Parents Find Kids’ Literacy Parties as Easy as ABC

It’s a way to sell Tupperware, so why not literacy?

Officials in the Anaheim City School District think they have found a novel way to spread the word to adults about the importance of reading to their children.

A family invites neighbors, friends and relatives over. Everyone is treated to some practical tips on teaching toddlers their ABCs. At the end of the presentation, the host receives a basket of free goodies, including crayons, alphabet blocks, puzzles and other educational material worth about $100 in all. The guests then are invited to hold their own “Literacy Parties” if they want baskets.

“It is like a Tupperware party,” said Elaine Coggins, the district’s director of early childhood education, or “a pyramid scheme. Except there are no losers. Everyone gains.”

Since the program started in January, Coggins’ office has helped organize more than 25 of these parties with about a dozen people at each. The program has been so successful that it is quickly running out of baskets, Coggins said, and the district is looking for more funding.

“What we like to say here,” she said, “is that we would like to blanket the city with literacy.”

It is a simple idea for a complex challenge. Research shows that the frequency with which adults read to children is the most significant predictor of children’s early literacy-related skills, such as recognizing shapes and sounds.

Yet a survey by UCLA and the Field Institute last year showed that nearly half of parents in California don’t read to their young children daily.

Educators believe the rate is worse for low-income homes, where parents are struggling to get by and may have little education themselves.

Children from poor families in California are only half as likely as children from higher-income families to score at or above the national average in reading tests, according to an analysis of second-grade scores by Children Now, an advocacy group.

Anaheim elementary school officials are aware of the challenges. About 85% of the 22,000 students qualify for discounted or free lunches because of family income.

As in other urban districts, resources are scarce for classrooms, let alone for preschool or other readiness programs.

Proposition 10, the tobacco surcharge approved by California voters in 1998, has helped fund such programs around the state. In Anaheim, it has doubled registration in publicly funded preschool to 1,000 children. But the number is still woefully short of demand.

“We really had to find ways to reach out to the families,” Coggins said. “It is hard to believe, but there are still homes in Orange County without any books.”

So Coggins and her staff decided to get a little more bang for their money by using the Tupperware party model, which was suggested by the district’s superintendent, Sandra Barry.

With a few thousand dollars left in its Proposition 10 fund, the early childhood education office put together literacy baskets.

Cara Najera, a school readiness coordinator for the district, took a basket to an adult class in English as a second language at Edison Elementary School and introduced the idea to parents.

Strong Interest

“After the presentation, I asked who would be interested,” Najera said. “We thought there would be two or three takers, and 35 hands went up.”

One recent evening, a dozen women, a handful of toddlers and a couple of teenage girls from the close-knit neighborhood gathered at Maria Estrada’s living room to watch school readiness coordinator Alberto Lovato give his presentation.

Most spoke Spanish, and Lovato joked as he handed out a thick booklet. “This costs $30 in English,” Lovato said, “but in Spanish it is free.”

The booklet urged parents to read as often as possible to their children and to use simple games such as having toddlers spot letters on street signs during car trips.

Literacy, Lovato told the group, es un processo.

It is the process of developing in young minds the concept of letters and an appreciation for the written word, whether in English or Spanish.

Since many of the parents in Anaheim do not speak English, the exercises are in Spanish.

“Literacy is literacy, no matter the language,” Coggins explained. “That doesn’t mean we don’t push English at every opportunity, but if the kids don’t have a good basis in their primary language, they really don’t get a good foundation to learn English.”

More than half of the students in Anaheim are still learning English.

Patricia Salcedo, 43, signed up to hold her own literacy party. All her children are grown, she said, but she looks after a handful of neighborhood toddlers.

“I think we need to take advantage of anything that helps our children,” she said. “They are the future, after all.”

Elvia Barajas, 34, was clutching her 4-year-old Kimberly.

“It gave me a lot of ideas,” Barajas said. “Right now she watches a lot of TV, but that’s going to stop.”

After his presentation, Lovato handed Estrada her basket amid much applause. She said she decided to hold a party after attending one recently at Barajas’ sister’s house.

“There are so many things you can work on with your children,” said Estrada, whose youngest is in first grade, as she surveyed the basket’s contents.

Nearby, a group of mothers chatted with Lovato.

“We were talking about the need for consistency,” Lovato later said. “The parents were saying how it is important to speak English or Spanish clearly and not slip into Spanglish.”

Coveting a Basket

At Estrada’s house, 5-year-old Ulisses Azevedo was eyeing the purple basket all evening. When the party was over, he shuffled closer and grabbed the crayons and the building blocks with the colorful letters. He examined them and reluctantly placed them back.

Lovato asked who wanted to hold the next literacy party and, unfortunately for Ulisses, his mother did not volunteer. Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes and they prepared to leave.

“What’s wrong?” asked his mother, Silvia Azevedo.

“The poor thing,” Estrada said. “He wants the basket.”

Silvia took a sign-up sheet.

“You will call me?” Azevedo asked Lovato.

“100%, you bet,” he answered.

Ulisses beamed.