Book smart

Miller PhotographyUFT family child care provider Linette Ebanks works with Karson.

Linette Ebanks had always read storybooks to the children who attend her child care program, Little People’s Retreat, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. 

But then she was shown the “picture walk,” a subtle technique to more actively engage children during story time by showing them pictures from a book before reading it and asking them what they think it will be about.

Now, Ebanks said, she uses the picture walk and other similar activities to plan entire lessons around the books she reads, transforming story time into an interactive process and helping the children in her charge better prepare for reading in school.

Ebanks learned about the picture walk this past summer in an innovative new UFT program in which the union family child care providers are coaching their colleagues in best practices in early childhood education in the comfort of their own homes.

Funded by an AFT Innovation Fund grant and administered by the UFT Teacher Center, the program, Successful Beginnings for Early Literacy Development, is the first comprehensive professional development program specifically designed to meet the unique and varied needs of family child care providers.

Miller PhotographyEbanks (left) with fellow provider and coach, Patricia Johnson.

It is also unusual since, unlike in most other professional development programs for providers, in this one the providers are teaching each other.

Teacher Center specialists trained 10 members of the union’s Family Child Care Providers Chapter to coach their colleagues in early literacy instruction during several months beginning in February 2011. Those coaches, who continue to receive instruction on their coaching at periodic professional development sessions at the Teacher Center, now coach 50 other providers in their homes.

“We’re using the logic of ‘each one, teach one,’” said UFT Vice President for Education Catalina Fortino, who directs the UFT Teacher Center. “Our goal is to empower providers to coach each other in the skills they learn at our literacy work sessions so that those skills reach the widest audience possible and more providers are able to give the children in their care a solid foundation for pre-K and kindergarten.”

Teacher Center staffer Rita Danis, who coordinates the project, said that the coaches, who began to make home visits over the summer, are taught about early literacy acquisition and oral language development as well as effective coaching and teaching techniques.

“They need to understand not just the ‘what’ but also the ‘why’” behind those techniques, Danis explained. In the process, the coaches, whom Danis described as highly skilled without necessarily knowing it, are “learning how to describe what they do — and why they do it,” she said.

Patricia Johnson, the provider chapter’s treasurer, is coaching six fellow providers through the program. 

“If the provider is reading a book to the children,” Johnson said, “I might step in and read the book, showing the provider how I would read it, changing my voice for the different characters.”

Miller PhotographyAryanna gets serious after Ebanks’ story time lesson.

The purpose, Johnson said, is to engage students, the importance of which she tries to impress upon the providers with whom she works.

Johnson said, she tries to “make reading more vibrant, like a storyteller, reading in a dramatic way to get the children to participate. The Teacher Center has shown us so much more we can do with our kids, and they’re more equipped for school as a result.”

Ebanks, one of the providers coached by Johnson, agreed.

“What I’ve really enjoyed about this program is it gives you new avenues for teaching,” she said. “It’s a great program, and I’m very glad to have had the chance to participate in it.”