2011 Calendar
Date Host Presenter
Jan 9 Donna Jeannie Lythcott
Mar 6 Helena Nancy Wulff
May 1 Michele member mixer
July 10 Marcie Open
Sep 17 Kathy Open
Nov 6 Dee Open
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2011 Presenters Needed
For our January 9 meeting GaGa Jeannie is going to present some easy but intriguing science investigations using everyday equipment that we can do with our grandchildren.
For our March 6 meeting artist Nancy Wulff will discuss the different stages of art development and the creative process in children. She'll also teach us some art projects to do with our grandchildren.
For our May 1 meeting we're going to have a member mixer instead of a presenter. We'll have small group discussions and opportunities to get to know each other.
We still need presenters for July 10, September 17, and November 6. If you have any suggestions for topics or speakers, please let me know.
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Greetings!
The big rainstorm on November 7 did not dampen the spirits of 22 GaGas who drove over the hill to Half Moon Bay for our meeting. Being the week after Halloween, the fields were still covered with bright orange carpets of leftover pumpkins, providing a spectacular distraction along Highway 92. We had time to warm up with tea and Jen's Neenish Tarts (a pastry originating in Australia) before listening to our speaker, Gabrielle Miller, executive director of Raising A Reader.
Our host, Irene, announced that her seventh grandchild was born at 10:29 that morning. Grey weighed 7 lbs. 14 oz. and would be coming home--next door--the following day.
As usual, we kept our group introductions to 30 seconds by just saying our name, birthplace, and favorite past times. But the intros netted some wonderful connections: two GaGas from Ireland met and discovered they both love to hike; three native San Franciscans did a little "Go Giants!" cheer; and we discovered we have a very international group of grandmas from Russia, Vienna, New Zealand, and Italy. In addition to the popular pastimes of hiking, photography, travel, reading, and gardening, the most unusual were Irish dancing and bowling.
Gabrielle's information-packed presentation included some background on Raising A Reader, the science of early brain development, and techniques for reading to our grandchildren. GaGa Ann suggested we pass an envelop for donations to Raising A Reader. We collected $350 to donate to the organization.
With the holidays coming up I hope you'll have lots of time with your grandchildren and look for opportunities to read with them.
I wish you a joyful holiday season,
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 Before coming to Raising A Reader (RAR), Gabrielle Miller worked for a literacy organization that gave away 16 million books to 4 million children. But she never knew what happened to those books. As Executive Director of RAR, she knows exactly where the books are going and the impact they're having. RAR is a national nonprofit organization offering literacy and parent engagement programs that have demonstrated they can improve the reading readiness skills of children birth to age five.
Their mission is to engage parents in a routine of "book cuddling" with their children to foster healthy brain development, parent-child bonding, and early literacy skills critical for school success. The program emphasizes three principles:- Create new behavior.
- Practice it.
- Sustain it.
RAR implements these strategies by giving each child in the program a bright red bag filled with award-winning books to take home on a weekly basis. The child is exposed to approximately 100 books per year. At the end of the program, there's a graduation ceremony in red cap and gown. Each child receives a blue library bag to keep and continue the practice of borrowing books and "book cuddling."
Gabrielle admitted that the low income population served by RAR is very different from our grandchildren. But even today's busy working moms would love to get the little red bag for their children. So many moms don't have time to go to the library and even when they do, it's hard to know which books to select.
Literacy and Brain Development
Gabrielle showed a PowerPoint presentation to explain the science of early brain development. In the first few years of a child's life, 700 new neural connections are formed every second. Sensory pathways for vision and hearing develop first, followed by early language skills and then higher cognitive functions. By age two a brain is 80% of its adult size and by age five it has reached 90% of its adult size. The critical window for oral language acquisition, especially grammar and pronunciation, closes at age five.
Reading helps the brain grow and build neural pathways. Reading involves 17 brain regions that integrate hearing, vision, judgment, memory, letter perception, and differentiation of sound units and words. The two major strands of early literacy development are like a rope that weaves together language comprehension and word recognition. It takes 14 - 20 exposures to a word to develop fluency with that word.Prompts to Use with Books
Books are important because they expose a child to vocabulary and syntax that normal conversations don't always do. Gabrielle explained the concept of "dialogic reading," which involves looking for opportunities to be actively involved in creating a dialogue with your grandchild. Ask what's happening in the pictures and then be patient while you wait silently for a response. She brought books for all of us to practice the technique of making up a story by just looking at the pictures. It doesn't have to match the words. We worked in pairs taking turns with storytelling, which is even more powerful in developing language than reading.
Here are some prompts to use with books:
1. Thinking prompts help build language and provide opportunities for children to extend their language.
- Personal connections: ask children to relate the pictures or words in the story to personal experiences outside the book.
- Extension questions: ask questions that extend the responses and comprehension about the story being read (what, where, when, why and how)
2. Knowledge prompts ask children to remember details of books that help build language and vocabulary.
- Completion is used with books that rhyme or have repetitive phrases and the child fills in the answer.
- Recall is used to ask details after a book has been read.
3. Picture walks help children get involved with a new book. As the child looks at the pictures of a new book, ask questions about items on the page or what is happening in the pictures.
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The Love Goddess' Cooking School
 If you're looking for a fun holiday read, check out Melissa Senate's new novel. I just finished reading and reviewing it and could have easily finished it in one sitting. Instead, I decided to savor it over several days. To read my review click here.
The book caught my attention when I learned it's about a grandmother-granddaughter relationship. Senate builds the story around four students enrolled in the granddaughter's cooking class and cleverly intertwines their lives so you're never sure where she's going next. She also captures the tensions and jealousies between mother and daughter.
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The GaGa Zone
Please continue sending me pictures and stories of you with your grandchildren for the GaGa Zone. Mary Ann Mills' grandson, Giants fan James, proclaims, "We're number one!" He was 9 months old when this picture was taken and she'd just taken him to his first game.
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