We also included pictures from the VPK Trick or Treating field trip to The Bridge Assisted Living Facility. The kids exchanged a lot of smiles and collected some candy too from the residents. What a wonderful opportunity for both young and old to brighten each others day.

In 2009, the Afterschool Alliance conducted a national household survey of nearly 30,000 families to learn how many children are in afterschool programs, how many are unsupervised after school and how these numbers compare to five years ago. Building upon and updating a similar study conducted in 2004, America After 3PM, sponsored by the JCPenney Afterschool Fund, gives the most comprehensive and accurate picture to date of what our nation’s youth are doing each day after school.

America After 3PM finds that afterschool programs today are serving significantly more children than they served five years ago, but there also are more children unsupervised each afternoon in the United States, and the demand for programs is higher than ever.

• More than a quarter of America’s schoolchildren are on their own after the school day ends, and before parents get home from work. Despite growing awareness that children are at particular risk during these afternoon hours, the number and percentage of children left on their own in the afternoons has actually increased in the last five years.
  • The number of children who are unsupervised in the afternoons has risen from 14.3 million (25 percent) in 2004, to 15.1 million (26 percent) in 2009.
  • Today, 30 percent of middle school students (3,722,219) and four percent of elementary school children (1,133,989) are unsupervised after the school bell rings.

• The availability of afterschool programming for kids has improved in the last five years and families are taking good advantage. But there are not enough programs to keep pace with rising need.
  • The number and percentage of children participating in afterschool programs has increased significantly in the last five years, with 8.4 million children (15 percent) now participating. That  compares with 6.5 million children in 2004 (11 percent).
  • Parents of the 18.5 million children (38 percent) not currently participating in afterschool programs say they would enroll their children if a program were available to them. That is a significant increase from 15.3 million (30 percent) in 2004.

• While ethnic minority children are more likely than others to be in afterschool programs, millions are unsupervised each afternoon and the unmet need is huge.
  • Twenty-five percent of Asian, 24 percent of African-American, 21 percent of Hispanic and 16 percent of Native American children attend afterschool programs, compared to the national average of 15 percent.
  • Yet 28 percent of African-American, 21 percent of Hispanic and 24 percent of both Asian and Native American children have no adult supervision after the school day ends.
  • While two in five parents overall (38 percent) would enroll their children if afterschool programs were available, more than half of African American (61 percent) and Native American (51 percent) parents, and nearly half of Hispanic and Asian parents (47 percent), say they would.

• The economy is taking a toll on participation in afterschool programs.
  • Parents cite a number of barriers to enrolling their children in afterschool programs with more than half of parents (52 percent) citing cost and more than one in four reporting hours of operation (26 percent) and availability (27 percent) as reasons for nonparticipation.
  • On average, parents who pay for afterschool programs pay $67 per week, up from an average of $44 per child per week five years ago.
  • Nearly one in three households (31 percent) report that their children are spending more time in the care of a parent after school now than a year ago. Reasons include changes in work status and availability/affordability of programs.
  • While overall satisfaction with afterschool programs remains consistent since 2004, mean satisfaction is down on several factors, including cost, location and number of days/hours per day a child can attend a program.

• Americans see afterschool programs as an answer. The vast majority of parents of children in afterschool programs are satisfied with the programs their children attend, and public support for afterschool programs is unusually strong.
  • Nine in ten parents (89 percent) are satisfied with the afterschool programs their children attend.
  • Nine in ten parents surveyed (91 percent) agree that there should be “some type of organized activity or place for children and teens to go after school every day that provides opportunities to learn.”
  • Eight in ten parents (83 percent) support public funding for afterschool programs.
  • Parents recognize that afterschool is more than just a safe place for kids. According to parents of children in afterschool, the top benefits of participation include helping with social skills, keeping kids safe, providing opportunities to be physically active and helping their child succeed in school.

America After 3PM provides powerful evidence that we must do more to support afterschool programs in the United States. That includes increased support from all levels of government and the philanthropic and business communities.

According to U. S. Census data from 2007, the total school-age population is 57.3 million, which is the foundation for the national projections in America After 3PM.

America After 3PM was sponsored by the JCPenney Afterschool Fund. Between March and May 2009, 29,754 parents/guardians responded to survey questions about their after school child care arrangements during the 2008-2009 school year. RTi, a market research firm, conducted the survey and analyzed the data for the AfterschoolAlliance. Additional information from America After 3PM is available at www.afterschoolalliance.org.

These 14 employees come from diverse backgrounds that represent the diverse cultures in the East Orlando Area. Between them, they speak 7 different languages, and come from 7 different countries. Best of all, they carry more than 214 years of combined experience working with children!

Please take a moment to congratulate these 14 employees. They include: Pilar Vidal (13 years), Lisa Apoo (9 years), Jennifer Crenshaw (8 years), Edith Mousadi (7 years), Eda Vizcaino (6 years), Suma Mousa (6 years), Dignora Segura (6 years), Leida Zayas (6 years), Karisa Byrd (6 years), Charmaine Jobson (5 years), Samar Muhaisen (5 years), Jennifer Nanni (5 years), Lilliam Santana (5 years), Tory Barker (5 years).

A great example came from Scholastic article and it goes like this:

Consider this: A father takes his son to the store to buy some shoes. The salesperson asks, “What kind of shoes do you need?” The father replies, “He needs basketball shoes.” As the salesperson leads them to the basketball shoes, he asks, “How old is your son?” The father answers, “He is 12.” So the salesperson points to five pairs of shoes on the wall and says, “There are our age 12 basketball shoes.” (Scholastic: A Professional Paper, 2008)

When choosing reading material for our children we normally either give them books that interest them or sometimes we even just give them a book just to have them try and read it. But reading the example above, just as we know that a 12 year old may not have a size 12 shoe, we cannot assume that children, who can read words fully, comprehend the literature in their reading material. There are many factors in determining what Age Appropriate is for our children. In this article I will discuss one of those factors.

As teachers we base our grading scale for age appropriate reading levels using Lexiles. Lexiles are scale measurements that measure text difficulty and reading ability (Scholastic: A Professional Paper, 2008). When we analyze Lexiles we as educators look at two areas in literature construction: Semantic difficulty and Syntactic difficulty (Hiebert & Pearon, 2010, p. 6). According to Hiebert & Pearson (2010) Semantic difficulty refers to the frequency of the text in a database (paragraph) and Syntactic difficulty refers to sentence length (p. 6) . Being aware of Lexiles can help you as a parent or teacher because determining reading appropriate material for your child can lower frustration and can help scaffold their reading ability as they progress when they get older encouraging them to be better self-regulated readers.

Here are two strategies I have learned at the University of Central Florida when determining age appropriate reading levels for K-12 children:

1. Take a page from the book you want your child to read. Next glance through and count approximately how many paragraphs are in that page. Next, look at the font of the page (larger letters are for younger reading age groups; small for more advanced readers). Afterwards, take a look at the syllable count for the words in the paragraph? Are the words 1 or 2 syllables? Shorter syllables make it easier for younger children to read. Syllables help organize the semantics in learning literacy. Finally, take a look at sentence length? Are the sentences long where there is too much detail, or are they short for younger children to quickly understand. A large amount of pictures determine the low reading level of the book also (younger children need visualization when correlating text to images).

2. If your child has taken a Standardized Test in school, then they give you a Grade-equivalent Score for your child according to a statewide assessment. Grade-equivalent Score is defined by Woolfolk (2011) as a “Measure of grade level based on comparison with norming samples from each grade” (p. 637). If you look on your child’s score you might find a number that looks like this: 3.7

This is how you interpret this number:
– The whole number determines what grade level their reading level is (Woolfolk, 2011, p. 637). So this 3 means 3rd grade.
– The decimal stands for the tenths of a year which is interpreted in months (Woolfolk, 2011, p. 637). This means your child has a reading level around the month of February in the 3rd grade since the date of the test.

I am hoping that this information can help you, either as a teacher or parent, select an appropriate book so that the next time before you give a child reading material, you can quickly determine whether or not that it is appropriate for your child.

Works CitedHiebert, E., & Pearon, P. D. (2010). An Examination of Current Text Difficulty Indices with Early Reading Texts. Santa Cruz: Text Project Inc.
Scholastic: A Professional Paper. (2008, March). Lexiles: A System for Measuring Reader Ability and Text Difficulty. New York, New York, United States: Scholastic Inc.
Woolfolk. (2011). Educational Psychology. Boston: Pearson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTGceYy-MrY?rel=0