Senor Parrot’s Perch

Working Dad notes this amazing statistic that he found at Thrive by Five Washington:

“By the time they are 4 years old, children from professional families have heard about 32 million more words than children from families living in poverty. According to research, 4-year-olds from professional families have heard about 45 million words…and those from families living in poverty have heard just 13 million words. This difference is critical when children learn to read.”

Somewhere most folks fall in the middle. But don’t we all see what a differrence our time speaking, joking, reading and just hanging out with our children makes? Working Dad goes on to argue that there’s even a monetary payoff, but he implies, too, that the deficit that children in poverty experience is reversible through Quality Childcare.

Working Dad goes on the point out that there is evidence that

“…shows how quality child care can help close this gap. Every dollar invested in high-quality early learning offers an economic return of $4 to $17 in everything from helping more kids go to college, buy homes and stay out of jail, according to Thrive.”

This causation link is flawed, and as a result, the economic return that is being touted is greatly inflated.

Some flaws include

• The true cost of “quality childcare” is much higher. We’ve all seen the difference in regular childcare and really great preschools. The workers are paid much differently and the adult-child ratios are lower in quality care, 3 to 1 more likely, rather than 4 to 1.
• Quality childcare workers cost much more. Adults educated well enough to bridge that 32 million word gap won’t be found working at childcare. They’d be working somewhere else making 2-3 times as much, or even far more. You’re most likely to get childcare workers that grew up in the same linguistically impoverished environment that we’d like to see eliminated.
• After the day is done, these kids go straight back home, where the problem started and continues. Here it all unravels. The same untalkative, poverty-talkitive environment, unless you count TV, which is abject poverty.
• Moral upbringing at home is more likely to reduce criminal behavior than a chatty teacher. Men abandoning their families have an effect by their absence as well as their presence. Parental drug and alcohol abuse and the strangers that come tramping through their lives do little to encourage achievement in kids living in poverty.

I wish it were like what these optimists say, but it ain’t. I’m not saying that education isn’t without its affect to lift people from poverty and crime, but the magnitude is not what is claimed.

Generally, childcare works little more differently than minimal care for the safety of kids while they’re parents are working. Good childcare is affordable only by those professionals who can afford it. It hasn’t been so long that I’ve shopped for childcare that I can recall the differences. The gap is enormous. So is the expense.

Fifteen year old Denn Doyle, fresh from surviving a near brush with death where he was hit by a city bus while on his skateboard, lets himself get talked into playing poker. His first time, he wins big. His next time, he loses bigger. Stung by losing, and convinced that he should be able to play better than them, he studies the game. His studies pay off and he’s on to winning. He start’s losing, too, most everything else he’d valued.

No Limit’s original title was Stone Cold, that’s what you have to be to win, says Cookie, the older card player that Denn Doyle becomes acquainted with. Stone Cold is just what Denn becomes. Just like his excellent book Rash, which Pete Hautman published in 2006, this earlier book, originally published in 1998 under the title Stone Cold, the original book title takes on new meanings as you read through the book. And though Denn plays poker, at its heart, the book is about consuming obsessions. Denn’s own obsession is reflected in contrast to the obsessions of  his father’s and the priest of the church.

At its heart, No Limit is an engrossing, fast moving story of a young man who learns and obsessed with winning. The story moves quickly and is clean and tight. (I’m left wishing that Hautman could give some lessons in self-editing to J.K. Rowling, who could have greatly improved her books just by trimming them down). The trail his plot follows is always fresh. The ending climax is both surprising and haunting and thought provoking.

No Limit, as with other books by Hautman, is an excellent book for young adult readers, especially boys, who would read if only they encountered something better, more suited to their interests, and not weighed down by tons of minutae or that don’t involve fantasy and magical powers. While I’m at it, I’ll recommend Rash, as well, a sort of dystopic view of our future. Over the years separating these two books, Hautman’s writing and storytelling has only improved.

Hautman has also written a sequel to this book, All-in. The first chapter is available on his website.

Here’s few we liked that we picked up from the library. All of these were picked by the 5-year old:

The Apple Pie That Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson and illustrated by Jonathan Bean. Told in pictures and verse, The Apple Pie that Papa Baked is a fun view of the farm at harvest time. The story is about a young girl and her father who bakes an apple pie for his daughter with the apples he has picked from their tree.

Illustrated in blacks and browns and reds, it has an earthy look and feel. The hills and paths, trees and sun have that round, plump feel, almost like a Grant Wood Iowan landscape, but I wouldn’t go too far with that comparison. If I were smarter, I’d know the style of the verse - you’ve seen it before, but here’s an example from one page:

These are the clouds,
heaped and round,
that dropped the reain,
cool and fresh,
thatwatered the roots,
deep and fine,
that fed the tree,
crooked and strong,

and on it goes.

Two by Caldecott Medal winner Eric Rohmann: Clara and Asha and My Friend Rabbit

In Clara and Asha (Ala Notable Children’s Books. Younger Readers (Awards)), Clara is a young girl who has lots of friends, one of whom is Asha, a big fish she met in the park. Asha was a part of the giant fountain, but she brought him home. Now, inseparable friends, Asha follows Clara everywhere. The story is very fun, all of a child’s imagination, and the illustrations are even more fun, and the true spark in the book.

My Friend Rabbit is the story of a rabbit and a mouse, both friends. Enthusiastic Rabbit get his friend stuck in a tree and, to try to get him down, he builds a ladder of animals. Not so good an idea, as it turns out. Mostly in pictures, the silliness abounds, and there’s really no need for words here. Eric Rohmann won the 2003 Caldecott Medal for this book.

Cat & Mouse: A Delicious Tale by Jiwon Oh

This book was the most fun of the bunch. Cat and Mouse are best friends. Cat takes cooking lessons and discovers that mice make delicious dishes, and, no big surprise, a rift in the friendship ensues. The book is delightful. Jiwon Oh’s illustrations are a combination of modern manga and ancient Chinese landscape. Go to the library or the bookstore to look for this one.

Angela and the Baby Jesus, written by Frank McCourt and illustrated by Raul Colon is a beautifully told
story. McCourt tells the tale his mother Angela told him that happened to her as a child.

Seeing the baby Jesus in the Nativity in the church, Angela’s heart goes out to him, thinking he must be cold lying there, so she takes him, so that she can keep him warm. What unfolds from this is a glimpse into a beautiful, loving family and a very original reflection of the true meaning of Christmas, the giving of a life for another’s.

I had checked this out from the library to read, curious, and having heard nothing before about it. It is a wonderful book which we all in the family loved, and which I will probably go out and buy for keeps this weekend. I recommend it highly.

Other books by Frank McCourt include Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir
and Teacher Man: A Memoir. Other books illustrated by Raul Colon are As Good as Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom by Richard Michelson, and Mightier Than the Sword: World Folktales for Strong Boys
by Jane Yolen.

Veterans’ Day isn’t much anymore. When I was a child, all our fathers served in one way or another in WWII or the Korean War and helped build the world I grew up on. Some of my friends were children of their mother’s second husband, the first remaining somewhere in Europe or at the bottom of the Pacific. That world died with Viet Nam.

The Children’s Book Review-Growing Readers has provided a nice list of books that remember those who bravely put their lives on the line for us. Now, many of the children reading thises books would have grand parents and great grandparents who served in WWII or the Korean War, or in the Viet Nam or first Iraq wars. Many will have fathers who have or continue to serve in Iraq or Afganistan. And since Viet Nam, they have grandmothers and mothers serving as well.

Let’s always remember their great sacrifice.

Diane Petryk Bloom, the Children’s book reviewer at the Examiner.com, of Milwaukee, has put together a nice list of new Christmas books. I love these lists. Now its off to look around for them to check them out and see what’s worth buying, and what’s worth leaving behind. I already know that the Hannah Montana entry will be left behind. But Lemony Snickets’ The Lump of Coal will probably make the list.

Everybody knows that a dog is man’s best friend. How about his or her best audience? Dogs are now being used as ‘nonjudgemental’ audiences for children learning to read. Found in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, we read that young children are reading to dogs in order to build up their literacy, i.e. reading, skills.

The friendly beasts known as “Reading Education Assistance Dogs”, sit quietly,  wag their tails approvingly, and drool, while your kid gets to forge all the way through a book, maybe for the first time.

Yet again, dogs step in where nature or a parent is lacking, and provide a friendly, keen, ear, a lick and a snuggle. Better by far than nothing, but wouldn’t a parent be a grand improvement. Parents should listen as well as read aloud.

Siblings, especially younger ones, love to be read to. If your budding reader has any, the younger siblings are also better than dogs, and the time together forms lifelong bonds, and sparks a conversation, not just barks.

Seems that this approach is nothing new, as this older article from the NY Times indicates. That mysterious bond between man and dog will never be plumbed to it’s full depths, it seems.

Nick Mangiaracina notes some disturbing statistics about the trend of American high school students in his article “Reading, writing are one of our last bonds” , published in the University Daily Kansan.  This information, culled from the well known National Endowment for the Arts survey completed in 2004, has been noted elsewhere many times before, but it bears repeating:

According to a 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, the percentage of people reading literature dropped 10 percentage points from 1982 to 2002. More significant was the 17 percentage point decline of reading literature of those between the ages of 18 and 24 during the same time period.

Standardized test scores support this trend. The Center for Pubic Education reported a 6 percentage point decline on National Assessment of Education Progress reading test scores among 12th graders between 1992 and 2005. As the name suggests, this test is used to measure progress in education, especially in math and reading.

Its easy to point our blame at schools, especially public schools, but really, there are many fine teachers just trying to maintain as best as they can. What we, as parents or students, can do, is do our best for ourselves in the sphere of influence that we have.

We have to monitor our our kids’ progress and supplement where we can. We don’t have to pay for expensive tutoring, if we can’t afford it, but we can get supplementary materials and start where our kids are at, work with them, and help them reach and exceed their expected grade level of performance.

Isn’t this what homeschoolers do? They have a growing network online and offline where they discuss curriculum and learning experiences and they do very well. As a supplement, some of these same strategies would work for our non-home schooled kids.

Two news articles bring out similar emphases: That math proficiency requires constant use and practice, that problem solving is the key to math understanding, that math must be seen as important and engaging.

The first article from a New York Time Blog is about an online startup that provides Indian math tutors to American students and the second is about an event held in a Mall to demonstrate Math to kids and their parents.

Why is this important? Math is the language of Science. Who leads in Science will lead the world in technology and economic welfare, growth, and standards of living.

Elsewhere, in the Mansfield News Journal, we see reported that basic math capabilities are a civil right. This article, “Tonights’ speaker sees ‘Algebra’ as civil rights extension” notes civil rights leader Robert Moses’ efforts to improve math literacy for minorities.

Moses sees The Algebra Project as pulling at perhaps the most important thread of these early commitments — beating the drum for opportunity and improving the quality and culture of learning around education in general and math education in particular.

A quality public education, Moses argues, would give quantitative literacy the same importance as reading and writing literacy have been given.

I say “Amen, brother!”

As I was perusing stories around the internet I found in the Baltimore Sun a report that the perennial teacher shortage was easing. Apparently this always occurs at a downturn in the economy.

All is not well, however. The article states that there are still significant shortages of teachers

of special education, math, chemistry, physics and foreign language teachers. The state has designated those as shortage areas in its report released Friday.

Colleges and public schools have been working hard recently to produce more math and science teachers, said John Smeallie, acting deputy superintendent of the Maryland State Department of Education. Wiseman said College Park produced about 25 math and science teachers last year; that is expected to nearly double this year.

Still, two years ago, College Park produced one physics teacher and last year only two.

Wiseman noted that science teachers must complete all of the courses in their major as well as a full set of education courses. “That is a lot of work to do,” she said, given they will earn significantly less than their peers who go work in a lab or do research.

This is bad news. As the number of engineers and science grads increases in our major competitors for the future, India and China, our basic educational infrastructure is falling behind in its ability to provide a substantial science based curriculum to our children. We will undoubtedly lose our technical edge as a result.

I’m wondering more and more if the strategy that works for home schoolers would also work for in-school schooled (is that the opposite of home schooled!?) students. That is, that they have to learn it at home and within volunteer groups of students with similar interests.