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Welcome to Stories That Stick with me, Laura, as your resident storyteller. I'm here to show you how oral stories inspire and captivate minds young and old. Tune in each week to hear a compelling story and join in meaningful conversations. I'll be digging deep into the heart of storytelling, connection, and listening.
So whether you're a kid, teacher, caregiver, grandparent, or simply a lover of stories, This podcast is for you. Join me as you get lost in another world and discover how stories shape our lives. Here's to the next page in our story.
Laura: Thanks for coming and joining. I have Stacy Benge here today, the author of the whole child alphabet, and I am thrilled to chat with her about all things, play and literacy. And I'm going to let her introduce herself and share a little bit about what has brought you to where you are in your life and career now.
Stacy: All right. I'm Stacy Benge and I'm an early childhood speaker and now author, but I live in the Dallas, Texas area, but started working in early childhood. Gosh, like in the early 1990s. And, , my original major in college was speech and language pathology. And, , Very long story. I ended up switching to child development and getting my master's degree in child development.
But, , spent been about 10 years in the early childhood classroom, , with children birth to five. But in that time frame found that I was just very much, , Drawn towards language and literacy and, and how that develops. And then, , so I'm super passionate about that. Then really learning like how that develops all through play.
, but I was in the classroom until about 20, 15, 20 years ago, then started presenting and doing trainings. And then, , a few years ago wrote the book. So here I am.
Laura: Awesome. Now, I imagine, I believe, was it your son that kind of sparked some of your work and learning around this? Yeah. Would you want to share a little bit about
Stacy: that?
Yeah, so my oldest son, who I always like to clarify, he's 25 years old now, and I speak a lot about him in the book. And before I, , sent the manuscript off, like, we sat and went through and found his name and he approved of everything. I, , you know, I talk about with him, but, , he has, , just always kind of like struggled in school.
And I think what I learned a lot with him is on the visual perception, the visual processing, because he has, , some issues with visual processing and then physical development. And he had to do pretty extensive occupational and physical therapy for about four years. And, , it was through that, that I became very passionate about physical development and how important it is that that is solid before we introduce formal writing instruction for children.
And just how the body all, you know, works together as a team. But every time he would go to one of his therapy sessions, I would just be picking the therapist's brain. I'm like, okay, tell me more about this and more about that. And you know, guide me to. to more resources. But yeah, he was an inspiration on on those aspects
Laura: of it.
That's awesome. Now, I feel like I read your chapter on physical development, but I'm not positive. One thing that I learned a couple years ago, well, okay, it was from a colleague, but I really respect and trust her. And I'm curious if you ever heard this, but she would always, when we were out. side. She would always encourage kids to hold on to, , the bars, like maybe a monkey bar or, you know, we had like three different heights bars and we would hold the kids up and we would count and see how long you could hold on and who could hold on.
And that idea of the grip strength and as well as like holding your body up. And she shared with me the correlation to that and later writing development and overall, like, Literacy development as well. Have you ever heard that? I thought it was so phenomenal because when I started noticing which kids could literally barely grip it and which ones could hold their body and their whole, , self for long periods of time really showed me who was choosing at the art studio to make marks and scribble and who was avoiding any type of mark making at all.
Stacy: Yeah, so when you look at how the body develops, , it develops top down, middle out. And so it starts with, you know, the, the neck and the torso and the shoulders and the upper back developing and looking specifically at that hand strength, the neck and the torso and the shoulders. , that development stability supports the elbow, which supports the wrist, which supports the hands.
which supports the fingers. Well, it's very important not to skip those steps and really make sure that neck and torso and shoulders are engaged, which would be happening. If children are hanging from a monkey bar, you know, you really are engaging those shoulders, you know, in addition to that hand strength.
And so not only getting the muscles in the hand developed by doing that, but you're also developing your internal senses, which is your vestibular system and your proprioceptive system. And that proprioception is really like how much strength is needed for a task. If you're, , Writing and you've got a pen or pencil like your brain has to tell your fingers how much pressure, to put on the pen and then how much pressure to put on the paper.
Well, that all develops by children, engaging their bodies and doing those sorts of activities like hanging, you know, or even take the step further hanging upside down, which we don't. let children do, but that really is engaging the vestibular system, the proprioceptive system. And we don't always connect our sense of balance with literacy, but that's what keeps our head steady and keeps our eyes steady as we're reading and tracking, when we're reading lines, you know, when you're writing on a line, that's what helps keep your hand steady that you stay on that line.
And so that vestibular system is very much, , A process of that, but I kind of think of those internal senses as, as muscles. If they're not engaged, if they're not challenged, they're not going to develop. So that's why we want children hanging and hanging upside down and spinning and swinging and doing all the things that we don't want them to do.
Going up the slide is another good one because you're really engaging, not only those internal senses, but again, that neck and the torso. , Like I said, it all just kind of ties together as one nice team.
Laura: Right. And, I think many of us that are in the play based learning world that really trust in children and their development, I may not always fully know why I'm letting a child climb up a slide, but I know it's not.
It's not worth it to me to say no, I'm not going to tell you that the function of the slide is solely to go down, same as, when you're doing something with a toy or your body, I have learned to say to myself, okay, I may not entirely understand what You're trying to learn here, but your body and your brain are telling yourself to do this.
And so instead I try to embrace it, right? It's that idea of really just like creating a yes environment and saying yes, as long as you have, you know. Whatever your ground rules are around the child and everybody being safe or whatever it may be,, we intervene so much. I think in general, just out of fear, right?
If we think the child's going to get hurt with a stick play and the this and the slides and all that, but That's what we did growing up. I was climbing trees all the time, and in my neighborhood, I cannot find a climb worthy tree. I don't know if, like, evolutionary wise, trees just don't grow to be climbed on anymore, but it's, my son will literally say, like, we'll be in a park, and he's like, is there a tree here that I can climb?
He's never climbed a tree. Because I can't find one that's right for
Stacy: him. Yeah, that they can do, yeah. Well, you know, one of the things I say, and I mention in the book, is Children are very intuitive, and like, we, I feel like we've gotten to a place that we don't trust them anymore, but they're very in tune with their bodies, and a good example is when we have, an older infant, and they're on the floor, we're not saying, alright bud, you gotta start rolling over, it's time.
They intuitively start pushing and trying to figure it out. We give them the opportunity. Repeat that over and over and over and eventually they accomplish it. But it's, it's a very intuitive thing. So I say children's brains tell their bodies what they need and then their bodies and actions tell us. And then another step on that is, experiences wire the brain repetition strengthens the wiring.
And by repetition, there's a reason there's a need. And a lot of times it's the brain telling the body, all right, we have to develop this proprioceptive system. We have to develop these muscles. I need you to move over and over and over again, because that's how it, how it develops. And so I think part of our role is to step back.
And really start trusting children and, and really being in tune, with what it is that they're trying to tell us through, through their actions, because they really and truly know that know their bodies. They know what it is that they
Laura: need. Absolutely. And, and that's where. That's the hardest part for so many of us that are teachers, right?
Because we were taught that to be a teacher, you were, you know, teaching in this one kind of prescribed way where you were kind of dictating things. The other thing that I found is So many teachers, we are a certain type of personality because you have to be, you have to have a certain type of personality to maintain the responsibilities and the, sense of, you know, functioning within a classroom, which a lot of it relies on being in control and having a brain that goes through certain things.
And I always found, like, I am, I strongly need to feel in control. And, and when we're trusting the children to spin around in circles or run around in the block area instead of building in blocks, like, we want to control that. And that's that urge that we, as adults, constantly have to do, is to just, stop and pause before.
We intervene because it is what's happening right in all those moments are are them learning right and I think that what I would love to hear more about is how then this all right all these things that we are letting children innately do. Leads to literacy learning, how it is literacy learning, even if there's no letters or books involved in it, right?
Stacy: Yeah. And I think like, kind of the, the stepping stone for that is really understanding those, those foundational skills, those developmental skills that need to be in place that will support children down the line when it comes to, you know, reading and writing. And when we understand that and can explain it in detail, get really the intricacies of it.
I think that helps us when we look at children playing and we can start identifying and going, okay, it looks like they're just spinning around, but here are all the things that are developing. This is why they're developing and this is how it will support the children, you know, going forward. But just really, I think it's kind of just changed in that mindset.
It's not so much, Teaching as it is developing. And when you really start understanding that, and again, you look at what supports reading and writing down the line, it helps us identify that, okay. A play experience doesn't even have to be remotely anything that looks like literacy, but it still is supporting literacy.
It's still going to help that child read and write at some
Laura: point. Right. I, one thing that I. noticed my son doing a lot when he was younger was actually in the transporting and p positioning schema but I wasn't Pulling from that bucket of knowledge at the time. I was just like, why is my child always carrying buckets around of his vehicles? Why is he sleeping with his vehicles in his car?
And why are they always lined up everywhere? Like, it was just this is what he did. And it wasn't until, two years ago that it, came back. And I was working with younger children and children with disabilities that I had to really dive again into development and remind myself of things. And I went home one day and I just was like, Oh, saw my child who was five in such a different way.
He was meticulously lining up all his cars and when he was doing that, then I was looking at it from this other lens. I was like, wow, he is categorizing. He is sorting. He is using so much control because he was using like matchbox cars, but also monster trucks and bikes and he was having to balance them and he didn't want the row of red vehicles to fall over onto the green.
So he was having to be really intentional with his placement. And then he was also crafting stories of who was in the vehicles and narrating and all these things. Right. And so it was This one small moment that was just him engaging in this positioning schema, right? Suddenly I was just looking at it with this different lens and I was able to see.
All these, quote unquote pre literacy things that were happening that were going to help him later when he sits down with paper and pencil. and it really is, we just have to see it. And I feel like once people see it, they can embrace it. But for whatever reason, I imagine you come across this in your speaking, right?
There's that resistance, right?
Stacy: Well, because it is looking at it from a, from a different lens and it's really kind of taken on more of this, kind of developmentalist look towards it. and I find that most people are open to like, you know, we.
I'm going to start talking about it, but you know, it, like I said, I think it's just really identifying those things. And when people are like, okay, well this, you know, we're required to do this or, you know, we have to identify something that was literacy based. And, you know, my goal is like, let's, let's look at it again with a different lens and, and just take these, these child led.
Very meaningful experiences and just be able to identify them or, you know, explain to our stakeholders. Yeah, it is still literacy. Is it kind of back to your son you know what I'm thinking as you're talking about that is like how amazing, how much more meaningful that that experience was because it was his.
It was something that he wanted to do. And so he probably stuck with it way longer than if I had some sort of scripted activity or something that I came up with that, that wouldn't connect with him near as much as him, you know, placing the lining up
Laura: the cars. Absolutely. And that's where so much comes in for me when I stop and think about, you know, the difference between.
You know, adult led repetition and child led repetition, right? Because he did that two, three, four days in a row. And I was able, you know, with my teacher self, like, nudge it a little bit and suggest labeling if he wanted, or, you know, what other ways could we categorize it. And he took it or leave it, right?
And I always say, you know, you can take my suggestion or leave it. Um, but I think what happens When we have those scripted curriculums and we use that as a lens, I mean, we as teachers, we juggle so much. It's so hard. And when you have so many students, it's really, really challenging to watch and see each child's individual development and individual interests and plays and follow that.
Right. But on the flip, the alternative is you're making a, you know, Pinterest activity that's Sorting and categorizing and it's you know, oh, it's spring. So you have different flowers of different colors and they're you know Even if you have the best intentions and it's not a pinterest craft But you're putting out flowers in the in the block area and a flower shop in dramatic play and your underlying goal Is for them to start categorizing and and sorting it's like You know, trying to lead the horse to the water, you can't make them drink, right?
You can put those flowers there, but if they're in some different schema or they're interested in something else, they're not going to use those things in those ways. And so it's like we, we, we always often, I think as teachers, we have that goal, right? And then we try to provide the materials to meet that goal.
And it's just not, it's not the way to really meet the whole child. Right?
Stacy: Right. Yeah, exactly. And I would say like each child has their own ecosystem of what's important to them. And so, you know, I think one of the ways that we can kind of approach, how do we meet the needs of all children? Well, what's, what's important to each child and can I have things in the environment that I can say, okay, you know, I, regardless who it is, there's something that they can connect with and that they can, you know, invest in and really kind of lead some play with it.
Laura: Right. That was their, this, this image, right? Your ecosystem image. Yes. Uh huh. Yes. So, I've got her book here. That's why I was just looking at it. That really stuck out to me as well. And, and I believe where that really came in was where you were talking about Letter of the Week. Yes, right? Because it's so abstract and it's so outside of anything for the children and it also just seems to be like, I think you quoted teacher saying like, well, it's just what we've always done, right?
It's just what we've done.
Stacy: Yeah, right. And I was just, I actually just did a training, a conference a few weeks ago and I had this little section where I'm like, why do we do this? And, and I get typically the same answers, but inevitably somebody will finally go, it's just what we've always done, like we've never really questioned it.
And then when you really start processing it, you know, um, if I introduce a letter that serves no purpose to a child, but I'm introducing it because my curriculum says so, or whatever it may be, but if it serves no purpose to that child's life, and it's not meaningful and they, they have no reason to revisit.
They're not going to learn it. It's not going to resonate with them. But if it's a letter that's super important to them or, you know, whatever the motivation may be, yeah, I give a story of my youngest son who going into kindergarten only knew like the letters of all of our first names in the family, plus our last name.
And I really wasn't worried about it. Cause I'm like, he was a very social child. He had, you know, could get along. I'd like, I I'm like, he's going to be fine in the classroom. And in the first month of kindergarten, we'll learn that all the upper and lowercase letters and it had nothing to do with his teacher's instruction or the curriculum.
Um, what it had to do with is he had a crush on that teacher and he was trying to get her attention. It was like, what better way than to. And so within a matter of like a week or so, he, he learned all those letters cause he was motivated, but it, you know, if we have the script, a curriculum just to check off the boxes, well, that, that will, you know, we're doing that for stakeholders.
We're doing that for a completely. Not child centered, you know, thinking, but if we look at the children in our classroom and recognize too, that they can learn more, more than one letter at a time, if the letter is just, you know, of interest to them and they don't need a whole week or even a whole day to learn a letter that, you know, the letter of their first name, or if I have a new sibling, I immediately am going to learn their letter.
I don't need to glue a lot of things on it. Eat snacks that start with that letter, you know, it's, it's, it's just being that, that kind of really mindful of what's important to the children.
Laura: Absolutely. And, and I think again, you know, it's really important to just remind ourselves that letter identification.
Is important, but there's so much more that is matters for life development, but also literacy development, right? There's narrative skills, there's comprehension, there's vocabulary there. And I think I often come back to myself and I wonder because even I, there was a time where I taught the equivalent of pre K.
And you know, we did an assessment and you know, the kids that left with X number of capital and lowercase letters, we felt like comfortable that there was, you know, it was like a screener, like, okay, they're able to see something and know what it is. Right. And then I remember when I then was in the same building and in the same school being in the kindergarten classroom, and that challenge of just like, when you would, you would get some children that came in and knew all their uppercase and lowercase letters and even most of their sounds.
And then the sum that Still just could recognize their name and maybe not even name that first letter. Right. But yet we were still so often asked to screen and assess. And it's like, why? And I think honestly, it's because it's the easiest. You can have the 26 letters, the 26 letters and the 20, you know, thousand sounds and you can, you can score it right.
But even when we tried in our kindergarten classroom to, you know, create some way to, to rubric to, to, to say how a child comprehended a story. It was hard, right? Because children are demonstrating their comprehension in different ways. Maybe it's coming out in the bathtub when they're playing with something and they say to their parent, like, Hey, this is just like Peter, From the book I read today, and his snowball melted, right?
We don't see that moment. Or it's the child that's outside and makes a snowball and pretends to climb up a mountain and it's like, hey, I'm, and you're like, oh, he's making a connection to that book, right? Like, it's so much harder to see all those other aspects of the literacy. I think, right? Is that what we, is that why we harp on the
Stacy: I think that that's actually a really good point because it is something tangible and it's something that, um, you don't have to be trained in education to see it either, where like, I feel like there are some things that get us as you know, in the educational realm.
That we're trained to like, we can kind of start honing in on, but, you know, somebody mainstream who doesn't have our background or education might not be able to make that connection. You know, when the child, if they're in the bathtub and correlating it to a story that they've read, you know, uh, the parent might not be aware of that, but I think like the letters we can go, yep, here, you know.
Here are all these things and it's something that we can actually, and it's also something that you can market easy too. So think of all of our, not only curriculum, but mainstream, our games, our, um, apps, uh, children's television shows that they bring the letters in. It's, it's something that honestly money can be made off of, you know, as well.
But what I would say on the alphabet, kind of back to your point that it's, it's. Necessary, but it's not sufficient on its own. And so we've got to make sure that we are, you know, whatever we're, we're doing within our learning environments that we're, you know, it comes seeing everything that does support literacy and the whole child, you know, even beyond literacy, um, Right, but
Laura: yeah, like there's so many other things there if you're not allowing the time and space or you don't have the materials or whatever it is for children to be, you know, physically moving their body and developing their vestibular, you know, senses and spinning around in circles around a pole that let's say you have in the middle costume for whatever reason, or, you know, really being laying on their bellies.
To, you know, roll around or rough and tumble or even, you know, be creative and imaginative if they're not having those opportunities. And I say, even at five and six and seven, then We're not, right? We're not allowing all those foundational things to continue to develop, so there's still going to be these gaps, right?
I mean, we all, I mean, I imagine, I hope, we all know the statistic of how many fourth graders are not proficient in reading, right? Like 66%. And, and I, I, that, that is a huge fault of the way we have been instructing reading, but I think there has to also be something else there because the shift from the, Even play-based kindergarten to the now, watered down first grade is going to be making lifelong impacts.
And those of you that are there. I don't, you know, I pulled my child from kindergarten this year because of the amount of worksheets that he was coming home with, and they were doing like a, a, you know. In addition to other things but like letter of the week was in there and worksheets were coming home and there was no free play like no free play block and when I asked the principal about it I mean the general response I got was like we have The common core standards that we have to meet and we only have so much instructional time.
And, you know, she didn't know who she was speaking to. I know we only have two and a half hours in a seven hour day of instructional time. And I also know at least an hour of that needs to be child led free play, if nothing else. And it was a school thing.
It was a district thing. It's a city, state, you know, it was bigger than I had the bandwidth to combat. And I have the ability right now. I just resigned from my teaching job because it wasn't aligning anymore with what I know about how children learn. I just couldn't do it anymore. So now I'm home with my Children and getting to explore a whole different role of what it means to be, you know, a teacher and developmentalist and and seeing their learning.
But it was, I think one of the hardest things for me was leaving that kindergarten knowing that there were 100 plus other students that were not right having. The ability to play in shaving cream that we're not having blocks to build with and tell a story about that. We're not getting to, paint on a vertical surface, and cross the midline, right?
Stacy: And it's, it's amazing. And like one of my hopes, I mean, not only just with the book, but I think probably, you know, just one of my missions, I guess you would say professionally is to give the tools that we can really start because I think we can say children need to play. Children need to play. But I think we need to start filling in those gaps for stakeholders.
I also think we need to distinguish between Child led play and a teacher hands on activity, because I feel like if, you know, if we make something hands on that everybody's like, oh, it's play, but that's not. And there's a time and place for that, but that is still an adult initiated activity, you know, and that is different than child led play and all the benefits of child led play.
But I think us stepping in and starting to fill in those gaps and go, okay. You talk about instruction, you know, what's your goal for instruction? Let me show you the results of child web play. Let me show you how they actually are this, you know, we have the same goals, but it's just going about it in a way that really is better for the child.
So I think it's just us kind of. Educating the stakeholders, whoever they may be, and, uh, and sharing with them. This is, this is why it's beneficial and maybe even saying sometimes this is what happens when we don't allow, you know, for it to
Laura: happen. That's right. That's right. And so I. Is your book chock full of these types of ideas?
Yeah. Yes.
Stacy: Yeah. I, I, what I try to do is, you know, it's broken down into, you know, before children learn the alphabet, I really address all literacy, but I kind of do it, I guess you would say through looking at the alphabet, but. You know, talk about before children can even learn the alphabet, they have to have an interest in connection.
Uh, they have to develop phonological awareness, their visual, uh, perception skills and physical development. And so what I do, those are kind of pretty much the four main chapters, but I break down, okay, what, what does this look like? What is this development? And then I look at, you know, how does that develop through play?
And then here are some experiences, uh, most of them, I try to look at materials and ways that we can encourage child play, but I do give some, you know, playful teacher, uh, teacher guided things as well, but I try to make a point in the book for every minute, you know, every minute that we take from the child for adult.
Uh, adult guided. We need to hand back to the child and child let play so that there has got to be a balance of that. But, um, and then I try to, you know, really give the tools and give the vocabulary when talking with stakeholders on on defending play and how it does support that. But I've tried to put the why and the how in the book and applicable and practical things that you can put into your learning environment.
Laura: That's beautiful. And I think I love that you say how you give the idea of like materials, right? Because I find often people want ideas. They want ideas, they want ideas, they want ideas, right? But it's hard to give an idea when you don't have the children, right? And so by suggesting materials, um, that for me also feels better than suggesting activities because that activity almost, right?
Is like Going to potentially be more teacher led than if you are putting the materials out that children will always use in ways that we would never, ever think of. Always. Yeah, absolutely.
Stacy: And that's okay, and that's fine. And I even, like I say that in the book, I'm like, If you had this intent, but the child took it in a different direction, stand back and watch because you might learn like they're funny.
They might have a completely different take that was so much better than we imagined. And so, you know, step back and allow for that to happen. And, you know, when children are playing, just get out, you know, design the environment, put materials in that connect with the children. Again, they don't have to be literacy based, um, and then get out of the way and let them play.
Laura: Yeah, awesome. Now, one last thing I would love to just pick your brain about because I feel like we align and you, you seem like very well versed in this stuff. So the, the challenge I often have is I am a big advocate of the science of reading, which does, Like show that children and we can speak more like kindergartners.
I think we're preschoolers like we really need to back off like we're really need to back off on the teacher led stuff with preschoolers. But like, say, let's say kindergartners, we know they need to develop phonological awareness. And we also know like, Reading and writing are not something that they're just going to evolutionarily learn, right?
Like, they're not going to learn that the way that they, a baby, knows intuitively how to walk. They're going to intuitively learn how to tell a story, they're going to intuitively learn how to communicate, but they're not intuitively going to learn reading and writing. And so, I always come to this, like, challenge of, like, There needs to be that explicit teaching of like, let's say rhyming, right?
What rhyming is, or syllables, what syllables are. And I always struggle because how do you, like, how do you see that to show up in player? You know, I just try to look for those moments, but I am, I know it so much that when my daughter the other day, I was saying the word Delaware, because we were driving to my dad's, and she was like, hey, like Delicate, which is one of her favorite Taylor Swift songs.
And I knew that was Huge. She's three and a half and that she heard Della where and she was thinking Della kit, right? Like so much awesome stuff was happening there. I could check, check, check in my box. Not every teacher is going to see that and know that, right? And I didn't do anything with that and be like, what other things can we think of that start with Della?
I just made a mental note and was like, that was really cool. But I always struggle with this idea of like, okay, I can teach solification. So, you know, and say, Let's break down these words, but then often what follows is that like almost teacher led activity where it's like feed the monster and here's some fruits and this monster only eats fruits that have one syllable and this monster eats things that have two syllables and some will find that play and draw to it and some will be Like absolutely not and never revisit it again.
So like what are your thoughts on that? Where,
Stacy: you know, I think it's, it's again, still reading the children's cues, finding, uh, you know, what's important to them and keeping in mind, like, child play is vital. It's critical, but there also is a time for teacher. Guided activities, you know, but I think it's making sure that those are playful and that those are still of the children's interest.
So, you know, on things like on doing, uh, like a rhyming game or something with syllables, you know, can we capture that as we're transitioning and lining up and walking to the playground, you know, um, you know, still have a group time, but making sure that it's again of the children's interest and not. 30 minutes long doing calendar and things that they, they can't connect to, but you know, what's important in their worlds and what's some books that we can bring in.
And, and, and can I, I almost call it being, um, intentionally spontaneous, but I have in my mind, okay, these are the things that I have to address at some point. I, you know, I have them tucked away. But if the opportunity arises, I'm kind of ready to go, but I think it's also again, following the cues. So we don't want to stop the learning by trying to teach.
So we don't want to interrupt the play. But okay, did the player did this opportunity really lend itself for me to kind of throw something out there? And, you know, I even give an experience. An example in the book where I was, uh, playing the game with my great niece and it was a Peppa Pig, Purple Picnic pancake set.
And with him saying that, yeah, and we kept going back and forth and I felt this need to go, do you know what letter that starts with? And I remember, uh, my niece looking at me like, not the game we're playing. And like me going, I totally interrupted that. And I just kind of backed up, Purple Pig. And then later on, I had to reflect.
I'm like. She was still hearing that alliteration. She was still hearing those sounds. We were still having conversations going back and forth. Literacy was still happening. I tried to take something over. I should, it didn't go anywhere. So I stepped back, but you know, I think it's just kind of reading.
Reading the room, and not,
Laura: not, not, not, yeah, yes, you know, that happens a lot with my son, um, but not as much with the literacy, because I, I find myself to pull back, but a lot, I am a big advocate of social justice, and I want to have conversations whenever I see biases or prejudices or stereotypes popping up in their language, or a moment, any like, a Slight window that he opens.
I want to, take it because I really believe in, . And sometimes that will happen where that little moment happens and I start to be like, oh, well, did you know that, a Lego inventor did that? And he's like, no, mom, not now. Right? Or like, what are you doing? And we do, we have to read that. It was funny, I do remember reading that part about the alliteration.
It's so hard for us. Like I said, when she said that with Delaware and Delicate, you know, Teacher Me wanted to keep going with it and think of more and name what it was that she was doing, but it happened, it still mattered, it was still important, and now I know, ooh, okay, thinking about Taylor Swift, how can I Provide other opportunities for her to explore language in other ways, you know, through her interest, right.
It is that big, that big shift we have to make.
Stacy: Yeah, and like I said, you know, in, in the, you know, if you are in a group setting, you know, there are times and places to, to. Really where the teacher does take the lead, but it's not monopolizing it, it's not taking over the whole day, it's just finding those little spurts and, and, you know, can we do nonsense rhymes or lining up, you know, just those small little things really add up to, you know, to me, that that should replace that sitting down and doing the instruction with the young children.
Laura: Right. I love the way that you said, you know, that idea for every minute that we're taking from them, make sure we're giving back a minute, if not a minute five. Right. And so, yeah, you're having to do that. You know, I think a lot of the curriculums now like Hagerty and other ones are asking for, in kindergartens, five to 15 minutes of, repetition and adult led, , interaction and conversation and instruction around phonemic awareness.
So for those 10, 15 minutes, like make sure you're giving that back twofold in, in free play and letting the free play be free play and not. You know, driving. Exactly. I think that's a really beautiful way to think about that. Right. I appreciate it. Oh, it's been so nice chatting with you. I love talking all things, you know, literacy and the way children's brains work around this stuff.
I super appreciate it, where can people find you and your book? I'll have links in the show notes, but let them
Stacy: know. Yeah, so my website is Stacybinge. com and, and then my book is available through Exchange Press. So if you go to exchangepress. com slash ABC, or you can go to my website and find it from there.
And I'm on Instagram and, Facebook as well. So that, that. Instagram is really what I do most of my posting and interactions, but yeah, but if you go to my website, you can connect all of those as well.
Laura: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining me. I really appreciated chatting. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
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