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www.thepeninsulaqatar.com CAMPUS | 3 HEALTH & FITNESS | 10 ENTERTAINMENT | 12 CMU School of Music Why vitamins are Alia Bhatt keen to –Pittsburgh inspires important in a work with Mani Compass students healthy diet Ratnam WEDNESDAY 9 MARCH 2016 Email: [email protected] thepeninsulaqatar @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatar READ ALOUD TO CHILDREN Each year, all over the world, there are a startling number of children entering schools unprepared to learn. They lack the vocabulary, sentence structure and other basic skills that are required to do well in school. How can we tackle this? P | 4-5 WEDNESDAY 9 MARCH 2016 | 03 CAMPUS Injaz Qatar event at DeBakey Students of DeBakey High School – Qatar completed two programmes of Injaz Qatar. Injaz’s goals are to link youth with successful role models from the private sector, enhance their skills and participation in the economy, introduce students to innovation, critical thinking and new business concepts and give corporations an opportunity to develop the skills of youth. Grade 7 – 8 students completed the “More Than Money” and “It’s My Business” programmes. CMU School of Music–Pittsburgh inspires Compass students r Terry Creissen, Executive graduate at the end of this year. She Principal at Compass Interna- teaches the Suzuki method to stu- tional School Doha, and Mar- dents aged 8-12 and is auditioning Dgaret Pilkington, Head of the to join an orchestra when she grad- Gharaffa campus, welcomed three mu- uates. Wang, is an under-graduate sicians from Carnegie Mellon University and is busy auditioning to join a grad- of Music – Pittsburgh, to the school on uate school and Papadimitriou who Sunday. The trio who included Cecilia is in the third year of his post-gradu- Orazi on cello, Alyssa Wang on violin ate degree, teaches a graduate class and Dimitri Papadimitriou on piano be- at Carnegie Pittsburg and plans their gan their visit at the Gharaffa campus Chamber Music Series. and continued on to Madinat Khalifa- The visitors spent the morning edu- to workshop with the Year 8 students. cating the students on their three cho- The school thanke Edna Jackson, Direc- sen instruments, how they work and tor of the Dean’s Office- Carnegie Mel- explored the various features that per- lon University in Qatar, for inviting the sonify music. musicians to share their backgrounds, As part of the school music curricu- experience and musical talents with lum, which includes collaboration with the students. The Julliard School, the students are Orazi has been with Carnegie exposed to the world of music and art Pittsburg for three years and will by bringing performers into the school. 04 | WEDNESDAY 9 MARCH 2016 COVER STORY By Soul Rebertson desire to turn “millions of kids into mil- The Peninsula lions of readers”. Carol Buijs, a year 1 Making books teaching assistant at Doha College said: “It gets children excited about books. The kids had such a great week ach year, all over the world, with book themes touching on all sub- there are a startling number of children’s jects. The dress up as your “favourite children entering schools unpre- book character” day was very exciting”. Epared to learn. They lack the vo- This type of hype with the festivities at cabulary, sentence structure, and oth- school are designed to get more chil- er basic skills that are required to do dren interested in more books. well in school. Children who start be- best buddies What about a country like Qa- hind generally stay behind – they drop tar where so many children are be- out, they turn off. ing taught in their second language? Why are so many children deficient How would this affect their school in the skills that are critical to school ure. There are other children who en- selves. In all three nurseries here in Do- readiness? The lower elementary Eng- readiness? ter school with limited hours of shared ha, we want children to acquire a love lish as an Alternate Language (EAL) Kimberley Sheedy, an expert in ear- book reading. There are few if any of reading because research shows it teacher Kristin Barber from the Ameri- ly years childhood development and children’s books in their homes. Their is the strongest predictor of academ- can School of Doha said: “Experiences owner of Starfish Lane Kids nursery parents and siblings aren’t readers. ic success”. with books in a child’s home language/ schools in Doha says: “Children’s expe- It’s these kids who will struggle with Picture book reading provides chil- mother tongue/native language/first rience with books plays a vital role in school readiness”. dren with many of the skills that are language positively impacts them school readiness. Many lucky children Sheedy advocates “…children need necessary for school readiness: vocab- and helps prepare them for PreK, KG, enter school with thousands of hours the nourishment of books. Our chil- ulary, sound structure, the meaning of and first grade. When parents model of experience with books. Much of that dren at Starfish Lane Kids nurseries get print, the structure of stories and lan- how to interact with a book (turn pag- is “lap time” with parents. Their home a minimum of 30 minutes story time guage, sustained attention, the pleas- es, read fluently, asking and answer- bookshelves heave and spill over with (daily) in our dedicated library with ure of learning, and on and on. ing questions, talking about favourite picture books. They even see their par- over 400 books. In class, our children World Book Day was celebrated re- parts...), students are more prepared ents and siblings reading for pleas- have more books to “read” by them- cently in many British schools with the to interact with books at school.” WEDNESDAY 9 MARCH 2016 | 05 COVER STORY “Research has shown acquiring skills in a child’s first language can be transferred to the second lan- Researchers have guage. As a teacher I notice when children have had rich book time with hard evidence that their parents, they enjoy books and reading aloud to your do more than just read the words. Children who have had rich book children activates part time with their parents stop and no- of a pre-schooler’s tice things as they read, they can talk brain that helps about favourite parts of a book, and they are more confident as readers”. with mental imagery Parents are therefore encouraged to and understanding read to their children in both their narrative. mother tongue and English to assist with school readiness. Now, for the first time, research- ers have hard evidence that reading aloud to your children activates part of a pre-schooler’s brain that help with mental imagery and understand- ing narrative. According to the Huff- ington Post, Dr Thomas DeWitt, di- rector of the division of general and community paediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has claimed “there have been a good number of studies that have (found) empirical evidence that reading to kids does have an im- pact on things such as literacy and oral language readiness”. Erin Rock, a pre-school teacher at Starfish Lane Kids says: “How we read ence and the child is actively involved By helping language and litera- children are read to by a family mem- to children is as important as how often in the reading process. Dialogic Read- cy skills to develop well, children start ber at least three times per week, are we read. A common way to read is for ing is designed to encourage children school with well developed vocabular- twice more likely to score in the top the adult to read and the child to listen. to talk more and give descriptions of ies, knowledge of the meaning of print 25% in reading, compared to children Another way to read a book that helps what they see. You can read this way and knowledge of the structure of sto- who were not read to at home children develop story-telling or narra- with children of all ages, but it is most ries. These language skills are impor- • Enjoyment of reading tive skills is called ‘Dialogic Reading’”. effective when a child has at least 60 tant for children to be able to move on Wanting to read is “half the She explained that with Dialog- words of expressive vocabulary. into literacy. battle”for some readers. Giving chil- ic Reading, the adult helps the child Here are a few of the benefits of Di- • Improved reading Scores dren a head start as young toddlers tell the story. The adult becomes the alogic Reading: Research conducted by the US De- and preschoolers gives them a chance questioner, the listener and the audi- • Enhances School Readiness partment of Education has shown that to love books and “reading” long be- fore the business of learning to read starts in earnest. • Motivation for Learning With a love for reading and well developed language and thinking skills, children are more likely to approach learning enthusiastically. • Attention Skills Being able to sit and focus on a book helps children to enjoy spending time in this way. Of course, this is just one way to share a book. Research shows chil- dren certainly benefit when parents or teachers read a book all the way through without stopping, which helps them understand the continuity of the story and enjoy the pleasing rhythms of language used well. Says Starfish Lane Kids teach- er, Rock: “We are proud of our chil- drens’ success rate when it comes to primary school application tests. We at- tribute the high acceptance rate to our school-readiness programme and the hundreds of books they read, not on- ly with us, but their engaged parents”.

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