BURBANK, Calif. – A is for apple. B is for ball.
These are the very earliest literacy lessons parents often start sing-songing to their kids even before they can speak.
But with COVID-19, parents may find themselves taking on more responsibility when it comes to teaching their young ones to read.
Lucy Lee never intended to homeschool but she couldn't imagine her son, Benny, who is entering Transitional Kinder Expansion this year, thriving in remote learning.
"I didn’t know if this was a great start for him," she said. "I can’t get him to stay on a family Zoom call for five minutes. I wasn’t going to struggle with him and have a fight and make education a negative thing."
Instead, she's teamed up with her sister Anya Boyer to turn their backyard into a sort of one-room schoolhouse.
“We’re 'quaran-teaming' and we’ve put our three children together," she explained.
For Lee, that’s 7-year-old Zoey and Benny who is 4-and-a-half. She says being solely responsible for his early literacy skills is a bit daunting.
"It’s a little bit anxiety inducing that it’s on me," she admitted.
Whether they’re homeschooling or have young children starting their educational experience online, longtime teacher Andrea Seale suspected there were parents out there feeling anxious. She posted a message on a Burbank Facebook page offering free coaching sessions over Zoom to “help parents teach their child how to read.”
Because, she says, it's harder than you might think.
“So we love reading and then we love our child and then we’re going to do this thing that we think is going to be fun and easy," Seale said. "And I’m here to tell you that it isn’t natural. It’s a very cognitively demanding task.”
To illustrate her point, she often shows parents a pair of sunglasses, holding them in different directions and asking what they are. It's not a trick question. However she holds them, they’re still glasses.
But flip a lowercase d, and it's a b. Turn that b upside down and it becomes a p.
"And it’s really the first time we’ve ever done this to a child, right?" she said. "For five years we've told them that things are things no matter what their relationship to space."
"This pen doesn’t become something else when I flip it," she continued, then picked up her lowercase d again, "but this does become something else when I flip it."
She did this exercise with dozens of parents and said it's often an eye-opening moment for them.
When it comes to teaching the basics, there are plenty of tools and resources out there to work with but she says none of them will work if both parties aren’t in the right mindset.
“I tell people, if you’re tired or frustrated, don’t even start," she said. As for the kids, "make sure they’re well-rested. Make sure they’ve had a snack. The child should be 100 percent ready to learn.
Seale also suggests stocking up on stickers and other rewards and always using positive language, like "Almost!" and "You're so close!" before pointing out where they made the error.
There’s a lot at stake. For kids, how well they read can affect their whole attitude toward school and themselves.
“If they’re a struggling reader, they start to a get a fixed mindset of school is hard, reading is hard, I am dumb," she explained, "and that’s what I fear so much for this little population of kids coming into school this year. Once they believe that, the rest of their life is going to be us unteaching that.”
Seale held the free sessions twice and week and hopes they parents who took her up on the offer feel more confident going into the school year – whatever path they choose to take.
As for Lee, she has some materials, a co-teacher and enough plants and animals in her backyard to create a living classroom. Her curriculum will be working with Benny on letter recognition and writing his name.
“It’s just going to be about patience," she laughed, "and learn with them as we are doing it together.”
A learning curve many parents will be trying to navigate.