Child Literacy

Low-waged single parent(s) cannot pay market rate for child care. Many children are in risky situations where they are neglected or abused.  Some are lucky enough to have a relative or neighbor to provide care. Some are supported by childcare vouchers or are in Head Start. A minimum waged single parent working 40 hours weekly may be earning as much as $15,080 annually. This is below the Federal poverty line. The median income in the United States is estimated at $51,939. This is read more…

By Grade Pirez – A High School Student who volunteers for Promise the Children & Girls’ Inc. It’s difficult to put into words how incredibly moving Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education was. I’d like to warn you, though, that I’m not familiar with stage performances outside of Broadway musicals, so I can’t give a particularly artistic review of the production. I am, however, familiar with the rampant racism that has been a pressing issue read more…

by Grace Pires, High School Student & Volunteer at Promise the Children and Girl’s Inc. With the way the world is now seamlessly interconnected– whether through technology, trade, or facilitated travel– it is beneficial for people to speak more than one language. Oftentimes young preschoolers are only taught English, and begin studying another language at middle school age. This is great for monolingual children, but it can hurt children who are already bilingual. In the classroom, children don’t have many read more…

by Grace Pires, Junior High School Student & volunteer at Promise the Children & Girl’s Inc. There’s no denying that America is a multicultural melting pot. So it’s only fair that the American education system openly acknowledges various white and non-white cultures and promotes diversity in the classroom. By teaching students about other cultures, starting in pre school and continuing in grade school, teachers can enable young children to respect others whose traditions and appearances are different from their own. read more…

“Summer slide” causes the achievement gap between children whose families earn less, and those that earn more. In summer children forget what they learned in the previous school year when parents cannot afford to send them to quality camps. A quality camp combines fun with learning activities. Children with wealthy parents who send them to well-rounded camps do not experience summer slide. The camp programs that prevent summer slide provide learning activities similar to the school curriculum, but more fun. Reading, writing read more…

Age-appropriate comics, or graphic books, can appeal to children of many ethnic groups. They can broaden children’s reading skills making a bridge to a wider variety of books.

ESSA – Every Student Succeeds Act – was signed into law by President Obama in December 2015. For the first time this act includes provisions for Pre-K education. Also the ESSA reduces the role of the federal government and gives the states the responsibility of being accountable for test results.

Mistrust can occur between students and teachers who differ in their cultural backgrounds. This mistrust can be caused by misunderstandings between them. Under these circumstances, the students may find it difficult to learn. All teachers need training to understand grade school students from various cultures. Many schools have a majority of African American, Hispanic or Asian students and others have a majority of a variety of minority students. Sadly, 82% of our teachers are Caucasian. We need more teachers from a variety of cultures and races in our grade schools so as to avoid relationships of mistrust.

By Ellie Richardson Having volunteered at the same organization for a few weeks now, I’ve begun to notice a pattern in the way the children’s activities are structured. Because this particular program is focused on literacy, the class always begins with reading a book to the children. This part of the class is also paired with a short “discussion” period, in which the topic of the book being read is introduced. For example, one day we were reading a book read more…

At our literacy program children made the letters in their names out of pipe cleaners. This was easy for some, but others needed a lot of help to visualize the letter and imagine making it, rather than writing it. Every child liked to roll up the pipe cleaner to make the dot for the small “i”! Eventually, each child had their name at their place on the table. Our literacy program is well supervised. Each volunteer has an interview, must read more…