Your Personal Advocacy Journey

"A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark."-- Robert A. Heinlein

What inspires and excites you most about your advocacy plan and being an advocate?

• What inspires me to be an advocate and implementing my advocacy plan is knowing that I have the ability to make a difference in a child's life.  I am excited for someone to hear my plan and give me feedback and hopefully persuading them towards my advocacy cause.

What challenges and/or anxieties do you feel related to engaging in the advocacy efforts you have targeted?

• My main anxiety is just presenting in front of a group of people.  I tend to get nervous doing public speaking and I want to be well prepared to know and understand all the avenues of my advocacy so that I can feel confident when I present it. 

What do you believe will be most effective in helping you overcome any challenging emotions you may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan? How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?

• I think to overcome my challenging emotions I need to make sure I am well prepared when doing my advocacy plan.  To be well prepared I need to make sure I know all the information to my fullest ability so that I am well prepared when presenting it.  I can encourage others by letting them know how this advocacy is so important and all the benefits it will have in the life of a child. 

How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?

 I can encourage others by letting them know how this advocacy is so important and all the benefits it will have in the life of a child.  They will need to see the positive effects of the end goal and I will help them to see that.  I will help in anyway that I can and try to show and teach them how to use their resources properly.

Your Personal Advocacy Journey

"A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark."
-- Robert A. Heinlein

What inspires and excites you most about your advocacy plan and being an advocate?

• What inspires me to be an advocate and implementing my advocacy plan is knowing that I have the ability to make a difference in a child's life.  I am excited for someone to hear my plan and give me feedback and hopefully persuading them towards my advocacy cause.

What challenges and/or anxieties do you feel related to engaging in the advocacy efforts you have targeted?

• My main anxiety is just presenting in front of a group of people.  I tend to get nervous doing public speaking and I want to be well prepared to know and understand all the avenues of my advocacy so that I can feel confident when I present it. 

What do you believe will be most effective in helping you overcome any challenging emotions you may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan? How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?

• I think to overcome my challenging emotions I need to make sure I am well prepared when doing my advocacy plan.  To be well prepared I need to make sure I know all the information to my fullest ability so that I am well prepared when presenting it.  I can encourage others by letting them know how this advocacy is so important and all the benefits it will have in the life of a child. 

How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?

 I can encourage others by letting them know how this advocacy is so important and all the benefits it will have in the life of a child.  They will need to see the positive effects of the end goal and I will help them to see that.  I will help in anyway that I can and try to show and teach them how to use their resources properly.

Families in Early Childhood Education

• Whom you observed and interacted with in your setting during this module

For this module, I centered my focus on families in the early childhood education setting.  To truly see the interaction of families with the children and the daycare staff, I focused my observation times in the morning and the afternoon.  This allowed me to see parents dropping off and picking up their children.  In particular, I chose to focus on a 4 year old girl and her parents.  I was able to see both parents at different times. 

• Any special learning experiences you may have had or an experience that provided you with insight about children and families including advocacy efforts

I was pleased to have a literacy experience in my observations of child/parent/caregiver.  The child attends preschool three days per week and attends daycare the other two.  The first day that I observed the parent brought in predictable text paper book that the child had gotten at school.  The dad said that his daughter loved having the book read to her and wanted to bring it to class to share with her classmates.   As I watched her take the book around, I noticed that she was "reading" the story as she was connecting the pictures to the written words she had heard her parents read to her so many times.   I thought it was wonderful to see how her family's literacy involvement lead to her taking ownership of her book and pride in her reading of it.

• At least two insights gained from your observations of, and interactions and experiences with, schildren’s families regarding advocacy efforts and needs related to your area of interest within the field of early childhood

One insight I gained about early childhood family involvement in literacy is that parents must read with their children in order for children to have enthusiasm.  This father brought in her book and made sure to tell the teacher how much his daughter loved the book which in turn made her proud to show it off to her classmates.  His emphasis on her love of the book continues to reinforce to her the love of reading.  The second insight I gained is that a literacy rich classroom promotes higher literacy in the students. This teacher put word cards on everything and the students were "reading" the cards and making connections between the letters on the cards and the object they were seeing.  One child remarked that her parents did this in her bedroom at home and she was pointing out similar items in her classroom and at home.  Watching literacy in action in a real classroom and how children move their experiences from home to daycare and back again is promoting literacy in all facets of their lives.

Module 3 Interview with a Director

I spoke with the director of the center I work for to find out exactly what she is responsible for in her center.  She explained to me that she is to ensure the safe and caring management of all the children entrusted to the day care facility.  This means hiring compassionate, trained and high quality staff, monitoring the children in the daycare, setting schedules and lesson plans for the daycare, meeting with parents and keeping all parents informed of policies and procedures at the center.  She explained that the children are the most important aspect of the center.  She as a director needs to make sure the children are being well taken care of throughout the day.  She needs to make sure the staff is doing their job to their fullest so that the children are getting the most out of the day.  She explained that she is responsible for  completing all reports to the local or state licensing boards, keeping business licenses current, and ensuring that all staff have a criminal background check and are appropriately training in first aide and other certifications as required by law.   She liked the topic of early literacy that I had chosen for my paper.  She agreed on how important it is to read to children and how vital it is for their development even at a young age. 

Module 2

For my first interview I sat down and talked to the coordinator for the school district in my town.  Her job is to work with school age children, children not yet in school, and families.  Part of her duties include grant writing and professional development for teachers, planning monthly playgroups for children ages 2-4 and their families, and literacy education for low income families.  She also coordinates with Easter Seals as part of her job.

When we met, we discussed the upcoming school year and the first playgroup after summer.  I had many questions that I felt she could answer due to the nature of her work.  One of my focus questions is how to reach families whose children are not yet in school.  The playgroups target children that are ages 2-4 and getting families to attend can be difficult because you can’t just send a note home like you could for school age children.  Her strategies for reaching families included signs posted at community areas such as the library, daycares, health offices, and community bulletin boards.  She also targets low income areas by leaving flyers in the WIC offices and at the offices of the low income housing apartments.  They also do send home notes with the school age children to reach younger siblings and to spread knowledge in the community.  She also mentioned that recently the school had registration and the district made a major push to reach all families and get them out to register.  Their marketing plan included working with local radio stations for promotion, the local bank for an iPad giveaway, the health department for free immunizations, and a local restaurant for free food.  She told me this to illustrate that you can get parents involved and reach them but at times it can be time consuming and expensive.

She also stated that her work with Easter Seals working on parent involvement in the lives of their children has helped tremendously in preparing students for school.  She makes house visits where she takes a package each time that includes one parental lesson and books for the child.  Programs like this are getting cut due to lack of state funding and she worries this will have a negative impact on student preparedness for school.

Overall, I left with plenty of ideas on how to increase literacy in young children, involve families, and reach children before they enter school.  I am pleased with all of the information I received and look forward to using her as a resource with my project.

Interview

      Early literacy has long been an interest of mine.  I am a teacher in a daycare and have worked with children ranging in ages from 6 weeks to 5 years old.  I have always incorporated engaging and developmentally appropriate lessons into the lives of my students.  I am hoping to do my research project on an aspect of early literacy.

     In order to focus on early literacy, I conducted interviews with a 2nd grade teacher at a local school and the retired district librarian for our town's school district.  Both have a vested interest in early literacy and have developed programs within our town to promote literacy among children and families.
I asked them about early childhood issues in general and they cited social-emotional concerns, poverty, obesity, and attention deficits as struggles they saw with their young students.  When we focused on early literacy, both the teacher and the librarian had similar areas of concern and interest.  One area they stressed was family literacy.  The teacher said many parents have come to her asking what they can do to help their chid become a better reader and she feels many parents are at a loss for just how they can help their children.  Another area for concern is lack of resources.  The lack of resources consists not only of materials such as books and programs but also human resources in the schools.  Going back to family literacy--many families lack age appropriate books for their children to read at home as well.  The third topic which was brought up by the two women is the lack of time children get to spend reading.  During the school day, there is a push for targeted interventions that teach decoding skills and comprehension (which are of course important) but many students lack real time with books.  Also, many students are not reading at home.  With so many playing video games all night, the 2nd grade teacher says many of her struggling readers are not getting the practice they need.

   From my interviews I feel that family literacy is an area in which I want to focus.  Our town is about 50% low income.  The teacher said that this is an area that is a dire need for our town as even some parents struggle with illiteracy and speaking English.  Particulary,  I would like to focus on how to increase literacy in children before they start school, provide resources to parents who have school age children, and provide literacy opportunities for families to participate in together.

Some questions to consider:

• How can we reach children who are not in a daycare or state sponsored program before they start school?
• What kinds of literacy opportunities can families participate in together?
• What kinds of resources would be most helpful to families in the area of early literacy?