LOS ANGELES -- On a Thursday afternoon in early November, over 50 parents, mostly Latinos, packed a little classroom at Victoria Avenue Elementary in south Los Angeles, eager to learn about how they can help their children to read.It was the 32nd such parent training workshop long-time educator Dale Petrulis had put together in the past seven weeks. Petrulis said she squeezed all the sessions into the beginning of the school year because she wanted parents to start reading to their children as soon as possible.
Petrulis is the Southern California regional manager for Bring Me A Book, a statewide nonprofit organization set up to promote reading as a way to strengthen the literary skills of California’s underserved children in schools.
During the 90 minute parental training at Victoria Avenue, Colleen Triesch, the organization’s regional training coordinator, demonstrated reading techniques and vocabulary building skills to parents. More importantly, she sent out a strong message that parents should make it a daily habit to read with their kids.
“They assumed that’s the school responsibility,” said Triesch, a bilingual 25-year educator in child development in Southern California. “They never have the opportunity to understand their role in the education system as partners.”
No comments:
Post a Comment