Diane Frankenstein

To read is to ponder, reflect, and contemplate.

I swim in a sea of print, not only children’s books, but articles and books on subjects that relate to children’s well being and the life of the mind of the adults in their lives. These ‘musings’ serve to point our attention to issues revolving around early childhood education and literacy development, providing food for thought so that we might enrich the life of families to best support their child’s intellectual and emotional development.

“When is a Problem Child Truly Dangerous?”, a recent article in the NYT Magazine draws attention to the challenge to teach kids empathy before its too late. “>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html?pagewanted=all

Stories give readers the ability to identify with and understand another person’s feelings or difficulties. Stories encourage a person to step inside the shoes of another person. Once inside those shoes, questions arise: How does it feel? What would you do? Do you know what is the right thing to do? Does knowing what is the right thing to do, make it easier to then do it? Through the lived-through experience of the literary experience, readers make the essential connection between individuals and the moral choices they confront in their own lives. Literature stirs our emotions and makes us feel—in attempting to understand anyone, empathy counts for much. Reading and talking about stories with children encourage us to experience and think about what empathy really means.

Talking about empathy inside a story yields a richer conversation than having a universal conversation about empathy. Universal conversations only go so far, because they are about someone or someplace else and not personal. Here are some suggested conversation starters you can use when you are taking about empathy that gets away from the universal and closer to the personal.

~ Is thinking about a person’s well being the same thing as doing something about it?
~ Does empathy require action?
~ Do you have to like a person to have empathy for them?
~ Can you think of a situation when you put yourself in someone else’s
shoes? How did it change your perspective?
~ What would the world look like if nobody was able to have empathy for others?

Studies that aim to answer the question of whether a child gets a different experience from a book than an e-book are just getting under way. Studies of how such a device affects the development of young children typically take three to five years.
When a parent reads a physical book to a child, the child tends to take away more of the actual content, because the conversation between parent and child is most likely about what’s happening in the story. A recent study found that children using electronic console books that have buttons, tended to learn navigation, such as what different buttons do. Instead of talking about the content parents said things like “don’t touch that yet.”

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.” A. Quindlen

I made the deal with my sons: I supply the books, and they supply the bookshelves.

I am an enthusiast for conversation and I firmly believe we need to make room for it by creating opportunities to talk face-to face with our children. Good conversations are where children acquire the vocabulary they need to become good readers. Talking with children is how we best prepare them to enter school, ready to be successful learners. I suggest that hanging a colorful map of the world where you eat your meals can give your family countless enjoyable and interesting conversations.
A good conversation during family meals just doesn’t happen. A little ingenuity and effort can change that and the benefits are great and rewarding. At our home there is never any shortage of what to talk about at family meals because a colorful map of the world hangs in our kitchen. Before the map, our dinner table conversations became trapped in the sand pit of “What happened in school today?” with the usual forthcoming response: “Not much, nothing.” The map is like a gigantic game board—and it’s fun and a challenge to discover and find the exact locations of world and national events. Conversations are where children learn the language they need to shape their thinking—it teaches them how to think. As E.M. Forster said; “How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?” Face-to-face conversation teaches patience. In a recent article, “ “The Flight from Conversation” it was noted: “When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits. As we ramp up the volume and velocity of online connections, we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions; we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters.”
In our fast paced, media saturated world, thoughtful conversations are more important than ever before.

Take poetry off the mantle and celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day. All too often poetry is saved for occasions—happy or sad. I advocate taking poetry out of this exalted position. Instead, treat poetry as if it were a vitamin for the spirit. Poetry calls for being shared.

J.M. Barrie

Second star to the right
Was where he dwelt,
Straight on until the morn.

His childhood he kept well in sight,
It was what he truly felt
Under the breastbone.

Boyhood, like a bit of starlight;
No matter how tight the belt,
How hard the heart stone,

How old, how deep the night.
This is how he dealt
With aging till his time was done.

Part Peter, part Pan,
Part fairy, part small man.

~ Jane Yolen

April 12 is Drop Everything and Read Day.
Beverly Cleary’s birthday and D.E.A.R. are celebrated on the same day for good reason. Ramona Quimby enjoys D.E.A.R.in Cleary’s book, Ramona Quimby, Age 8. The day is meant to celebrate, remind and encourage families to make reading together a family priority on a daily basis. Reading for pleasure is a luxury we can all afford. You can D.E.A.R anywhere and anyplace. All you need is a book! Making D.E.A.R. a habit is a lifelong gift. As Charles C. Noble said. “First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” Here is a site which offers terrific book selections for children of all ages. http://dropeverythingandread.com/book.html