Amira Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 I think this is the better board to ask this, rather than the chat board where I usually hang out now. I’m looking for ideas to help some families I know whose children need educational support. The basic situation is that I live in a low-income country, schools are closed because of corona, and even when schools reopen, the children I know probably won’t be able to attend school for a variety of safety, financial, political reasons resulting from corona. In addition, the children are already behind in school because of civil war displacements. The most extreme example is a 10yo girl who hasn’t yet finished second grade. Losing yet another year of school isn’t an option. The children‘s schools, when they’re in session, use the national curriculum for their passport country which is taught in English, but most of parents don’t read and write English themselves so their help is limited. They have little internet access, although I have been arranging for internet access and volunteers in the US to read with the children this summer over zoom using English books I print myself. That reading program has helped fill the gap a bit, but it’s not a long-term solution. The children range in age from kindergarten to 12th grade, but most are in elementary school so they need adult support and not just an online program. There are far more children who need help than there are adults who can help. If you’ve made it this far, do you have any suggestions given the above limitations? My best idea right now is to try to supply them with more books and maybe some workbooks, suggest some things they can use online (knowing that the unicorn doesn’t exist even though we desperately need a homeschooling option that is effective, free, and doesn’t require frequent adult supervision), and visit each family personally once a week, plus recruit more reading volunteers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 Have you looked through this thread, to see if anything would work for that situation? Free Homeschool Resources 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted August 17, 2020 Author Share Posted August 17, 2020 The mail is a mess right now because of corona, so I can’t count on that, unfortunately. I do have good bookstores here with books in English, but I can’t necessarily get any certain book or curriculum. I’ve looked at the free list and will probably be printing things off of it. My biggest concern is adult guidance. I just don’t know how to make that happen during corona. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 I wonder if it would be possible to match some of these kids to high schoolers looking for service hours who would be willing to read books etc over Zoom? 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennyD Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 I am a little confused -- why are the children learning in English? Are these children's passport country different than the country in which you are living? Or are the schools i in the country where you are taught in English? Do the children speak English well? 14 hours ago, vonfirmath said: I wonder if it would be possible to match some of these kids to high schoolers looking for service hours who would be willing to read books etc over Zoom? This was my thought, too. Not only for reading books but also for helping with math. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted August 17, 2020 Author Share Posted August 17, 2020 I set up twice-weekly zoom reading sessions with most of the children starting in June and that has been going well, although getting the internet to work is always a challenge and reading twice a week isn’t anywhere near enough. Coordinating time zones is also tricky. I’m going to recruit more volunteers soon, hopefully for math too. But because of time zones and parent work schedules, we can only do one zoom call a day in the evening, so each child in the home gets at most two 30- or 40-minute sessions a week. I need something else to go along with this. The children are refugees living in an Arabic-speaking country. They attend schools that teach English, their home country’s national language. Most of children don’t speak English well because their native language is Arabic. English is the language they need instruction in since they can’t read or write Arabic. Basically, they speak Arabic and are literate (or trying to become literate) in English. I realize this all sounds messed up, but it is what it is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted August 17, 2020 Author Share Posted August 17, 2020 I’m also trying to be careful with zoom sessions because of internet safety. If I expand it beyond people I know personally, I’ll need to do background checks. Right now I’m requiring that a parent is sitting next to the child during the session. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmrich Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 Amira - let me know how I can help. PM with any information when you have it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 Could you record lessons and upload them to youtube, so that parents and children can watch and listen later? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted August 19, 2020 Author Share Posted August 19, 2020 14 hours ago, MissLemon said: Could you record lessons and upload them to youtube, so that parents and children can watch and listen later? We’re thinking about that too, although there are enough things online that it’s probably not necessary to create content ourselves. Mostly, I’m trying to find ways for effective feedback and encouragement for parents and children while they are learning, especially elementary school children who don’t benefit as much from online learning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 Motivation through encouragement is a hard thing to nail down. I think for many of us who homeschool, we have a strong internal sense of motivation and a strong sense of control over the process. Crisis schooling this spring generated an interesting dynamic in our household. One of my kids uses an online charter and it was much harder to stay motivated to complete the assignments. In fact, a lot of the crises families who moved to the charter struggled for the same reason. Families who I thought valued education just stopped learning at all. I still don't fully understand the dynamic of it all....the parents certainly had the educational background and free time to make it happen. So, I guess that's question #1 in my mind: Do they value the gift and support that you are offering them? Is it meeting their needs? We can value education for their children, but if they don't value that for their own children, it makes the hill more upstream. Question #2 in my mind is if they don't internally value the education, is there some external benefit that you can tie to the process that would make them value it more? We have completion certificates and prizes for summer reading programs here in US libraries for that reason---it doesn't need to be expensive or complicated, but sometimes that external and public validation is nice to have. Could you do a door drop of treats or offer an experience in covid times that would be of benefit to them? As far as feedback goes, are you talking about working on literacy in English? Are you trying to gauge whether they are reading phonemes correctly? Can you expound on this a bit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 As far as connections go, if you want me to help put you in touch with someone who is running English literacy and other services for refugees up in Greece, let me know. She may have some additional insight. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 What about math? With math, language might be less of a barrier between curriculum and the parents. If the parents' education is reasonable, the parents can help in Arabic since the kids speak it, assuming the instructions/examples in English text are clear. If the children have to learn the math vocabulary in two languages, maybe assistance can be focused on that problem and on making sure the resources used have clear examples and answers for the parents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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