Her current favorite
> activity is reading.
> 
> Anyway I am having fun.
> 
> This summer I am thinking of putting together a small robot with her.
> (Photovore It take about 30 hours assembly. So it should take us
> a few weeks together, with her learning soldering etc.)   I will tell you how 
> it turns out.  My other project is to teach her to read Kannada (our mother 
> tongue).  My wife is planning on teaching her dance and music.   
> Should be a fun summer.
> 
> Sorry for rambling on ..
> 
> Regards.
> Sesh Murthy


I think it is wonderful that you have such creative activities planned to
do with your daughter this next summer. Is there some reason why you have
so much time available for her then, but not enough time during the
rest of the year to take an hour or so once a week to share the wonders and
joys of picking out a weeks' worth of books to read together? Most public 
libraries allow one to check out 15-20 books at a time. 

Also, I'd like to ask you to do a little comparison - How many children do 
you have at home and how many are in your child's classroom?

I'm not really trying to flame you. I can "see" the love and concern you
have for your child. I only want to ask you to take another look at what 
you were saying.

A concerned teacher who loves her 32 students and tries to give that 
extra encouragement***Kaye Mushalik***
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