Customer Reviews

Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

_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.

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.

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.

This book is an excellent resource for anyone attempting to help a child's learning process, but it addresses our affluent, better educated population. The message is sometimes garbled by the "silver spoon" sticking out of Ms. Calkins' mouth. I give it 4 stars because the message is there, and I would not want anyone interested in the education of children to miss it. It does remind me of Martha Stewart and her creative, neat, organized world--often condescending but still providing good ideas.

Unfortunately, "my" child is a 13 year old boy who has been neglected and abused all his life, and has been our foster son for only four months. He scores at a 2nd-3rd grade level in reading, but our observations tell us he is capable. This child missed out on that necessary intervention in early childhood and, it is apparent, his school is not going to bring him up to speed. I have read many books in the last few months on the theory of teaching reading, and Ms. Calkins' is one of the best. I just wish there were more to be found on helping disadvantaged children who have been deprived of the joy of reading by circumstances beyond their control.

I was attracted to this book by the title and based on the previous recommendations I read on Amazon.

You have to give credit to somebody who draws from their experience to help others. What I really like about this book is that the author urges parents to become a proactive force in their child's education and provides various suggestions for doing just that. This is particularly true when the author addresses reading. As I researched about reading skills, it became apparent to me that many pre-reading skills (such as understanding symbols, sequencing, left-to-right, etc) should be developed 1 or 2 years before reading begins. One of the simplet ways (there are others that should be considered also) to encourage and strengthen these skills is to read aloud to kids. Don't wait until they are in kindergarten or preschool, do it now, as soon as birth and perhaps even during pregnancy. LMC articulates and underscores this point very well. Of course if you are considering this book you probably are already doing just that.

Why the three stars? First, I think LMC missed a big red flag when she invalidated her sons feelings at one point about going to school. She writes something to the effect that she told her son "its not normal" to not like school or something to that effect. Having read Roger Schank's radical "coloring outside the lines" in parallel with this book, I think its the most normal thing in the world for children to complain about being bored in school while adapting to it. How is it normal for a child to sit at a desk and not speak out of turn all the while being expected to absorb concepts that are new and thus foreign and perhaps even uninteresting to them? Anyhow, maybe its just a difference in philosophy, since I lean towards, non-coerced, student-led educational philosophy. Nonetheless, I think LMC has the best of intentions with this book and provides excellent suggestions with respect to creating an environment of learning at home, which is the aim of the book.

The second reason for the three stars is that I think the book's effectiveness could have been enhanced had LMC summarized a reading list as an appendix. The suggestions for read-alouds are great, except you may have to jump back and forth throughout the book to find them or otherwise keep a pencil handy so you can write them down as you come across them.

Overall, a good book and perhaps should be done as homework before one becomes a parent or at least when one is considering how a child's environment encourages learing.

I bought this book because my son was beginning 3rd grade. I thought it would help me understand how to encourage his reading. It far exceeded my expectations. This book was filled with both great personal insights (from a parents perspective) and current educational theory. This book made a great case for understanding "Whole Language" methods of teaching reading and working with them. I now have a much better grasp of what education theories are being used in elementary school and I also better understand the importance of helping my son develop a love for writing. Simply put: this book is very helpful for parents who want to be involved with their children's elementary education!

This book was very helpful to me and my husband. We are not "educators" by trade and it provided alot of thought provoking material. We are in the process of deciding on where to send our son for kindergarten and found many of the suggestions in the appendices very helpful. I never realized how many different ways we can make reading and writing a fun and natural part of our children's lives. We have already made changes at home and are seeing the benefits. Both our 2 and 5 year olds are picking out books from their bookshelves each night and excitedly listening as Mom or Dad read. I especially found the recommended authors listed helpful.

Calkins makes the case for embracing a child's natural curiosity and encouraging their interests into definable disciplines. She spends a lot of time on how to approach writing. She gently points out that it is not initially a fine motor skill to be mastered but an avenue for the child to record his or her own stories and experiences. Her constant message is how to encourage rather than perfect the child's ability which is refreshing in a world of standardize testing. Through sharing of her own experiences she provides ideas on how to help further develop a child's natural inventiveness into lessons on reading, writing, science and math. This is not a hard line method to expose a child to everything available but rather an encouragement based approach to explore ideas with your child.

This book has had a positive impact on my child rearing. My children are 4, 2, and 3 months. My 4 year old attends a Christian Montessori school where they support the kind of rich learning evironment that Lucy Calkins describes in her book. I have encouraged it at home too: little television, lots of books, free play, use of the imagination, puppets etc. and I am pleased with my daughters overall love for learning. This book is not related to Montessori, but it confirmed a lot of what they do. Well worth the read. I didn't give it 5 stars because I would have liked an appendix of suggested readings she made.

This book changed the way that I looked at my children's learning and the way that I conducted myself around them. It's full of practical ideas that anyone can do and vindicated some of my own instincts. It may bother people who think their children need to be in organized activities all the time. The book stresses that creativity often comes from having the time to think and dream.
It also gives ways to help you communicate with your child and also about how what you say about your life reflects in your child's view of the world. Another item which was helpful was the idea that it's okay for kids to try things and fail or not do them perfectly as long they keep trying.
I'm the mom of two very creative, bright kids and I think this book is partly responsible.