Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide [Paperback]

Lucy Calkins (Author), Bellino Lydia (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 1998

Here the nationally acclaimed educator who transformed the way our children learn to read and write in school shows us how to nurture our children’s imagination at home, from the earliest days of babytalk to the time when we see them off to school. Drawing upon her influential philosophy of active learning, as well as her personal experience as a parent, Calkins shows parents how to stimulate curiosity and spark creative thinking in children. Having an open and creative approach to conversations, chores, and games can matter just as much as reading, writing, and math. And even in traditional skills like reading and writing, we need to encourage our children to read for meaning and write for expression, rather than focus only on mechanics like phonics and spelling.By giving parents new and imaginative techniques for educating children, and by providing them with an insider’s view of what goes on in the early grades, Raising Lifelong Learners creates the ultimate partnership in learning between home and school, parents and teachers.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide is a vital book for parents. Beginning with talk as the foundation of literacy, and emphasizing the importance of listening to and speaking with children, Lucy Calkins, longtime education specialist, then moves into the stages of reading and writing: how to recognize an emergent reader, how to foster a young author, and how to encourage a love of books and reading through your own interest and modeling. Additional chapters deal with math, science, and social studies.

Calkin's text is accompanied by extensive appendices by Lydia Bellino, focusing on the role of schools in a child's literacy, including how to pick a preschool or kindergarten, testing and assessment issues, and working together with your child's teachers. Raising Lifelong Learners illuminates the process by which parents can celebrate and support children's skills as readers, writers, and lifelong learners in all fields. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Although this work is written as a guide for parents to foster a love of learning along with the requisite skills in their children, it also provides valuable information for others who work with children?child care workers, teachers, scoutmasters, and librarians, perhaps. Calkins is founding director of the College Teacher Writing Project and author of The Art of Teaching Writing (Heinemann, 1991), but she does not limit her attention to writing in this guide. While concentrating on individual skills in each chapter (writing, reading, playing, science, math, and more), Calkins never loses sight of her overall goal of creating interest and skills for lifelong learning. Appendixes by Bellino, an elementary school principal, help to relate Calkins's principles to the school day. Highly recommended.?Kay L. Brodie, Chesapeake Coll., Wye Mills., Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738200247
• ISBN-13: 978-0738200248
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #290,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creating a Rich Learning Environment, January 15, 2003

By 

F. Hamilton "[e-mail]" (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide (Paperback)

_Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide_ is full of practical suggestions, many of which are helpful to teachers as well as to parents. The book's principal author, Lucy Calkins, is a teacher educator, yet she considers the teaching of her two young sons to be her most important work. Calkins relates many vivid examples from her own experience.

Although Calkins discusses things parents can do to maximize school success, _Raising Lifelong Learners_ is not a book about helping children with their homework. Instead it tells how to make the home a rich learning environment, how to arouse children's curiosity in all academic areas. Calkins says, " . . . the qualities that matter most in science and math, reading and writing -- initiative, thoughtfulness, curiosity, resourcefulness, perseverance, and imagination -- are best nurtured through the everydayness of our shared lives at home."

Calkins believes in leading children very gradually along the path of learning in all academic areas. She says, "My rule of thumb is to help the child do today what she will be able to do tomorrow. I don't want my assistance to be too far beyond the child's independent abilities or she will be put in a dependent position, always waiting for and wanting assistance."

Calkins places heavy emphasis on both work and play. The latter provides an opportunity for children to develop imagination, resourcefulness, and language skills. Calkins believes that parents, not schools, have the primary responsibility for developing a work ethic in children. This is cultivated through hobbies and projects as well as through chores.

After Calkins discusses the nurturing of language arts, math, science, and social studies as children progress from infancy through middle school, Lydia Bellino, a reading specialist and school principal, addresses school issues in half a dozen appendices. Most of these, such as curricular choices and various assessment methods, can also apply to the homeschool situation.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A realistic heartfelt approach to learning, February 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide (Paperback)

I began this book last night. It was recommended to me by a friend who is also a principal, and I dutifully bought it, placed it on a shelf and kept looking at its spine (feeling guilty). It looked, judging from the title and cover, like an academic, how-to book. I was afraid it would be too impractical...too unrealistic. Was I wrong. I was immediately inspired. In fact, I was in my youngest child's preschool class today helping out. I heard myself asking the children the rather inane questions (questions only of fact) that Calkins describes early in her book. She doesn't just list these questions as "bad" questions. She gives us alternatives to help US help our children to THINK. So, upon hearing myself ask something inane, I rephrased my question and really LISTENED to the child's response. Thank you Lucy Calkins. I'm sure to keep asking these basic questions, but now I also know how to ask for and listen to more complicated ideas! I can't wait to learn more as I finish this wonderful book.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for every parent!, December 30, 1998

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide (Paperback)

I can't put this book down! I have to re-read the chapters that are applicable to my 4-year-old child over and over again. The author captures exactly the kind of education I'd like for my child: one that encourages active, critical, and creative learning and not merely doing well in tests and getting good grades. This book has given me many practical ideas for instilling a love of learning in my child, as well as for finding a school that will be my partner in this endeavour.