1. Preparing Children to Start School Ready to Learn and Thrive
In
this article in The Bay State Banner,
Ron Ferguson (Harvard Achievement Gap Initiative), Jeff Howard (The Efficacy
Institute and the Black Philanthropy Fund), and Martin Walsh (Mayor of Boston)
describe the Boston Basics Campaign. “Our goal,” they say, “is to help parents
and caregivers adopt five easy practices that research has proven are essential
to brain development from birth to age three.” Here they are:
•
Maximize love and manage stress.
“Showing affection and patience at every opportunity helps children build
confidence to explore the world on their own,” say the authors.
•
Talk, sing, and point. “Talking and
singing to infants and toddlers stimulates their brains and develops their
skills,” say Ferguson, Howard, and Walsh. “Pointing helps them connect words to
the associated objects.”
•
Teach counting, grouping, and comparing
with everyday objects. “Having fun with numbers, names, shapes, and
patterns is how children learn to understand their world,” they say. “And it
prepares them to learn and love math.”
•
Let children explore through free
movement and play. “Curiosity is a child’s built-in engine for learning,”
say the authors. “It’s our job to encourage it and provide safe outlets. At
home or in the playground, help kids dive into their environment and develop
their ‘mind’s eye.’”
•
Read and discuss stories. “Whether
made-up or factual, the people, places and events of stories are the building
blocks for our children’s imagination and much of their learning later in
life,” say Ferguson, Howard, and Walsh.
“We
know that raising kids is hard,” they conclude, “and it’s only made harder by
the stresses of work, money, illness, violence, and more. So we want to make
our entire city a relentlessly supportive place for all those who care for
young children.” Introductory videos can be viewed at www.bostonbasics.org.
Mission and focus:
This weekly memo is designed to keep
principals, teachers, superintendents, and others very well-informed on current
research and effective practices in K-12 education. Kim Marshall, drawing on 44
years’ experience as a teacher, principal, central office administrator, and
writer, lightens the load of busy educators by serving as their “designated
reader.”
To produce the Marshall Memo, Kim subscribes
to 64 carefully-chosen publications (see list to the right), sifts through more
than a hundred articles each week, and selects 5-10 that have the greatest
potential to improve teaching, leadership, and learning. He then writes a brief
summary of each article, pulls out several striking quotes, provides e-links to
full articles when available, and e-mails the Memo to subscribers every Monday
evening (with occasional breaks; there are 50 issues a year).
Subscriptions:
Individual subscriptions are $50 for a year.
Rates decline steeply for multiple readers within the same organization. See
the website for these rates and how to pay by check, credit card, or purchase
order.
Website:
If you go to http://www.marshallmemo.com you will
find detailed information on:
• How to subscribe or renew
• A detailed rationale for the Marshall Memo
• Publications (with a count of articles from
each)
• Article selection criteria
• Topics (with a count of articles from each)
• Headlines for all issues
• Reader opinions (with results of an annual
survey)
• About Kim Marshall (including links to
articles)
• A free sample issue
Subscribers have access to the Members’ Area
of the website, which has:
• The current issue (in Word or PDF)
• All back issues (also in Word and PDF)
• A database of all articles to date,
searchable
by
topic, title, author, source, level, etc.
• A collection of “classic” articles from all
11 years
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