Links To Literacy
As we near the end of our official school year in June, it’s amazing to see how the children have grown and developed since last fall. The children’s language skills especially have increased by leaps and bounds. Many of the older children can have conversations in both English and Korean. Longer stories can be shared during circle time and conversations are more complex and in-depth. During this time, parents are asking about kindergarten readiness and teachers are helping to facilitate reading and writing skills. Because we are a play-based school, teachers never force children to sit down and practice writing, but at the same time, they also want to stimulate learning where there is interest. Since our classrooms have children ages 3 to 5, younger children are motivated to learn to by watching older children write and older children mentor the younger children by showing them what they know. The process is very natural and arises very organically through projects, observations and modeling.
For the months of April and May, the KYCC children’s center is giving free weekly workshops to parents about various ways to promote early literacy in young children. Since most of the center’s parents do not speak English as their primary home language, the workshops encourage parents to continue strengthening their child’s native language skills. A new and exciting program being introduced this year is a library center that allows our families to borrow book sets (some with audio CDs) so that parents can share books with their children at home. Many of the books are printed in both English and another language (Korean, Spanish, Tagalog or Chinese) to support multilingualism. While it is important for children to develop language skills at school, it is just as important to include parents in the process so that they do not feel excluded from their child’s early education.
A Happy Tax Day
April marks the successful end to the 2008 Koreatown Free Income Tax Preparation Program. KYCC along with its partners — Center Bank, Hanmi Bank, Nara Bank, Wilshire State Bank and United Way of Greater Los Angeles — provided free income tax preparation services to more than 990 low-income individuals, seniors and families. Through this collaborative, over 550 low-income tax filers will enjoy nearly $370,000 in tax returns, and 440 social security recipients, who normally would not file, will benefit from $132,000 in stimulus rebates from applications filed at KYCC. These individuals and families saved thousands of dollars in tax preparation fees and will be able to use that money for other things that they need.
KYCC would like to thank our partners for their financial support and donation of time, space and laptop computers. KYCC would also like to give a special thanks to the 70 volunteers who gave generously of their time, which included IRS training and certification along with at least eight hours of tax preparation.
