How can parents who don’t know English help their kids in school?
Patricia is a young mom who moved to El Paso from Mexico as a teen. Recently, she asked me how to prepare her kindergartner for reading.
“Children need to be able to hear differences in the sounds of words before they start reading,” I explained. “One way to help your daughter is to play rhyming games like this: you say ‘hat-mat.’ She repeats the last word you said and says another word that rhymes: ‘mat-sat.’ Just keep doing that: sat-fat, fat-bat.”
“I can’t think of rhyming words quickly,” Maria said. “It’s hard for me in English.”
“Then play the rhyming game in Spanish,” I said. “You’re training her ear to hear the difference in sounds. If she learns to do it in Spanish, she’ll transfer that ability to English in school.”
Parents like Maria, who are still learning English themselves, usually feel handicapped trying to help their children in school.
But if these parents nurture their children’s essential learning ability, that ability will transfer across language boundaries.
Children without this basic ability will usually have trouble in school, even if they grow up in a home that speaks only English.
So, what parts of a child’s life can parents nurture without knowing English?
Curiosity and thinking skills
A child curious in one language will be curious in English, too. Parents encourage curiosity by taking time when children show interest in something like a bug or plant, responding warmly to their questions, and finding books about their special interests.
Giving kids lots of experiences encourages curiosity, too, like:
taking kids on walks to look at nature or busy construction sites
going to museums, parks, fiestas, and other exciting places
and – this is important – encouraging kids either to tell someone else about an experience or to draw a picture of the experience and explain it to someone.
Basic math
Once children understand how to count, add, subtract, divide, etc. in one language, they can perform the same operations in a new language.
All they have to do is learn new vocabulary.
Love of books
Children whose parents read books to them in their native language will be drawn to books in English, too.
Books increase children’s vision of the world and teach them how to use language in general. Books also stimulate their imagination, lengthen their attention span, and help children develop thinking skills. Books are the doorway to an academic education.
Storytelling
Listening to stories builds children’s vocabulary in the storyteller's language. Encouraging children to retell or make up stories develops their ability to express themselves in the language they speak.
However, storytelling and story-making also develop important skills that are not tied to any particular language.
These activities stretch children’s imaginations, build their attention span, and develop social skills.
Some forms of storytelling are better than others for developing kids’ learning skills.
These can be reading, having someone else read to them, listening to stories on tape or radio, or – best of all – having adults tell them stories about “when I was a little girl” or other experiences (as long as the stories are not designed to criticize what a child has said or done).
TV and the internet are full of stories. Unfortunately, these stories are usually shown in shallow ways that keep children’s attention span short. With screen stories, kids tend to respond emotionally instead of developing their thinking skills.
A sense of being loved and valued
Children who feel they aren’t worth much or aren’t sure their parents love them will often be too preoccupied to do well in school.
Instead of concentrating on schoolwork, they may look for ways to hide their shame and to find love and acceptance from peers.
Character development and spiritual values
Does a boy keep going until the job is done, or does he quit easily? Does a girl do chores willingly, or does she grumble and gripe and make everyone around her miserable?
Children’s moral character and spiritual values affect all their relationships, work habits, and work attitudes in school.
Talking with children while working alongside them teaches attitudes and values. Storytelling can be a natural part of that process, as can the all-important development of a child’s sense of being loved and valued.
Did you notice what was missing from this list?
I’ll tell you: screens. Like TV, tablets, computers, phones…
Our world is full of screens, and we’re busy. (And when we aren’t busy, we may be looking at a screen ourselves). We must discipline ourselves to do what’s best for our children’s future instead of what’s easiest for us to do now.
Good parenting is more important for children than knowing a particular language. Parents don’t need to speak English to give their children a healthy childhood and an enormous boost over the language hurdle.
Mother Goose was one of the few books I packed on our family’s Great African Adventure in Kenya in 1973.
Our firstborn son Erik was nearly 2 years old.
My husband Dennis was spending six months in charge of a Princeton scientific expedition in northwest Kenya, collecting data for his Ph.D. research. Erik and I joined Dennis during the last three months of the expedition.
I packed only what I could physically carry (there were no wheeled suitcases back then!) while still hanging somehow onto a toddler through the airports of Chicago, New York, London, and Nairobi.
I only brought clothes for Erik and me, a couple of toys, and a few essential books.
Mother Goose entertained us everywhere
Mother Goose amused us on planes, in hotels, in tents, and around campfires as we began our nomadic adventure.
In the first month, nearly every day was different. We drove through forests, mountains, and wildlife preserves, lumbered along beach roads, and lurched into the canyons and over the trackless plains of the desert in our four-wheel-drive truck.
?We stayed a few days here and a few days there.
During the second month, we lived in a tent in the North Kenyan desert next to a dry riverbed.
We followed that up by camping for the third month at another desert location near bleak cascades of high rock.
Mother Goose provided security.
For, no matter what changes we experienced, Mother Goose lent stability to our toddler’s day.
Every day, Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Little Jack Horner never failed to sit in a corner. And you could always count on the spider to sit down beside her and frighten Miss Muffet away.
Mother Goose enchanted our African neighbors from the Turkana tribe.
They were a people straight out of the pages of National Geographic. The women wore skirts made of goat skin and encased their necks in dozens of bead necklaces made from ostrich eggshells.
The men sported mud-pack hairdos and went naked except for a single length of cloth, which they usually wore slung under the left shoulder and tied at the right shoulder.
One afternoon I was reading Mother Goose aloud to Erik under a thorn tree.
A young Turkana tribesman wandered by and peeked over my shoulder at the pictures.
I let the young man take Mother Goose to the dining table, where he was soon joined by a bare-breasted teenage girl and two young male warriors carrying long spears.
It was a comical sight—
four half-naked Turkana seriously contemplating the pictures in Mother Goose, puzzling over the cat with his fiddle, solemnly discussing the cow jumping over the moon....
How I wished I could understand the Turkana language for just five minutes!
That copy of Mother Goose is long gone.
When it started falling to shreds, I bought another copy for our second child. And then I bought a third copy for child number three.
We seemed to wear out one Mother Goose per child.
Mother Goose helps lay an English language foundation
A bilingual kindergarten teacher told me that she always teaches her children Mother Goose rhymes because it helps them learn English.
Mother Goose ushers children into understanding and appreciating the English language. It is a foundation for later reading and writing.
The rhymes are easy to learn and fun to repeat.
Chanting them helps reinforce the meaning of the words. The absurd images stimulate a child’s imagination. The rhymes train their ears to hear phonemes.
The words' color and cadence introduce children to the sheer delight of language. The illustrations and rhymes lure children into an enjoyment of the world of books.
Later, I got to see the power of Mother Goose for a child from a non-reading family
Thirty years ago, 5-year-old Jacob started coming to our house every day during the summer while his mother worked.
When he first came, he had little interest in books and little patience for reading. But soon, he began sitting still for 20 or 30 minutes while we read to him.
For him, I bought our fourth copy of Mother Goose.
And today, with 13 grandchildren, I’ve kept on buying, and I’ve stopped counting.
I clearly remember the day that my financial education began.
It was 1956, and I was nine years old.
In our family of 5 kids, Dad doled out our allowances before church every Sunday. We each received a penny per year of age, so at that time, my allowance was 9 cents, and one penny went into the Sunday School offering plate.
But on that memorable day, Dad announced that he had increased my allowance to 40 cents a week.
I could hardly breathe. The news was so unexpected.
Then, Dad explained that I now my responsibilities would now increase along with my cash flow. He and Mom would buy my start-up school supplies as usual.
But after that, Dad explained, I would have to buy my paper, pencils and other school supplies throughout the school year.
I would also need to save –
to buy birthday and Christmas presents for the rest of the family or come up with the cash to get the new bike I wanted.
It made me feel suddenly grown up, in charge, loaded with money and responsibility.
But then of course, new problems also suddenly demanded solutions:
Which store sold paper cheaper? (I learned to scout for bargains, to do comparison shopping, to check the Sunday newspaper for local ads.)
And…what should I say to the freeloaders at school who asked to borrow my paper but never paid me back? Or asked to borrow pencils but never returned them?
Now that I had to take those losses myself, I learned the whys of ethics.
My parents showed me how to use my allowance to develop a plan for spending and saving, but as I grew older my wants (and even some of my needs) grew greater than my parents’ ability to increase my allowance.
So, I developed a babysitting clientele and used the money I earned to buy fashionable clothes, go to camp, and so on. I learned to sew and make crafts to stretch my gift money and increase my wardrobe for less money.
When a child’s income depends on what adults can be convinced to provide, the child tends to learn how to manage people instead of learning how to manage money.
On the other hand, a regular allowance can be a parent’s best tool for preparing children to manage large sums of money on their own one day.
The Consumer Credit Counseling Service at the El Paso YWCA gives these suggestions for teaching money management through a regular allowance:
Wait until your child is ready.
Kids under 8 or 9 may not have the patience to save money or the emotional readiness to make the decisions required for a simple saving and spending plan.
Figure out basic expenses.
Help your children keep track of the money they spend for two or three weeks and use that information to estimate how much they need.
Begin with a simple plan.
An envelope system often works well at first. Show children how to divide their allowance up into envelopes labeled for different purposes—savings, contributions for church or synagogue, lunch money, ongoing school supplies, fun money, etc. The younger the child, the fewer the responsibilities (and envelopes).
Decide together on a safe place to keep the envelopes and explain how important it is to take money from them only when needed.
Be consistent.
Children need a regular amount paid on the same day each week—or each month for older children—to learn how to plan. Learning to manage irregular amounts at irregular times is too complicated for children.
So, if the family income is irregular (and believe me, I’ve been there), when money comes in, parents need to set aside the total amount of allowance their child will need for the next several weeks to give it later on schedule.
Make adjustments as necessary.
When children ask for an increase in allowance, they should be able to make an account of how they spend their money now – but not to the penny. It’s reasonable for about 10 percent to be unaccounted for. After kids make an accounting, they can figure out with their parents whether the increase they want is for needs or wants. Then, make the decision based on need and family income.
Re-evaluate regularly as your child’s expenses and ability to handle responsibility increase.
Parents may increase a teenager’s allowance, for example, to include a clothing budget. Their teen is then responsible for buying their clothes and must make decisions about, for example, saving money ahead of winter to buy a winter coat and boots.
Responsible money management is a necessary survival skill. No child should leave home without it.
How can parents who don’t know English help their kids in school?
Patricia is a young mom who moved to El Paso from Mexico as a teen. Recently, she asked me how to prepare her kindergartner for reading.
“Children need to be able to hear differences in the sounds of words before they start reading,” I explained. “One way to help your daughter is to play rhyming games like this: you say ‘hat-mat.’ She repeats the last word you said and says another word that rhymes: ‘mat-sat.’ Just keep doing that: sat-fat, fat-bat.”
“I can’t think of rhyming words quickly,” Maria said. “It’s hard for me in English.”
“Then play the rhyming game in Spanish,” I said. “You’re training her ear to hear the difference in sounds. If she learns to do it in Spanish, she’ll transfer that ability to English in school.”
Parents like Maria, who are still learning English themselves, usually feel handicapped trying to help their children in school.
But if these parents nurture their children’s essential learning ability, that ability will transfer across language boundaries.
Children without this basic ability will usually have trouble in school, even if they grow up in a home that speaks only English.
So, what parts of a child’s life can parents nurture without knowing English?
Curiosity and thinking skills
A child curious in one language will be curious in English, too. Parents encourage curiosity by taking time when children show interest in something like a bug or plant, responding warmly to their questions, and finding books about their special interests.
Giving kids lots of experiences encourages curiosity, too, like:
Basic math
Once children understand how to count, add, subtract, divide, etc. in one language, they can perform the same operations in a new language.
All they have to do is learn new vocabulary.
Love of books
Children whose parents read books to them in their native language will be drawn to books in English, too.
Books increase children’s vision of the world and teach them how to use language in general. Books also stimulate their imagination, lengthen their attention span, and help children develop thinking skills. Books are the doorway to an academic education.
Storytelling
Listening to stories builds children’s vocabulary in the storyteller's language. Encouraging children to retell or make up stories develops their ability to express themselves in the language they speak.
However, storytelling and story-making also develop important skills that are not tied to any particular language.
These activities stretch children’s imaginations, build their attention span, and develop social skills.
Some forms of storytelling are better than others for developing kids’ learning skills.
These can be reading, having someone else read to them, listening to stories on tape or radio, or – best of all – having adults tell them stories about “when I was a little girl” or other experiences (as long as the stories are not designed to criticize what a child has said or done).
TV and the internet are full of stories. Unfortunately, these stories are usually shown in shallow ways that keep children’s attention span short. With screen stories, kids tend to respond emotionally instead of developing their thinking skills.
A sense of being loved and valued
Children who feel they aren’t worth much or aren’t sure their parents love them will often be too preoccupied to do well in school.
Instead of concentrating on schoolwork, they may look for ways to hide their shame and to find love and acceptance from peers.
Character development and spiritual values
Does a boy keep going until the job is done, or does he quit easily? Does a girl do chores willingly, or does she grumble and gripe and make everyone around her miserable?
Children’s moral character and spiritual values affect all their relationships, work habits, and work attitudes in school.
Talking with children while working alongside them teaches attitudes and values. Storytelling can be a natural part of that process, as can the all-important development of a child’s sense of being loved and valued.
Did you notice what was missing from this list?
I’ll tell you: screens. Like TV, tablets, computers, phones…
Our world is full of screens, and we’re busy. (And when we aren’t busy, we may be looking at a screen ourselves). We must discipline ourselves to do what’s best for our children’s future instead of what’s easiest for us to do now.
Good parenting is more important for children than knowing a particular language. Parents don’t need to speak English to give their children a healthy childhood and an enormous boost over the language hurdle.
© Becky Cerling Powers 2024 reprint with attribution only www.beckypowers.com
For more parenting insights from Becky Cerling Powers read her parenting book Sticky Fingers, Sticky Minds: quick reads for helping kids thrive in the Bookstore