Ep #40: The Play to Read Program in Action with Beth Liebenberg

What do you do when you have a four year old who is ready to start learning to read? And will the same thing work with a child that’s in maybe first grade who is a little bit behind in their reading? Today I’m talking with Beth Liebenberg. She is a daycare provider in Canada who works with a lot of young children teaching them while their moms are working. She wants to make sure that these kids are not at a disadvantage because their moms are working and maybe don’t have as much time to work with them and gets them ready for school not only to be caught up with the other kids starting kindergarten, but to be ahead of their class.

So she is working on teaching a group of four year olds to read. She also works with kids that are maybe in first grade that are a little bit behind. Today Beth and I talk about using the Play to Read program that we offer and how that has impacted her children’s learning in her daycare. She talks about her system for how she uses it and the impact that it’s had. It’s pretty incredible and I can’t wait for you to hear her story, her ideas and the exciting things she is doing to make it even more fun. Come listen and get inspired by Beth right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Hi, Beth, it is so good to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for being here with me.

Beth: Thank you very much. It’s awesome to chat to you.

Amy: So, Beth and I have kind of been connected for a while, because Beth’s been a member of our community for how long, how long have you been a part of our community, Beth, do you know?

Beth: No actually, about three/four years.

Amy: Yeah, it’s been a minute and it’s so fun because you’ve come to our live shows and just hung out and we’re just so happy to have you as a part of our community. And, Beth, tell me what you do, how do you work with children?

Beth: I have a home daycare and I like to do learning with them. So it’s not a daycare where I will switch on the TV and they just watch. They have to engage and they play, but they’ve also got to learn which is your whole theory about Play to Learn and that is what I do with my daycare. We literally, we have fun but they’re learning at the same time. And I like to get the children ready for school, for kindergarten and things like that because it’s so difficult for working moms to get a child ready for kindergarten.

They cannot always take a child to pre K for two hours. You’re a working mom, what can you do? So I was a working mom many years, so I know what it feels like. So I try and bring that into our daycare.

Amy: That’s amazing, good for you. I love that. And you have a pretty wide range of ages for children in your daycare that you’re working with, which could be a little bit of a challenge. Tell us a little bit about that.

Beth: We have an age group of two to eight, so of course we’ve got the children that go to school, most of them I’ve had since the age of one anyway. So we’ve been bringing them through. And what we do is we take the little ones from two to three, we take for half an hour in the mornings and we let them do little things and then we have an hour and a half in the afternoons just after lunch, where they would then sit, the older ones while the little ones are napping and then we’ll work with those children to do the things that we want them to learn. So that’s how we [crosstalk].

Amy: What a great system. I love that, that’s fantastic. So we are talking today about the Play to Read program, which is kind of this revolutionary way of looking at phonics. Phonics has been around and then it kind of got taken out of the school systems a little over 100 years ago. And then people keep replacing with the other things but the research is all saying that phonics is the best thing. And so they’re bringing it back but it’s still some of the same challenges where phonics is kind of boring. Have you found that sometimes children can find repetitive things over and over again maybe a little bit boring and that adding some play is helpful?

Beth: Yes, they do. Sight words, for example, I have tried many times to teach them sight words. They hate it. It’s just way too boring, no matter how I try it, it’s way too boring because they don’t understand it. How do you teach a sight word? It’s there, you’ve got to know it, but how do you teach it? That’s the difficult part of it. So with the Play to Read, that system with the phonics, I have found that it works excellent with them because they get to learn rhyming words.

And then they can actually see their rhyming word and put letters together and realize, but this matches and if I put another letter to it, but now I can make a new word. So that’s what I love about the whole program.

Amy: It’s fantastic. Yeah, it builds on that, that phonemic awareness and helps them, yeah, start to really structure words and figure it out. I love it. What age group of kids do you have using the Play to Read program at your daycare?

Beth: I’ve got my four year olds because the three year olds are just, no, they just want to play. They’re not interested in it at the moment. But the four year olds, they’re starting to get interested because they know they’re going to kindergarten and mom and dad is talking about going to kindergarten and they’ve seen the older kids read. So they are starting to become interested in that. Once a child is interested, that’s when you’ve got to hit them with it because then you know that they’re going to absorb it because they want it.

Amy: Yes. And do you find that they enjoy the program where there’s a lot of play built into that systematic phonics instruction? Are they enjoying that? Do you find that it’s hard to get them to do it or do they enjoy getting in and doing some of the activities in the Play to Read program?

Beth: They enjoy doing the activities because they’re starting to pick up on the words and realizing that I can make a sound and I can start to put letters together and I’m making up words which I might not have been able to make before. I also feel that you’ve got lots of ideas in there, and people mustn’t be thinking that it’s set in stone because it’s not. You adapt to a child.

I had a grade one which was struggling to read so her mom asked me to help her. And when I was trying to do the sound c-at, cat, she was not picking up the two letters together. She kept still doing c-at and not picking up the word no matter what I did. So eventually I got a featured puppet. And I said to her, c-a, press the two together and that’s the sound it makes. You’ve got to press it together and then you add the t and that’s how she picked it up.

Amy: How fantastic is that? I love it. That’s so creative, very cool. This is awesome. Alright, so do you feel like it is something that children do well together? Do you feel like it’s a healthy thing for their relationship with you as their care provider or something they can kind of work on together? How does it impact kind of the relationship with you then?

Because sometimes I know back when I was trying to get my children to read and that was that early, early reading where it was just a challenge and sometimes they did not want to do it. And it was kind of a little bit of a battle and a struggle. Do you find it to be a battle and a struggle to get them to do it? Or do you feel like they’re kind of willing to come and participate with some of those activities in the reading program?

Beth: They are willing to participate, but some of them don’t want to do it together. They want it more on a one-on-one. So as soon as they come to me during the day, and they say, “I want to read”, the file comes out. So it’s not a set time when it comes to the reading. The moment they say they want to start, I take it out because then they want to. And if it’s one-on-one, I will do a one-on-one. We are between two and three adults. So I can take the time in saying, “Right, you come sit with me.” We sit on the carpet.

We take out the letters. And of course the others will then sit and watch, although they might not be taking part, they’re observing. So they’re picking up on it even if they’re not taking part in it. And that is how eventually, when you’re awesome, what about this? Then they know it.

Amy: I love it. That’s fantastic. Are you seeing progress with the kids that you’ve been working with, are they starting to make progress in their reading with this group of four year olds and your grade one that was struggling and things like that, are you seeing them make progress with this program?

Beth: Yes, I have, definitely. The grade one, she only did it with me for two weeks and she’s done. The teacher’s already said she’s improving at school, her mama said she’s improving at school with her reading. So just the absolute section, one/two weeks trying to get them to link the words together has really made a huge difference for her. She’s starting to understand it better.

And then my grandson, he was in grade one and got lazy because of the whole COVID story, got lazy with his reading and he was struggling a little bit. So I actually took your Module 8 because he was on that level and I went through and I only did Module 8 with him and we had fun doing it. After the first two days he came to me and said, “You know you haven’t pulled out the file. Aren’t we supposed to be doing reading today?”

Amy: I love it.

Beth: So I said, “Well, by all means let’s go for it.” And we did it. He is now in Grade 3, he is reading on a Grade 5 level.

Amy: Wow, that’s so exciting.

Beth: So it does work if you take the time. I’ve got little girls and I mean, they are little girls, they’re not interested in boy things. So when it comes to a section where they’ve got the little road and you take your little car. That’s not for the little girls. So I took a unicorn and I said, “Let them hop, skip and jump down the road”, making the sounds.

Amy: I love it.

Beth: So you adapt to the child and what they like in order to do things like that.

Amy: Absolutely. I love that you’re doing that and it is so simple to kind of just switch out the toy that the child is interested in and bring that interest with you and just add it to this. You just take what they already love and combine it with what you’re trying to encourage them to do and make it playful. That’s so powerful. I’m so excited for you about your grandson, that’s amazing.

Beth: Thank you.

Amy: So let me just ask you one last question. What would you tell another mom or a teacher or a daycare provider about this program if they were to ask you what you thought about it or if it was something useful or helpful, what would you say?

Beth: I would say, “Definitely, if you’ve got a child that’s wanting to read, take the time to play with them while you’re doing it. And if you’re struggling for them to actually sit down and do the whole paperwork part of it. As you’re driving in the car talk to them, play with them and say, “What about that, matching words, sounding the same.”” On Friday, there was a little girl, she was struggling. So I put the file to one side and I got out the letters and we came up with a story about the cat sat on the mat and ate the rat.

And she was like, “Oh, I’m starting to make words.” So a parent can do that as well. A parent can definitely sit with them and work with them on things like that and let them explore it. Daycare providers as well, the children want to learn. They want to learn, they’re ready to go to school. And you have to encourage that because you’re going to get nowhere in life if you cannot read.

Amy: Yeah, it’s so true. It’s such a basic skill.

Beth: It is. I have got an ADHD child, which I suspect is dyslexic so he is a little bit slower at this stage in picking things up. He is already starting to say cat rhymes with mat. So there’s nothing wrong there. He’s listening. He’s learning at a slower pace, but he’s getting there and he’s going to understand it. Daycare providers and I know teachers will be trying to get the kids to learn, but sometimes daycare providers are inclined to, it’s too difficult, whereas this program is not. This program is fun and if you love the kids it’s going to work 100%.

Amy: I love it so much. Thank you for coming and chatting with me today and sharing your experience with the Play to Read program and your daycare. I appreciate you sharing that with us.

Beth: Thank you very much. I enjoyed chatting to you and I love the program as I say.

We’ve talked about how powerful the science of reading is and how impactful it can be when you stack that with the power of play, which is exactly what we’ve done with the Play to Read program.

The Play to Read program takes the power of play and combines it with the science of reading and helps children become proficient, confident readers while having an absolute blast and building their fine motor skills, their communication skills, and probably their relationship with you. It is being used successfully all around the world, and you can use it too today. Go to playtoreadfun.com to grab that program. Again, that is playtoreadfun.com to get play to read fun today.

Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website planningplaytime.com. See you next week.