October 23, 2024 • 41 mins
How do we help our children become good and confident readers? In this episode from the archives, Carol explores this important topic with literacy expert Maya Smart, author of Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan From Birth to Six. Maya shares invaluable tips and strategies for helping children become strong, confident readers. From nurturing early literacy at home to building strong partnerships with teachers, Maya's advice is both practical and empowering. This conversation is a must-listen for parents and caregivers committed to setting their children on the path to lifelong literacy success.
Follow us at @GroundControlParenting and on groundcontrolparenting.com.
And don’t forget to subscribe to the Substack newsletter for behind-the-scenes info, bonus parenting tips, and more!.
Follow us at @GroundControlParenting and on groundcontrolparenting.com.
And don’t forget to subscribe to the Substack newsletter for behind-the-scenes info, bonus parenting tips, and more!.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, Ground Control Parenting Crew. It's Carol Sutton Lewis your host,
and this season I'm guiding us on our journey through
the stages of child development. Now we're diving into the
ages of three to eleven, where one of the biggest
milestones takes center stage. Reading. This week, I'm pulling a
gem from the archives, a must listen episode with author
and literary expert Maya Smart about how to raise skilled,
(00:24):
confident readers. In this episode, Maya gives us the essential
playbook for building strong readers from day one. She shares
practical strategies for getting our children reading ready and tells
us how to partner with teachers to ensure our kids
are making steady progress. One more thing before we get started,
be sure to subscribe to my substack Ground Control Parenting
newsletter for all the extras, behind the scenes content, parenting tips,
(00:48):
and more. Just head to substack dot com search for
Ground Control Parenting and you'll be able to subscribe. Thanks
for listening and enjoy the episode. Hello and welcome the
Ground Control Parenting a blog and now a podcast creative
for parents raising black and brown children. I'm the creator
(01:10):
and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In this podcast series,
I talk with some really interesting people about the job
and the joy of parenting. I am so happy to
welcome Maya Payne Smart to the podcast today. Maya is
a book lover, an educator, and an author whose book
Reading for Our Lives, a Literacy Action Plan from Birth
to Six, gives parents practical tips for raising confident, fluent readers.
(01:34):
Her website mayasmart dot com provides tips and tools for
parents to nurture, support, and advocate for their children's quests
to become strong readers. Maya graduated with honors from Harvard
University and received a master's degree in journalism from the
Medill School at Northwestern. She holds a faculty appointment and
educational policy and leadership in the College of Education at
Marquette University. She and her husband, Shaka Smart, head men's
(01:57):
basketball coach at Marquette, have a daughter, Zora, who welcome
to Ground Control Parenting.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Maya, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Really happy to have you, and I'm so glad that
Nancy read. Our mutual friend who's also been on the podcast,
Connected Us, so I can't wait to talk with you
about all the great work that you're doing to help
parents with one of their most important responsibilities, helping their
children become good, confident readers. Now, I imagine most parents
know how important it is that their children learn to read,
(02:26):
but most don't have an intuitive sense of how to
help them master this really critical skill. But now, thanks
to your research and all the tools and tips you've
gathered in this book, they have a roadmap. So I
want to hear all about it. So let's get started.
I'd like to start with asking you how and where
you grew up. I always like to ask parents about
their childhood memories. So where did you grow up and
(02:47):
can you give us your earliest memories of becoming a reader.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yes, I grew up in akro And, Ohio. Prior to that,
I was in Kent, Ohio up until preschool. So my
mom worked her entire career at k State University. So
a lot of my early memories are related to things
at that university. They had a Virginia Hamilton conference and
so she would always bring home those wonderful children's books,
and so I just grew up surrounded by just wonderful
(03:14):
books that showed images of black children. And then when
we moved to Akron when I was in kindergarten. I
have vivid memories of Airs Branch Library, which was a
former physician's home that had become a library. So it
was just the absolute coziest place to read. And so
I remember walking in there to the kids section. I
made the right turn when you came in the front door,
(03:36):
and would just spend so much time. My neighbor was
a librarian there, so I just have so many memories
of being surrounded by books and reading books. I don't
have many memories actually of being read too, although I
know I must have been.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So funny you say that I too have really really
strong memories of being in our public library. I grew
up in Queen's and when I was really young and
my mom was a reading teacher, and we would take
me to the library all the time, And as you
described it, I can see where I would go to
the children's section to find books. I mean, I know
you do a lot of work in libraries, and there
is nothing better than just being able to walk into
(04:12):
that house of books and pick one out and get
to take one home. So it sounds like you did.
You grew up physically with a lot of books. Around you.
Were your parents avid readers as well?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
My mom definitely was. I think that my dad was also,
but less books and literature. For him. It was more
practical books. He was a lawyer, so I remember he
had a giant, giant Webster's Dictionary in his office and
it was on a podium all by itself, and when
I would ask him questions about things, he would say,
win and doubt look it up. So I just I
spent a lot of time thumbing through this giant thing,
(04:47):
which is of course unimaginable for kids today because they
can look up things on their computers, or you know,
a parent will just open their phone and look something up.
But there was this giant book with center stage in
his office. And then I remember or a few other
books on his shelf, things like how to Win Friends
and Influence people, or The Power Positive Thinking, So those
sort of kind of classic self help books.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, Dale Carnegie, I remember, I certainly even knew we
had those on our shelves as well. So let's fast forward. Now,
you grew up in this book rich environment, and were
you an interested reader? I mean, did you do you
remember loving to read when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I do remember loving it. I'm an only child, and
I'm the kind of only child that to this day
I can sit and read a book all day and
be perfectly happy in a chair as a child with
a hot chocolate or something, and as an adult with
tea or coffee and just am completely content And read
a wide range of things, so literature but also how
to things and memoirs and all the different genres. I
(05:48):
just love books and reading. And then as a child
in elementary school, I remember having wonderful teachers who really
encouraged me to write, and so those two things kind
of went hand in hand for me as well. Thought
I would be a writer, but didn't know that I
would write about reading.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Still, let me ask you you, maybe you're younger than
I am. You may not have had this in your school,
but when you were growing up, did they have those
I think it was Scholastic. Did they have the book
sales where you would get a sheet to fill out
and you could order books and then they would come
in the classroom you would fill out. Yeah, yes, that
was so exciting you would fill out a sheet this.
(06:24):
I'm sure this doesn't happen anymore. I mean I hope
it does. But it's all probably digital. But you'd get
a sheet and sort of like an order pad, and
you could check off from home. You've been told how
many books you could order, and then you'd give them
sheet back, and then weeks would go by, and then suddenly,
but just as you've forgotten all about it, you get
it's like a present of books. So I wonder if
(06:45):
that actually still happens.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, I definitely have that memory of sort of flipping
through the little paper catalog. It was the material of newsprint,
if I remember absolutely correctly, and you kind of check
off your selections. But we didn't have many bookstores in
the way that they're are, cute independent bookstores with different vibes.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Then we had b Dalton bookseller Walden Books in the
shopping mall is where I remember those smaller bookstores. So
when you're in those little bookstores, there's kind of a
limited selection. So I would read every book in a series,
you know, all the Babysitters Club, all the Sweet Valley High,
all the Fear Street whatever they had.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, those are great, great memories. Let's fast forward now.
So now you have a darling baby girl and you
have said that you wish you'd had this book when
your daughter was very young, So how did you approach
reading with her? And how soon did you approach reading
with her?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I started from day one, as soon as she came home,
reading board books. And I had this collection of wonderful,
beautiful children's literature with you know, gorgeous illustrations and you know,
poetic minds. And an infant, of course, is not getting
the full benefit of the selection of books that I
had curated, and so I just had a lot of questions.
(08:01):
I remember being really comforted by a little board book
by Jabari Jasim that went Little Princess Honeydew, Giggly Wiggly,
precious Pearl, I'm so glad that you're my girl. And
I would just sit there and rock and read this
one little board book over and over. And I had
a little bit of intensity about it because I wanted
her to be a reader, and I was like, we
have to read every day. And I was like, I'm
(08:22):
sure she doesn't mind the repetition, but I'm a detailed person,
so I think just personality wise. After a couple of
weeks of that, I was like, there has to be
more to it than reading to her. To help her
become a reader. So I got curious just about the
mechanics of it, what does it take? So I had
memories of already knowing how to read, so I had
(08:43):
no idea how to teach it if I needed to,
And I didn't know that she would just pick it
up either. So it's just that kind of curiosity, like
if reading these books over and over again isn't enough,
what else do I need to do?
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Huh? I love that spirit. So is that what led
you to dive into the research pool of early literacy?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It was that combined with news articles. So she mentioned,
I have a journalism background, and I remember when she
was two or three, coming across a lot of articles
about disparities and reading achievement between black children and white children,
and they were so vast. And of course we know
that those are numbers on average, like on average, black
(09:23):
children' score lower than white children in this metric, in
that metric. But I really wanted to know why, as
a black mom, what was different about the education our
kids were receiving in school? What was different about their
preparation prior to school? What was going on in all
these different kinds of kindergarten or all the different kinds
of preschool programs. I had my daughter in a Montessori
(09:46):
program that I loved it. It had this emphasis on nature
and outdoor time and exploration and you know, practical life skills.
They're pouring water and little jugs and sweeping the floor,
doing all these things. But again, I wanted to know,
how does this connect to reading? And they were also
doing things like teaching them cursive. They're tracing sandpaper letters
(10:09):
that were cursive. So I'm looking at those sandpaper letters
and seeing that there's a disconnect between just even the
shapes of letters that they're focused on in school and
the print that I'm reading in the picture books. So
I just had a lot of questions. So it's a
combination of feeling like I needed to be doing more
and not knowing what the more was, and then just
(10:30):
deep concern for black children in general. So then when
I put the two together, it was sort of like,
I need to figure this out for myself, and then
whatever I learned that works, I want to share with
other parents. And so it started with some blog posts
and then got more focused and more serious over time.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Wow, that is great, and I love this especially because
it tracks a similar story for me, and that once
I got a lot of information about parenting, I really
wanted to share it and I love that instinct. And
so it's to everybody's benefit that you had all those questions.
So I've heard you say that one of the most
important things that you hope parents learn from your book
(11:07):
is that it's never too early to start helping your
child to learn to read. I mean, as you said,
you instinctively knew to start as soon as she came home.
And while everybody doesn't know that, some people may think
they can't sit up and look at the book. You
know it's too soon. But can you tell us why
starting really early from day one is so important.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
There are two big pieces of it, and so one
is looking at print and kind of mapping those lines
and curves on paper to sounds. But the other enormous
piece of it is vocabulary and background knowledge and things
that contribute to their comprehension. So even if a child
when they're three or four or five or six, or
however they are, when they learn to decode and map
(11:46):
the letters to sound, they can sound out words but
still have no understanding of what they mean, or no
understanding of what they mean when they're together in a
sentence or a paragraph. So building a strong vocabulary is
so important, and that vocabulary is built through conversation, and
so as parents, it's extraordinarily helpful if we talk to
(12:08):
babies as if they understand us, and we pay attention
to their gaze and what they're pointing at and those
babbels and respond. The more we respond, the more they babble,
and it really develops their ability to express themselves verbally.
And then when we get to the point where we
understand what they're saying and they understand what we're saying,
(12:28):
it's sort of a gradual thing. It's not like, you know,
on their second birthday or some particular month they get it.
It's a sort of accumulative process. And so part of
it is building the parent habit of talk and conversation
early so that we're well practiced in it by the
time it really counts.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Ah, that's interesting, and I appreciate that I hadn't thought
of it that way. I mean, because to your point,
none of us when our babies are born have all
of this information in our head at the ready, and
we have to practice doing what it takes to to
engage them, and so we have a longer runway if
we start as soon as they're born, so by the
time by the time they're old enough to respond, we're
(13:08):
really good at it. So you talk a lot about
this conversation, as you said, the back and forth, and
this I found really intriguing. And there's been studies that
show that children have to hear a lot of words,
but it sounds as if what you're saying it's not
just words, but it's vocabulary, it's conversation, it's engaging the
child in conversation. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Absolutely, you got it exactly right. And I too thought
of the advice to talk to your baby or talk
to your toddler as being about what I was saying,
what I was imparting to Zora. But the learning for
the child is really in that exchange, in the dialogue,
in them attempting to say something in response when they're
cooping and babbling in the beginning, and as they get older,
(13:52):
them listening, understanding what you're saying, responding, challenging you, elaborating,
asking questions. And so if we think of the talking
more about the talking that they're doing even before it's
in fully fleshed out, complete sentences and words that we understand.
I've overheard recently conversations in the airport between parents and
young children, and they don't seem to understand really a
(14:14):
word of what the little one is saying, but they're
nodding and smiling and encouraging. But one day that child
will speak clearly enough that the parent will really understand.
But there's so much I always want to see that.
I always want to pull that parent aside and say,
you're doing such a great job keeping up, because there
are also parents who who aren't talking and think, oh,
(14:36):
it's just it's a baby. They don't understand. Why would
I talk to someone that can't reply?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, yeah, no, No, that's exactly right. When I read
about your talking to this conversation, I'm thinking, hmm, I
wonder what that really looks like. But I know what
it looks like. You know, you're when your child is
a day old, you can look at its little face
and say, oh, are you hungry? You sound like you're hungry,
and then they'll say something back, or they'll cry or whatever,
and you can take that response as their conversation. Then
(15:04):
just keep going. I mean, people do it with their
animals all the time, so it's easy they really do.
It's easy to do with your children as well.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And the thing for parents to remember is that parents
speak a lot less than we think we do. Even
parents who do know to engage back and forth with
kids often could do it a bit more if they
had just gotten that insight that this really matters. You're
building their brain, you're nurturing their development. And then there
are other parents. I am a more introverted, quiet parent,
(15:37):
so I think there are sort of temperament personality differences
that impact how much parents speak with kids, and so
we need some public awareness campaigns so that the quiet
parents speak up.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
You know, I think that's a really important point. I mean,
I'm a natural extrovert, always have been, and so I
was happy to have somebody else to talk to when
the baby came along. But now I have an array
of children and they range in from introverted to extroverted.
And I appreciate that children people who are quieter. I
mean a lot of thoughts are in their head, but
they don't speak as much. So for parents out there
(16:08):
that aren't naturally inclined, it is chitter chatter, and in
fact may even be annoyed by that. As a concept,
if you think of them, you might want to think
of this as sort of a parenting role that you
should take on for the benefit of your child, because
even if it's not your natural instinct, it's really helpful
for them. You've also talked about the importance of narration,
of talking to children about what's going on around them.
(16:31):
I mean, in an effort, I guess to make conversation.
You can just point out things and if they raise
their hand in that direction, you can sort of talk
to them about it. When I'm on the streets of
New York City and I see a lot of people
pushing strollers, you know, with the invariably they're on their
phone because the baby's in the carriage, and there's not
a lot of back and forth because understandably parents think
(16:52):
this is some me time because they're going to a destination.
But I often think that would be a great opportunity
to engage with your child as you pass things. You know,
is that a point for narration? Is that the kind
of narration you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yes, and so in the book, I describe an acronym
talk and the T is for taking turns, just to
remind people about the importance of exchange and dialogue. And
the A is asked questions because that's a natural way
when you have sort of run out of things to say,
then it's a natural way to prompt their thinking and response.
But the L is for label and point, and so
(17:28):
that's a great one for the parent that's tired and
you're like, I don't have anything else to say but
talk about the blade of grass and how green it
is or how puiny it is. And so in any situation,
unless you're in a sensory deprivation tank, there's something around
you that has some color, some shape, some texture, something
that you can talk about. And then the K and
that acronym is just keep the conversation going. And so
(17:51):
I was really thoughtful about the elements of that little
acronym because I was like, what does the research say.
There's a lot of research about parents. The particular study
featured moms, not dad, but moms who asked questions during
storytime and how that was correlated positively with language development
and kids. So if people are remembering to take turns,
(18:13):
they're remembering to ask questions, which is another way of
taking turns. If you listen for the answer and then
labeling and pointing, you're also giving them all that vocabulary.
Early on, they're learning really concrete things, names and colors
and things that they can touch and picture. But then
you can keep labeling and pointing to more abstract things
(18:33):
as they get older.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Wow, that's great. I want to ask you about briefly
about book reading, because you mentioned that as an important thing.
I mean parents. I think anyone who thinks about raising
a reader thinks about reading to them at some point.
But you note, as the research has as well, that
it's not the be all end all. If that's all
you do, then you're not necessarily doing enough. So can
(18:56):
you just give us a few tips? Is what parents
can do? We all know parents get tired and they
can't always read every day. But are there ways that
when they can read to their child they can be
more effective in helping them understand the reading process.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
I think that parents can apply that talk acronym to
book reading as well. So as you're reading, you can
still label end point, but you point to the red
ball in the picture, or you point to the title,
or you sort of bring their attention particularly once they're
around three and can start to pay attention to letters
and distinguish them from numbers. You can make the book
(19:33):
itself the object of the book, a topic of conversation
because people forget that kids have to learn all those things.
They have to learn which way is the right side up,
and that the text goes left to right and from
top to bottom. And you just be surprised by the
number of kids at enter school not knowing those things.
But it's not hard for a parent to teach about
(19:56):
books about print. Oh, and then also asking questions about
what you've read to get their engagement and see what
they're thinking.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
That makes a lot of sense. A quick question about
digital books. So is it important in your estimation that
parents have actual books? I mean, I'm old school. I
love flipping. I mean I love the turning pages in
a book, and so to me, i'd prefer to read
a child the book where you turn the page. But
does it really matter if you've got a kindle and
(20:25):
you're flipping it electronically? Does that still have the same impact.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think it matters with the really little ones because
there's so much they have to learn about turning pages
and they're developing even just motor skills. And when you're
initially building these book behaviors or book experience, sometimes they're
throwing the book, they're chewing on them. You don't want
them to do that with your iPhone or your kindle
or this device that you've paid hundreds of dollars for.
(20:50):
So I think that we have to let kids explore
the object of the book, because it's all about keeping
their attention and engagement. And a book, even those the
little books where there's a patch that's scratchy or a
patch that is silky, where they're exploring the textures, all
of those are really valuable learning experiences for little ones.
(21:11):
We forget they have so much to learn.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah we do.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
We really get to the phase when they need to
dive into devices.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, no, we really do. Forget that. Now that you're
saying this, it's like how you think they just come
out knowing you read left or right and which way
is up? But nope, we have to teach all of
them this. We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome
back to the show. I want to just skip ahead.
First of all, I should just take a quick aside
and say, parents, you must get this book for many reasons.
(21:39):
First of all, it's a really impressive gathering of really
important information and then sort of absorbed and then redistributed
in a way that it's a great how to. And
you list six different sort of areas that parents can
focus on. I'm going to skip ahead to one that
you list at the end, which is advocacy, because you
talk about the important portance of focusing on children's reading
(22:02):
from a very young age, not only to help their
brain development, but also to help you, as a parent,
become a better advocate for them as they get into
school and get more involved in the nuts and bolts
of reading and becoming stronger and better readers of more
complicated material. So you've got this great roadmap for parents.
How can they use your book to approach teachers as
(22:24):
children get into school? I mean, if your child is
reading when they start school, for example, should you bring
this to the teacher's attention, Should you talk about the
kinds of things that you've been doing. Should you expect
that the teacher is going to continue in the same
way in terms of teaching the child reading.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I think it's definitely important for parents to have an
open dialogue with teachers should view it to the extent
that you can as a partnership and you're all part
of this village that supporting your child, and you get
to a point where the teacher is really with them
more than you are, in some cases half the time
that they're with you. But it is important to I
(23:06):
always encourage parents to remember to give a positive spin
on their child, particularly when they're introducing the child to
a new teacher or new school, and leave space for
the school or teacher to do their own assessments and
just be curious about the information that you're receiving back,
(23:27):
because I've definitely heard from parents who are researchers like me,
who know a lot about these subjects, and sometimes they'll
go into the teacher and download this report and it
can color the teacher's perspective of your child in ways
that you don't anticipate.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Absolutely, absolutely, I actually have a story about that. My mom,
as I said, was a teacher. She taught me to read.
I knew how to read by the time I got
to kindergarten. So it was public school, and they had
open school night where the parents come in to talk
teachers and see what's going on and my mom went
into the classroom and talked to my kindergarten teacher, and
before they started talking about me specifically, they were just
teacher to teacher, sort of trading stories of what the
(24:10):
teaching experience has been like. And this teacher as says
my mother, can you believe somebody taught their kid to read?
You know, I put these slides up and the kids
trying to read the slides ahead of me. I mean,
it's not ridiculous. And so the next day I was
moved to the other kindergarten class. So there is to
your point, teachers do make impressions, and sometimes they're not
(24:32):
really great ones. But I tell that story also to
say that it's important for parents to interact with the
teachers so they can just get a sense of what
their perspective is and you know, what the fit is
with your child, and to.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Get a feel for that teacher's capacity to if your
child is ahead. We often think about children who are
behind and what additional resources they may need, but there
are also cases where a child is ahead, and like
in your example, the teachers not willing to teach the
child at the level that the child is at. They're
sort of like, I'm here to teach this grade level material.
(25:06):
You're beyond that, so you know, work on something different,
or teach yourself. You know, my work here is done.
So it's good for parents just to be receptive and
observant and listening to what you're hearing in those parent
teacher conferences and in that back to school night. And
I always encourage parents to read the state standards or
(25:26):
the common core that their state is using to see
what grade level expectations are, what is your child supposed
to be able to know and do at the end
of kindergarten or first grade, Just to have a sense
and ask just a few questions of the teacher about
how they help kids master those things or what they
teach if the child is beyond that. It's there are
(25:49):
a lot of reading. The book is very positive and
encouraging about all the things that parents can do to
get their kids ready for school. But I could write
a whole other book on some of the reader instruction
challenges that they may encounter once kids are school aged.
And so I think, particularly for black and brown parents,
you shouldn't assume that you'll have a teacher who's been
(26:11):
well trained to teach reading and get your child to
whatever in their next level is. We can't assume that,
So we have to be kind of aware of expectations,
aware of where our child is, and then really advocate
to get whatever resources, whether it's remediating if there's an issue,
or enhancements if they're advanced.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
That's really good advice. I want to ask you two
questions on sort of in the same Vein one is
because as you say that, when you read your book,
you're thinking, oh my gosh, I'll follow these really thoughtful
approaches and my child will have a leg up. He
or she will figure this out. So what happens if
you have, despite your best efforts, you can't ignite a
(26:50):
reading spark in your child. Now, I had I have
three children. The first one took to it like a
doctor water. She was an early reader. And I sort
of said, okay, yes, this is the way it goes.
And I had these little books that I little books
that were designed to help children read, and she just
love those. And we so along comes a second child
and I pull out the books and I remember, like
(27:11):
it was yesterday. He said to me very clearly, I
am supposed to learn to read in kindergarten. When I
get to kindergarten, I will learn to read. Perhaps he
wasn't quite that strive. When did you get that idea
you have to wasn't quite that striding. But his point
was I would much rather go and play. I really
don't want to do this, and I don't have to
(27:32):
do this because I'm going to get this. But my
point is there's going to be children that don't take
it to it. I mean, when do you push the
panic button? I mean, thankfully, in this instance, he was right.
He learned to read in kindergarten and sort of took
off from there. But at what point should you be
concerned if there's a slow pace and they're not picking
it up.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I have another handy little acronym for this, and so
that one is when you're trying to navigate these just
challenges as a parent and you're concerned if your child
is on track developmentally, then to kind of help get
your bearing straight, I have a process or framework called GPS,
and so the g IS Guidelines, which really is again
(28:14):
looking at those developmental milestones, looking at the grade level
expectations of schools, and just having an awareness of where
kids of your child's age or grade typically are. So
when you're grounded in that, in some cases you'll breathe
a sigh of relief and think, Okay, they're exactly They
aren't where I thought they should be, but they're where
kids typically are. And then or you may think, oh,
(28:38):
my goodness, they're very far behind. And again those are
those guidelines aren't absolute. It doesn't mean if a child
hasn't hit this benchmark by this year that they're are doomed.
But it's just giving you a general sense of how
things develop and what to look out for in different respects.
Then the p is I think parents should really record
(28:58):
and document their personal reflect on these things. So journal
take notes. It could be in an app on your
phone or in a notebook, but if you're concerned about something,
write down the specific example. So some parents may think
that their child has a speech issue or some kind
of processing issue and write the date, the time, and
a little description, so that down the road, when you're
(29:20):
with the pediatrician or the teacher or the preschool teacher, whoever,
you have kind of a specifics of what you're observing
and feeling about what you're observing relative to those guidelines,
in general expectations, and then the s IS specialists. I
always recommend that parents talk to your pediatrician, ask for
the referral to the speech therapists or whatever you think
(29:42):
the issue is. I've just talked to so many parents
who felt like something was going on. They didn't know
what it was, but they just kept asking questions and
they found out their child had a hearing issue with
the child had a speech issue, and all of those things.
Because oral language is so important for reading, we have
to watch those things early. So I always encourage parents
(30:02):
to be proactive. And I've just heard too many stories
of parents who thought there was an issue talking to
a school or an administrator and the person saying, oh,
it's okay, some kids just take longer. It may be
the case there may be no issue, but there's no
harm in investigating and digging around and saying because oftentimes
there is an issue.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's good to know. So my final
question on this but the purposes of the podcast, I mean,
I could talk to you about this for much longer,
but the last question I'll ask you today is, so
you've raised this reader, You've followed the roadmap, and your
child is a happy reader. Do you think there's a
point where as a parent you should step out of
(30:45):
the reading process with your children? Do you think there's
a point at which they're too old to be read
to or where they need to be independently reading where
you shouldn't be a part of their Say you've developed
this ritual, I mean, is there a point at which
it needs to be some end? Do it?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I don't think there's a point where you have to
step out. I do think there may be a point
where they push you out. So my daughter now is
a middle schooler, and she won't let me read her essays.
She does not want my opinion, she does not want
my edits or thoughts. So she writes her essays, she
turns them in, and I don't know the result until
I see the grade and the online grade book that
(31:22):
the school publishes. So I know parents who read nightly
to their children all the way through high school. If
you have a high schooler who will let you read
to them or read things to you, what a wonderful,
beautiful experience of just years and years of shared books.
And people have told me stories of book clubs. Some
(31:42):
parents read even if the child won't let them read
aloud to them. They may read the same books that
the child is reading, just to have that shared conversation
and those stories to talk about and ask questions about
and connect over.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
When some of my children got to high school, I
kind of dove back in and I learned this from
a friend. And when I first heard it, I thought
it was kind of crazy. But then by the time
my kids got to high school, I actually did it.
What my friend told me was that she would read
some of the same books that her son was reading.
They would read it and then get together and discuss it.
And I thought, oh, my gosh, what overkill. But when
(32:16):
some of my children got to high school, I found
myself doing this because first of all, it was fun
to do, and then I found it was really helpful
to understand, to get a grasp of their reading comprehension
and their reading approach, even as high school is I mean,
it actually gets important in high school because they're doing
a lot of standardized testing, and reading comprehension is really
important by high school. If they can read, they've got
(32:39):
it as a skill set. But that comprehension part sort
of the nuances the things that are tested. But not
just that are tested the things that make you really
enjoy books. It's a deeper level and it's interesting to
see how that develops in a teenager. So I would
find we'd go through these books, and I have to
confess sometimes I would sneak and get the cliff notes
because I didn't have time to read all the books
(33:01):
at the same time. But anyway to just talk about
not only what we're reading, but what do you think
about this and what do you think this character would think.
I mean, it was really fun to engage with these
high schoolers and just to hear about how they ad
grasped things, and frankly, it made me understand a lot
better about how their brains worked. And in instances where
that I didn't think they'd read deeply enough, I could
(33:22):
try to say because that's a very I mean, you're
walking a really thin line there if they're if they're
letting you read the same book you're reading, you really
can't critique too much. But it gives you a good
handle because by the time you get to high school
and you're interacting with their teachers and you really are
a partnership trying to figure out sort of how deeply
they can learn. It's great to have this data in
(33:42):
your head as a parent, so so good. I'm glad.
I'm glad to hear that is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
And again then you have all the shared memories of
all those stories and conversations around them that you can
come back to for years. I agree with picture books.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
I would have to say that probably they are much
fonder men reason my mind than they are my children's.
But but yes, I agree, they are fond memories. So Maya,
As I said, there's so much more that I love
this topic, I love your treatment of it, and I'd
love to keep going. But I'm going to close here
and I'm going to thank you so much for spending
(34:18):
time with me, for having this really great conversation. And
I know that parents who are listening really really appreciate this,
your experience, your advice. You're pouring it all into this
book and giving them a roadmap to help their kids.
So but there's one more thing before we go, and
that is I need you to play the GCP Lightning Round.
(34:39):
So there are four questions. Okay, you're ready, I'm ready, Okay,
here we go. What is your favorite poem or saying.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
My favorite saying is one from my dad, and he
just always taught me to front load my effort and
he would say, work as hard as you can, to
learn as much as you can, as fast as you can.
And I just like that idea because in life things
unexpected things come up and you can fall behind. So
if you have that head start, that jump start, you're
in better position to recover and be resilient.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
That's great. I'm guessing that Zora has heard that from
you once or twice.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
She hasn't, but I'm going to start telling her.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
She will. So give me your favorite two children's books.
So this should be easy, since you're a book lover.
Your favorite two children's books, and they can be from
your childhood or ones that you and Zora enjoy together.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
My favorite children's book from when I was a child,
the one that I would always go directly to in
that Ears Branch Library in Akron, Ohio, is Bringing the
Rain to Capiti Plane, which was just this beautifully illustrated
story about a drought and a father and son kind
of shooting the rain out of a storm cloud. But
there was just beautiful rhythm and repetition and the illustrations
(35:49):
and there were drawings of wild animals and this plane
and it was just another world. And I love that
book and write it over and over. Then as an adult,
my favorite's book is Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, which
is about a new girl in an elementary school environment
and kids kind of teaser and color never knew because
(36:11):
of her hand me down clothes, and she's just constantly
smiling and trying to find her way into friendships and
eventually just plays alone, like can never kind of make
that inroads with the kids. She's absent from school for
a few days. The teacher gives a lesson on kindness
by dropping some pebbles and water and showing the kids
(36:31):
kind of like the ripple effect of doing a kind
thing in One of the girls thinks she's going to
smile and be kind to this girl the next day.
But the girl never comes back to school, her family
has moved away, and it's just to me such just
a powerful moving story, so clearly and succinctly told in
a picture book, that just be nice, be kind, be
(36:51):
more than nice, be kind, be warm, be accepting of people,
And also that hard lesson that kids need and adults
need to be reminded of that you don't always get
another chance to be better, to be kind.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Wow. Wow, that sounds like a great book. And I
mean I'm not surprised. I love Jacqueline Woodson's work, but wow,
that sounds great. Those are great, great answers. So now
we're going to just shift to you as a mom.
And so I need a mom moment that you would
love to do over. And by that I mean that
you could do you would do differently if you did
(37:25):
it over. Nothing deep, just something that you wish you
could redo.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So I remember when my daughter was very young, we
were playing and someone was being nice, just trying to
make conversation and held up a ball with a word
printed on it and asked her to read the word.
And she froze and she said, like just the name
of the first letter. And in my mind, I like
flipped out and overreacted. I'm like, she can't read about
(37:50):
mind you, she was little and didn't need to be reading.
And so I definitely had like that overreaction and that
I wanted her to be assessed and you know, just
going into overdrive like she's behind, she's so mom do
over in the sense of when someone puts your child
on the spot and they're nervous and don't perform, like,
don't don't overreact.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's I'm sure that impacted you as
much as it impacted her, because I know there have
been many times when I've done things and thought oof,
But I'm sure she's fine. So give me a moment
when you knew you nailed it as a mom.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Well, this one is sort of a mixed report, but
one that comes to mind is my daughter got into
a car after school one day crying because she had
overheard someone saying something negative about her and she was
really upset, and it was actually an adult in the school.
And so I, again, perhaps overreacting.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
No such thing.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I'm parking, I'm parking the car, and we're gonna address
adults speaking about children in the school where they can
overhear whatever. And she, my daughter, stopped me, and she
said no, like through tears, no, no, let me go,
Let me go. And I'm thinking she wants to watch
me confront this adult for you know, my limited understanding
the situation for this issue. But I paused and I said,
(39:12):
why do you want to go? And she said, I'll
do it, So I was quiet and just walked into
the school with her and was sort of like kind
of like an ally. I wouldn't say advocate because I
was silent. I was just by her side. And she
approached this adult in school through tears and told her
what she had heard, how she felt about it, and
(39:33):
why that person was wrong in their assessment about what
they had observed. And I was so proud of her
for just the strength that she exhibited in advocating for herself,
even though she was you know, sensitive and hurt through tears.
And I was proud of myself for stepping aside. It
hadn't occurred to me that she could handle that, and
(39:55):
she handled it better than I could have.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Wow, that's a great story. I just have to ask
what was the adult's reaction.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
She apologized to her good for what she has said
and her misunderstanding and all things, and thanked me for
bringing her back into the building.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Wow, that's great. That's a great story. And those are
all such great answers. And I thank you so much
Maya again for being with us today. So everyone make
sure you get the book. It's called Reading for Our Lives.
Maya Pains Smart. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Thank you so much for having me. I love this
conversation great.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Thanks me too. I hope everyone listening enjoyed this conversation
and that you'll come back for more. Please rate, review,
and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and tell your friends.
For more parenting info and advice, please check out the
Ground Control Parenting blog at Groundcontrolparenting dot com. You can
also find us on Instagram and Facebook at ground Control
(40:59):
Parenting and on LinkedIn under Carrol Sutton Lewis. The Ground
Control Parenting with Carrol Sutton Lewis podcast is a part
of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartMedia.
Until the next time, take care and thank
Hey, Ground Control Parenting Crew. It's Carol Sutton Lewis your host,
and this season I'm guiding us on our journey through
the stages of child development. Now we're diving into the
ages of three to eleven, where one of the biggest
milestones takes center stage. Reading. This week, I'm pulling a
gem from the archives, a must listen episode with author
and literary expert Maya Smart about how to raise skilled,
(00:24):
confident readers. In this episode, Maya gives us the essential
playbook for building strong readers from day one. She shares
practical strategies for getting our children reading ready and tells
us how to partner with teachers to ensure our kids
are making steady progress. One more thing before we get started,
be sure to subscribe to my substack Ground Control Parenting
newsletter for all the extras, behind the scenes content, parenting tips,
(00:48):
and more. Just head to substack dot com search for
Ground Control Parenting and you'll be able to subscribe. Thanks
for listening and enjoy the episode. Hello and welcome the
Ground Control Parenting a blog and now a podcast creative
for parents raising black and brown children. I'm the creator
(01:10):
and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In this podcast series,
I talk with some really interesting people about the job
and the joy of parenting. I am so happy to
welcome Maya Payne Smart to the podcast today. Maya is
a book lover, an educator, and an author whose book
Reading for Our Lives, a Literacy Action Plan from Birth
to Six, gives parents practical tips for raising confident, fluent readers.
(01:34):
Her website mayasmart dot com provides tips and tools for
parents to nurture, support, and advocate for their children's quests
to become strong readers. Maya graduated with honors from Harvard
University and received a master's degree in journalism from the
Medill School at Northwestern. She holds a faculty appointment and
educational policy and leadership in the College of Education at
Marquette University. She and her husband, Shaka Smart, head men's
(01:57):
basketball coach at Marquette, have a daughter, Zora, who welcome
to Ground Control Parenting.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Maya, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Really happy to have you, and I'm so glad that
Nancy read. Our mutual friend who's also been on the podcast,
Connected Us, so I can't wait to talk with you
about all the great work that you're doing to help
parents with one of their most important responsibilities, helping their
children become good, confident readers. Now, I imagine most parents
know how important it is that their children learn to read,
(02:26):
but most don't have an intuitive sense of how to
help them master this really critical skill. But now, thanks
to your research and all the tools and tips you've
gathered in this book, they have a roadmap. So I
want to hear all about it. So let's get started.
I'd like to start with asking you how and where
you grew up. I always like to ask parents about
their childhood memories. So where did you grow up and
(02:47):
can you give us your earliest memories of becoming a reader.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yes, I grew up in akro And, Ohio. Prior to that,
I was in Kent, Ohio up until preschool. So my
mom worked her entire career at k State University. So
a lot of my early memories are related to things
at that university. They had a Virginia Hamilton conference and
so she would always bring home those wonderful children's books,
and so I just grew up surrounded by just wonderful
(03:14):
books that showed images of black children. And then when
we moved to Akron when I was in kindergarten. I
have vivid memories of Airs Branch Library, which was a
former physician's home that had become a library. So it
was just the absolute coziest place to read. And so
I remember walking in there to the kids section. I
made the right turn when you came in the front door,
(03:36):
and would just spend so much time. My neighbor was
a librarian there, so I just have so many memories
of being surrounded by books and reading books. I don't
have many memories actually of being read too, although I
know I must have been.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So funny you say that I too have really really
strong memories of being in our public library. I grew
up in Queen's and when I was really young and
my mom was a reading teacher, and we would take
me to the library all the time, And as you
described it, I can see where I would go to
the children's section to find books. I mean, I know
you do a lot of work in libraries, and there
is nothing better than just being able to walk into
(04:12):
that house of books and pick one out and get
to take one home. So it sounds like you did.
You grew up physically with a lot of books. Around you.
Were your parents avid readers as well?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
My mom definitely was. I think that my dad was also,
but less books and literature. For him. It was more
practical books. He was a lawyer, so I remember he
had a giant, giant Webster's Dictionary in his office and
it was on a podium all by itself, and when
I would ask him questions about things, he would say,
win and doubt look it up. So I just I
spent a lot of time thumbing through this giant thing,
(04:47):
which is of course unimaginable for kids today because they
can look up things on their computers, or you know,
a parent will just open their phone and look something up.
But there was this giant book with center stage in
his office. And then I remember or a few other
books on his shelf, things like how to Win Friends
and Influence people, or The Power Positive Thinking, So those
sort of kind of classic self help books.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, Dale Carnegie, I remember, I certainly even knew we
had those on our shelves as well. So let's fast forward. Now,
you grew up in this book rich environment, and were
you an interested reader? I mean, did you do you
remember loving to read when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I do remember loving it. I'm an only child, and
I'm the kind of only child that to this day
I can sit and read a book all day and
be perfectly happy in a chair as a child with
a hot chocolate or something, and as an adult with
tea or coffee and just am completely content And read
a wide range of things, so literature but also how
to things and memoirs and all the different genres. I
(05:48):
just love books and reading. And then as a child
in elementary school, I remember having wonderful teachers who really
encouraged me to write, and so those two things kind
of went hand in hand for me as well. Thought
I would be a writer, but didn't know that I
would write about reading.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Still, let me ask you you, maybe you're younger than
I am. You may not have had this in your school,
but when you were growing up, did they have those
I think it was Scholastic. Did they have the book
sales where you would get a sheet to fill out
and you could order books and then they would come
in the classroom you would fill out. Yeah, yes, that
was so exciting you would fill out a sheet this.
(06:24):
I'm sure this doesn't happen anymore. I mean I hope
it does. But it's all probably digital. But you'd get
a sheet and sort of like an order pad, and
you could check off from home. You've been told how
many books you could order, and then you'd give them
sheet back, and then weeks would go by, and then suddenly,
but just as you've forgotten all about it, you get
it's like a present of books. So I wonder if
(06:45):
that actually still happens.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yes, I definitely have that memory of sort of flipping
through the little paper catalog. It was the material of newsprint,
if I remember absolutely correctly, and you kind of check
off your selections. But we didn't have many bookstores in
the way that they're are, cute independent bookstores with different vibes.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Then we had b Dalton bookseller Walden Books in the
shopping mall is where I remember those smaller bookstores. So
when you're in those little bookstores, there's kind of a
limited selection. So I would read every book in a series,
you know, all the Babysitters Club, all the Sweet Valley High,
all the Fear Street whatever they had.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, those are great, great memories. Let's fast forward now.
So now you have a darling baby girl and you
have said that you wish you'd had this book when
your daughter was very young, So how did you approach
reading with her? And how soon did you approach reading
with her?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I started from day one, as soon as she came home,
reading board books. And I had this collection of wonderful,
beautiful children's literature with you know, gorgeous illustrations and you know,
poetic minds. And an infant, of course, is not getting
the full benefit of the selection of books that I
had curated, and so I just had a lot of questions.
(08:01):
I remember being really comforted by a little board book
by Jabari Jasim that went Little Princess Honeydew, Giggly Wiggly,
precious Pearl, I'm so glad that you're my girl. And
I would just sit there and rock and read this
one little board book over and over. And I had
a little bit of intensity about it because I wanted
her to be a reader, and I was like, we
have to read every day. And I was like, I'm
(08:22):
sure she doesn't mind the repetition, but I'm a detailed person,
so I think just personality wise. After a couple of
weeks of that, I was like, there has to be
more to it than reading to her. To help her
become a reader. So I got curious just about the
mechanics of it, what does it take? So I had
memories of already knowing how to read, so I had
(08:43):
no idea how to teach it if I needed to,
And I didn't know that she would just pick it
up either. So it's just that kind of curiosity, like
if reading these books over and over again isn't enough,
what else do I need to do?
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Huh? I love that spirit. So is that what led
you to dive into the research pool of early literacy?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It was that combined with news articles. So she mentioned,
I have a journalism background, and I remember when she
was two or three, coming across a lot of articles
about disparities and reading achievement between black children and white children,
and they were so vast. And of course we know
that those are numbers on average, like on average, black
(09:23):
children' score lower than white children in this metric, in
that metric. But I really wanted to know why, as
a black mom, what was different about the education our
kids were receiving in school? What was different about their
preparation prior to school? What was going on in all
these different kinds of kindergarten or all the different kinds
of preschool programs. I had my daughter in a Montessori
(09:46):
program that I loved it. It had this emphasis on nature
and outdoor time and exploration and you know, practical life skills.
They're pouring water and little jugs and sweeping the floor,
doing all these things. But again, I wanted to know,
how does this connect to reading? And they were also
doing things like teaching them cursive. They're tracing sandpaper letters
(10:09):
that were cursive. So I'm looking at those sandpaper letters
and seeing that there's a disconnect between just even the
shapes of letters that they're focused on in school and
the print that I'm reading in the picture books. So
I just had a lot of questions. So it's a
combination of feeling like I needed to be doing more
and not knowing what the more was, and then just
(10:30):
deep concern for black children in general. So then when
I put the two together, it was sort of like,
I need to figure this out for myself, and then
whatever I learned that works, I want to share with
other parents. And so it started with some blog posts
and then got more focused and more serious over time.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Wow, that is great, and I love this especially because
it tracks a similar story for me, and that once
I got a lot of information about parenting, I really
wanted to share it and I love that instinct. And
so it's to everybody's benefit that you had all those questions.
So I've heard you say that one of the most
important things that you hope parents learn from your book
(11:07):
is that it's never too early to start helping your
child to learn to read. I mean, as you said,
you instinctively knew to start as soon as she came home.
And while everybody doesn't know that, some people may think
they can't sit up and look at the book. You
know it's too soon. But can you tell us why
starting really early from day one is so important.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
There are two big pieces of it, and so one
is looking at print and kind of mapping those lines
and curves on paper to sounds. But the other enormous
piece of it is vocabulary and background knowledge and things
that contribute to their comprehension. So even if a child
when they're three or four or five or six, or
however they are, when they learn to decode and map
(11:46):
the letters to sound, they can sound out words but
still have no understanding of what they mean, or no
understanding of what they mean when they're together in a
sentence or a paragraph. So building a strong vocabulary is
so important, and that vocabulary is built through conversation, and
so as parents, it's extraordinarily helpful if we talk to
(12:08):
babies as if they understand us, and we pay attention
to their gaze and what they're pointing at and those
babbels and respond. The more we respond, the more they babble,
and it really develops their ability to express themselves verbally.
And then when we get to the point where we
understand what they're saying and they understand what we're saying,
(12:28):
it's sort of a gradual thing. It's not like, you know,
on their second birthday or some particular month they get it.
It's a sort of accumulative process. And so part of
it is building the parent habit of talk and conversation
early so that we're well practiced in it by the
time it really counts.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Ah, that's interesting, and I appreciate that I hadn't thought
of it that way. I mean, because to your point,
none of us when our babies are born have all
of this information in our head at the ready, and
we have to practice doing what it takes to to
engage them, and so we have a longer runway if
we start as soon as they're born, so by the
time by the time they're old enough to respond, we're
(13:08):
really good at it. So you talk a lot about
this conversation, as you said, the back and forth, and
this I found really intriguing. And there's been studies that
show that children have to hear a lot of words,
but it sounds as if what you're saying it's not
just words, but it's vocabulary, it's conversation, it's engaging the
child in conversation. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Absolutely, you got it exactly right. And I too thought
of the advice to talk to your baby or talk
to your toddler as being about what I was saying,
what I was imparting to Zora. But the learning for
the child is really in that exchange, in the dialogue,
in them attempting to say something in response when they're
cooping and babbling in the beginning, and as they get older,
(13:52):
them listening, understanding what you're saying, responding, challenging you, elaborating,
asking questions. And so if we think of the talking
more about the talking that they're doing even before it's
in fully fleshed out, complete sentences and words that we understand.
I've overheard recently conversations in the airport between parents and
young children, and they don't seem to understand really a
(14:14):
word of what the little one is saying, but they're
nodding and smiling and encouraging. But one day that child
will speak clearly enough that the parent will really understand.
But there's so much I always want to see that.
I always want to pull that parent aside and say,
you're doing such a great job keeping up, because there
are also parents who who aren't talking and think, oh,
(14:36):
it's just it's a baby. They don't understand. Why would
I talk to someone that can't reply?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, yeah, no, No, that's exactly right. When I read
about your talking to this conversation, I'm thinking, hmm, I
wonder what that really looks like. But I know what
it looks like. You know, you're when your child is
a day old, you can look at its little face
and say, oh, are you hungry? You sound like you're hungry,
and then they'll say something back, or they'll cry or whatever,
and you can take that response as their conversation. Then
(15:04):
just keep going. I mean, people do it with their
animals all the time, so it's easy they really do.
It's easy to do with your children as well.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And the thing for parents to remember is that parents
speak a lot less than we think we do. Even
parents who do know to engage back and forth with
kids often could do it a bit more if they
had just gotten that insight that this really matters. You're
building their brain, you're nurturing their development. And then there
are other parents. I am a more introverted, quiet parent,
(15:37):
so I think there are sort of temperament personality differences
that impact how much parents speak with kids, and so
we need some public awareness campaigns so that the quiet
parents speak up.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
You know, I think that's a really important point. I mean,
I'm a natural extrovert, always have been, and so I
was happy to have somebody else to talk to when
the baby came along. But now I have an array
of children and they range in from introverted to extroverted.
And I appreciate that children people who are quieter. I
mean a lot of thoughts are in their head, but
they don't speak as much. So for parents out there
(16:08):
that aren't naturally inclined, it is chitter chatter, and in
fact may even be annoyed by that. As a concept,
if you think of them, you might want to think
of this as sort of a parenting role that you
should take on for the benefit of your child, because
even if it's not your natural instinct, it's really helpful
for them. You've also talked about the importance of narration,
of talking to children about what's going on around them.
(16:31):
I mean, in an effort, I guess to make conversation.
You can just point out things and if they raise
their hand in that direction, you can sort of talk
to them about it. When I'm on the streets of
New York City and I see a lot of people
pushing strollers, you know, with the invariably they're on their
phone because the baby's in the carriage, and there's not
a lot of back and forth because understandably parents think
(16:52):
this is some me time because they're going to a destination.
But I often think that would be a great opportunity
to engage with your child as you pass things. You know,
is that a point for narration? Is that the kind
of narration you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yes, and so in the book, I describe an acronym
talk and the T is for taking turns, just to
remind people about the importance of exchange and dialogue. And
the A is asked questions because that's a natural way
when you have sort of run out of things to say,
then it's a natural way to prompt their thinking and response.
But the L is for label and point, and so
(17:28):
that's a great one for the parent that's tired and
you're like, I don't have anything else to say but
talk about the blade of grass and how green it
is or how puiny it is. And so in any situation,
unless you're in a sensory deprivation tank, there's something around
you that has some color, some shape, some texture, something
that you can talk about. And then the K and
that acronym is just keep the conversation going. And so
(17:51):
I was really thoughtful about the elements of that little
acronym because I was like, what does the research say.
There's a lot of research about parents. The particular study
featured moms, not dad, but moms who asked questions during
storytime and how that was correlated positively with language development
and kids. So if people are remembering to take turns,
(18:13):
they're remembering to ask questions, which is another way of
taking turns. If you listen for the answer and then
labeling and pointing, you're also giving them all that vocabulary.
Early on, they're learning really concrete things, names and colors
and things that they can touch and picture. But then
you can keep labeling and pointing to more abstract things
(18:33):
as they get older.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Wow, that's great. I want to ask you about briefly
about book reading, because you mentioned that as an important thing.
I mean parents. I think anyone who thinks about raising
a reader thinks about reading to them at some point.
But you note, as the research has as well, that
it's not the be all end all. If that's all
you do, then you're not necessarily doing enough. So can
(18:56):
you just give us a few tips? Is what parents
can do? We all know parents get tired and they
can't always read every day. But are there ways that
when they can read to their child they can be
more effective in helping them understand the reading process.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
I think that parents can apply that talk acronym to
book reading as well. So as you're reading, you can
still label end point, but you point to the red
ball in the picture, or you point to the title,
or you sort of bring their attention particularly once they're
around three and can start to pay attention to letters
and distinguish them from numbers. You can make the book
(19:33):
itself the object of the book, a topic of conversation
because people forget that kids have to learn all those things.
They have to learn which way is the right side up,
and that the text goes left to right and from
top to bottom. And you just be surprised by the
number of kids at enter school not knowing those things.
But it's not hard for a parent to teach about
(19:56):
books about print. Oh, and then also asking questions about
what you've read to get their engagement and see what
they're thinking.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
That makes a lot of sense. A quick question about
digital books. So is it important in your estimation that
parents have actual books? I mean, I'm old school. I
love flipping. I mean I love the turning pages in
a book, and so to me, i'd prefer to read
a child the book where you turn the page. But
does it really matter if you've got a kindle and
(20:25):
you're flipping it electronically? Does that still have the same impact.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think it matters with the really little ones because
there's so much they have to learn about turning pages
and they're developing even just motor skills. And when you're
initially building these book behaviors or book experience, sometimes they're
throwing the book, they're chewing on them. You don't want
them to do that with your iPhone or your kindle
or this device that you've paid hundreds of dollars for.
(20:50):
So I think that we have to let kids explore
the object of the book, because it's all about keeping
their attention and engagement. And a book, even those the
little books where there's a patch that's scratchy or a
patch that is silky, where they're exploring the textures, all
of those are really valuable learning experiences for little ones.
(21:11):
We forget they have so much to learn.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah we do.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
We really get to the phase when they need to
dive into devices.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, no, we really do. Forget that. Now that you're
saying this, it's like how you think they just come
out knowing you read left or right and which way
is up? But nope, we have to teach all of
them this. We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome
back to the show. I want to just skip ahead.
First of all, I should just take a quick aside
and say, parents, you must get this book for many reasons.
(21:39):
First of all, it's a really impressive gathering of really
important information and then sort of absorbed and then redistributed
in a way that it's a great how to. And
you list six different sort of areas that parents can
focus on. I'm going to skip ahead to one that
you list at the end, which is advocacy, because you
talk about the important portance of focusing on children's reading
(22:02):
from a very young age, not only to help their
brain development, but also to help you, as a parent,
become a better advocate for them as they get into
school and get more involved in the nuts and bolts
of reading and becoming stronger and better readers of more
complicated material. So you've got this great roadmap for parents.
How can they use your book to approach teachers as
(22:24):
children get into school? I mean, if your child is
reading when they start school, for example, should you bring
this to the teacher's attention, Should you talk about the
kinds of things that you've been doing. Should you expect
that the teacher is going to continue in the same
way in terms of teaching the child reading.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I think it's definitely important for parents to have an
open dialogue with teachers should view it to the extent
that you can as a partnership and you're all part
of this village that supporting your child, and you get
to a point where the teacher is really with them
more than you are, in some cases half the time
that they're with you. But it is important to I
(23:06):
always encourage parents to remember to give a positive spin
on their child, particularly when they're introducing the child to
a new teacher or new school, and leave space for
the school or teacher to do their own assessments and
just be curious about the information that you're receiving back,
(23:27):
because I've definitely heard from parents who are researchers like me,
who know a lot about these subjects, and sometimes they'll
go into the teacher and download this report and it
can color the teacher's perspective of your child in ways
that you don't anticipate.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Absolutely, absolutely, I actually have a story about that. My mom,
as I said, was a teacher. She taught me to read.
I knew how to read by the time I got
to kindergarten. So it was public school, and they had
open school night where the parents come in to talk
teachers and see what's going on and my mom went
into the classroom and talked to my kindergarten teacher, and
before they started talking about me specifically, they were just
teacher to teacher, sort of trading stories of what the
(24:10):
teaching experience has been like. And this teacher as says
my mother, can you believe somebody taught their kid to read?
You know, I put these slides up and the kids
trying to read the slides ahead of me. I mean,
it's not ridiculous. And so the next day I was
moved to the other kindergarten class. So there is to
your point, teachers do make impressions, and sometimes they're not
(24:32):
really great ones. But I tell that story also to
say that it's important for parents to interact with the
teachers so they can just get a sense of what
their perspective is and you know, what the fit is
with your child, and to.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Get a feel for that teacher's capacity to if your
child is ahead. We often think about children who are
behind and what additional resources they may need, but there
are also cases where a child is ahead, and like
in your example, the teachers not willing to teach the
child at the level that the child is at. They're
sort of like, I'm here to teach this grade level material.
(25:06):
You're beyond that, so you know, work on something different,
or teach yourself. You know, my work here is done.
So it's good for parents just to be receptive and
observant and listening to what you're hearing in those parent
teacher conferences and in that back to school night. And
I always encourage parents to read the state standards or
(25:26):
the common core that their state is using to see
what grade level expectations are, what is your child supposed
to be able to know and do at the end
of kindergarten or first grade, Just to have a sense
and ask just a few questions of the teacher about
how they help kids master those things or what they
teach if the child is beyond that. It's there are
(25:49):
a lot of reading. The book is very positive and
encouraging about all the things that parents can do to
get their kids ready for school. But I could write
a whole other book on some of the reader instruction
challenges that they may encounter once kids are school aged.
And so I think, particularly for black and brown parents,
you shouldn't assume that you'll have a teacher who's been
(26:11):
well trained to teach reading and get your child to
whatever in their next level is. We can't assume that,
So we have to be kind of aware of expectations,
aware of where our child is, and then really advocate
to get whatever resources, whether it's remediating if there's an issue,
or enhancements if they're advanced.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
That's really good advice. I want to ask you two
questions on sort of in the same Vein one is
because as you say that, when you read your book,
you're thinking, oh my gosh, I'll follow these really thoughtful
approaches and my child will have a leg up. He
or she will figure this out. So what happens if
you have, despite your best efforts, you can't ignite a
(26:50):
reading spark in your child. Now, I had I have
three children. The first one took to it like a
doctor water. She was an early reader. And I sort
of said, okay, yes, this is the way it goes.
And I had these little books that I little books
that were designed to help children read, and she just
love those. And we so along comes a second child
and I pull out the books and I remember, like
(27:11):
it was yesterday. He said to me very clearly, I
am supposed to learn to read in kindergarten. When I
get to kindergarten, I will learn to read. Perhaps he
wasn't quite that strive. When did you get that idea
you have to wasn't quite that striding. But his point
was I would much rather go and play. I really
don't want to do this, and I don't have to
(27:32):
do this because I'm going to get this. But my
point is there's going to be children that don't take
it to it. I mean, when do you push the
panic button? I mean, thankfully, in this instance, he was right.
He learned to read in kindergarten and sort of took
off from there. But at what point should you be
concerned if there's a slow pace and they're not picking
it up.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I have another handy little acronym for this, and so
that one is when you're trying to navigate these just
challenges as a parent and you're concerned if your child
is on track developmentally, then to kind of help get
your bearing straight, I have a process or framework called GPS,
and so the g IS Guidelines, which really is again
(28:14):
looking at those developmental milestones, looking at the grade level
expectations of schools, and just having an awareness of where
kids of your child's age or grade typically are. So
when you're grounded in that, in some cases you'll breathe
a sigh of relief and think, Okay, they're exactly They
aren't where I thought they should be, but they're where
kids typically are. And then or you may think, oh,
(28:38):
my goodness, they're very far behind. And again those are
those guidelines aren't absolute. It doesn't mean if a child
hasn't hit this benchmark by this year that they're are doomed.
But it's just giving you a general sense of how
things develop and what to look out for in different respects.
Then the p is I think parents should really record
(28:58):
and document their personal reflect on these things. So journal
take notes. It could be in an app on your
phone or in a notebook, but if you're concerned about something,
write down the specific example. So some parents may think
that their child has a speech issue or some kind
of processing issue and write the date, the time, and
a little description, so that down the road, when you're
(29:20):
with the pediatrician or the teacher or the preschool teacher, whoever,
you have kind of a specifics of what you're observing
and feeling about what you're observing relative to those guidelines,
in general expectations, and then the s IS specialists. I
always recommend that parents talk to your pediatrician, ask for
the referral to the speech therapists or whatever you think
(29:42):
the issue is. I've just talked to so many parents
who felt like something was going on. They didn't know
what it was, but they just kept asking questions and
they found out their child had a hearing issue with
the child had a speech issue, and all of those things.
Because oral language is so important for reading, we have
to watch those things early. So I always encourage parents
(30:02):
to be proactive. And I've just heard too many stories
of parents who thought there was an issue talking to
a school or an administrator and the person saying, oh,
it's okay, some kids just take longer. It may be
the case there may be no issue, but there's no
harm in investigating and digging around and saying because oftentimes
there is an issue.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's good to know. So my final
question on this but the purposes of the podcast, I mean,
I could talk to you about this for much longer,
but the last question I'll ask you today is, so
you've raised this reader, You've followed the roadmap, and your
child is a happy reader. Do you think there's a
point where as a parent you should step out of
(30:45):
the reading process with your children? Do you think there's
a point at which they're too old to be read
to or where they need to be independently reading where
you shouldn't be a part of their Say you've developed
this ritual, I mean, is there a point at which
it needs to be some end? Do it?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I don't think there's a point where you have to
step out. I do think there may be a point
where they push you out. So my daughter now is
a middle schooler, and she won't let me read her essays.
She does not want my opinion, she does not want
my edits or thoughts. So she writes her essays, she
turns them in, and I don't know the result until
I see the grade and the online grade book that
(31:22):
the school publishes. So I know parents who read nightly
to their children all the way through high school. If
you have a high schooler who will let you read
to them or read things to you, what a wonderful,
beautiful experience of just years and years of shared books.
And people have told me stories of book clubs. Some
(31:42):
parents read even if the child won't let them read
aloud to them. They may read the same books that
the child is reading, just to have that shared conversation
and those stories to talk about and ask questions about
and connect over.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
When some of my children got to high school, I
kind of dove back in and I learned this from
a friend. And when I first heard it, I thought
it was kind of crazy. But then by the time
my kids got to high school, I actually did it.
What my friend told me was that she would read
some of the same books that her son was reading.
They would read it and then get together and discuss it.
And I thought, oh, my gosh, what overkill. But when
(32:16):
some of my children got to high school, I found
myself doing this because first of all, it was fun
to do, and then I found it was really helpful
to understand, to get a grasp of their reading comprehension
and their reading approach, even as high school is I mean,
it actually gets important in high school because they're doing
a lot of standardized testing, and reading comprehension is really
important by high school. If they can read, they've got
(32:39):
it as a skill set. But that comprehension part sort
of the nuances the things that are tested. But not
just that are tested the things that make you really
enjoy books. It's a deeper level and it's interesting to
see how that develops in a teenager. So I would
find we'd go through these books, and I have to
confess sometimes I would sneak and get the cliff notes
because I didn't have time to read all the books
(33:01):
at the same time. But anyway to just talk about
not only what we're reading, but what do you think
about this and what do you think this character would think.
I mean, it was really fun to engage with these
high schoolers and just to hear about how they ad
grasped things, and frankly, it made me understand a lot
better about how their brains worked. And in instances where
that I didn't think they'd read deeply enough, I could
(33:22):
try to say because that's a very I mean, you're
walking a really thin line there if they're if they're
letting you read the same book you're reading, you really
can't critique too much. But it gives you a good
handle because by the time you get to high school
and you're interacting with their teachers and you really are
a partnership trying to figure out sort of how deeply
they can learn. It's great to have this data in
(33:42):
your head as a parent, so so good. I'm glad.
I'm glad to hear that is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
And again then you have all the shared memories of
all those stories and conversations around them that you can
come back to for years. I agree with picture books.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
I would have to say that probably they are much
fonder men reason my mind than they are my children's.
But but yes, I agree, they are fond memories. So Maya,
As I said, there's so much more that I love
this topic, I love your treatment of it, and I'd
love to keep going. But I'm going to close here
and I'm going to thank you so much for spending
(34:18):
time with me, for having this really great conversation. And
I know that parents who are listening really really appreciate this,
your experience, your advice. You're pouring it all into this
book and giving them a roadmap to help their kids.
So but there's one more thing before we go, and
that is I need you to play the GCP Lightning Round.
(34:39):
So there are four questions. Okay, you're ready, I'm ready, Okay,
here we go. What is your favorite poem or saying.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
My favorite saying is one from my dad, and he
just always taught me to front load my effort and
he would say, work as hard as you can, to
learn as much as you can, as fast as you can.
And I just like that idea because in life things
unexpected things come up and you can fall behind. So
if you have that head start, that jump start, you're
in better position to recover and be resilient.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
That's great. I'm guessing that Zora has heard that from
you once or twice.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
She hasn't, but I'm going to start telling her.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
She will. So give me your favorite two children's books.
So this should be easy, since you're a book lover.
Your favorite two children's books, and they can be from
your childhood or ones that you and Zora enjoy together.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
My favorite children's book from when I was a child,
the one that I would always go directly to in
that Ears Branch Library in Akron, Ohio, is Bringing the
Rain to Capiti Plane, which was just this beautifully illustrated
story about a drought and a father and son kind
of shooting the rain out of a storm cloud. But
there was just beautiful rhythm and repetition and the illustrations
(35:49):
and there were drawings of wild animals and this plane
and it was just another world. And I love that
book and write it over and over. Then as an adult,
my favorite's book is Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, which
is about a new girl in an elementary school environment
and kids kind of teaser and color never knew because
(36:11):
of her hand me down clothes, and she's just constantly
smiling and trying to find her way into friendships and
eventually just plays alone, like can never kind of make
that inroads with the kids. She's absent from school for
a few days. The teacher gives a lesson on kindness
by dropping some pebbles and water and showing the kids
(36:31):
kind of like the ripple effect of doing a kind
thing in One of the girls thinks she's going to
smile and be kind to this girl the next day.
But the girl never comes back to school, her family
has moved away, and it's just to me such just
a powerful moving story, so clearly and succinctly told in
a picture book, that just be nice, be kind, be
(36:51):
more than nice, be kind, be warm, be accepting of people,
And also that hard lesson that kids need and adults
need to be reminded of that you don't always get
another chance to be better, to be kind.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Wow. Wow, that sounds like a great book. And I
mean I'm not surprised. I love Jacqueline Woodson's work, but wow,
that sounds great. Those are great, great answers. So now
we're going to just shift to you as a mom.
And so I need a mom moment that you would
love to do over. And by that I mean that
you could do you would do differently if you did
(37:25):
it over. Nothing deep, just something that you wish you
could redo.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So I remember when my daughter was very young, we
were playing and someone was being nice, just trying to
make conversation and held up a ball with a word
printed on it and asked her to read the word.
And she froze and she said, like just the name
of the first letter. And in my mind, I like
flipped out and overreacted. I'm like, she can't read about
(37:50):
mind you, she was little and didn't need to be reading.
And so I definitely had like that overreaction and that
I wanted her to be assessed and you know, just
going into overdrive like she's behind, she's so mom do
over in the sense of when someone puts your child
on the spot and they're nervous and don't perform, like,
don't don't overreact.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's I'm sure that impacted you as
much as it impacted her, because I know there have
been many times when I've done things and thought oof,
But I'm sure she's fine. So give me a moment
when you knew you nailed it as a mom.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Well, this one is sort of a mixed report, but
one that comes to mind is my daughter got into
a car after school one day crying because she had
overheard someone saying something negative about her and she was
really upset, and it was actually an adult in the school.
And so I, again, perhaps overreacting.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
No such thing.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I'm parking, I'm parking the car, and we're gonna address
adults speaking about children in the school where they can
overhear whatever. And she, my daughter, stopped me, and she
said no, like through tears, no, no, let me go,
Let me go. And I'm thinking she wants to watch
me confront this adult for you know, my limited understanding
the situation for this issue. But I paused and I said,
(39:12):
why do you want to go? And she said, I'll
do it, So I was quiet and just walked into
the school with her and was sort of like kind
of like an ally. I wouldn't say advocate because I
was silent. I was just by her side. And she
approached this adult in school through tears and told her
what she had heard, how she felt about it, and
(39:33):
why that person was wrong in their assessment about what
they had observed. And I was so proud of her
for just the strength that she exhibited in advocating for herself,
even though she was you know, sensitive and hurt through tears.
And I was proud of myself for stepping aside. It
hadn't occurred to me that she could handle that, and
(39:55):
she handled it better than I could have.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Wow, that's a great story. I just have to ask
what was the adult's reaction.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
She apologized to her good for what she has said
and her misunderstanding and all things, and thanked me for
bringing her back into the building.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Wow, that's great. That's a great story. And those are
all such great answers. And I thank you so much
Maya again for being with us today. So everyone make
sure you get the book. It's called Reading for Our Lives.
Maya Pains Smart. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Thank you so much for having me. I love this
conversation great.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Thanks me too. I hope everyone listening enjoyed this conversation
and that you'll come back for more. Please rate, review,
and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and tell your friends.
For more parenting info and advice, please check out the
Ground Control Parenting blog at Groundcontrolparenting dot com. You can
also find us on Instagram and Facebook at ground Control
(40:59):
Parenting and on LinkedIn under Carrol Sutton Lewis. The Ground
Control Parenting with Carrol Sutton Lewis podcast is a part
of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartMedia.
Until the next time, take care and thank
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