Souns Comes to Apopka...
It’s funny how the world works. Technology has made communication so fast and easy that connections happen very quickly and quite frequently on social media and other outlets. Twitter is where I have had the pleasure of meeting many impressive educators around the world. One of those learned people is Brenda Erickson, the founder of the Souns literacy program. Souns is a hands-on phonemic awareness program that establishes the alphabetic principle. www.souns.org
All of my teaching experience is in the upper elementary grades. I chose to temporarily leave my career of classroom teaching and the beginning of a doctoral pursuit in Leadership and Innovation in Education. I left my profession to stay home with my children who are now ages three and four. Because my children are of preschool age, my interest in early childhood education piqued. I asked Brenda one day how I could get trained in Souns. She realized my location and offered to swing by to train the preschool cooperative I’m a part of on her way back from a conference in Sarasota, FL. This was very kind of her considering the fact that she had just returned from a trip sponsored by the Rotary Club witnessing the success of Souns in South Africa. We took her up on that offer and the rest is history.
Brenda came to meet with six of us on Sunday, October 23rd. We learned and played with the program. I received an email from a friend who is an occupational therapist that evening that said, “Thank you so much for arranging tonight and getting Brenda to come teach us! I am so excited and I can't turn my brain off:). Thanks again for this opportunity:).”
The next day, Brenda came in to work with the whole cooperative. My two favorite quotes of the day came out of the mouths of teachers who take part in our preschool cooperative.
“It’s a mind shift... I am so impressed,” said one teacher, with a Master’s in literacy instruction.
Another teacher, with a Master’s in ESOL instruction said, “I’m in love (with Souns.)” while toting her two year old twins to the restroom.
Since Brenda came, I have asked mothers for their thoughts following up on the program as we practice it more. Here is what I’ve heard back so far. (Our cooperative is filled with mothers from a variety of backgrounds who see the benefits of Souns from different perspectives: occupational therapy, physical therapy, teaching, etc.)
“Souns encompasses how kids naturally learn.”
“Well, after the training I was so impressed that my twins could identify the sounds, I immediately started working with my five year old. She and I have been working on learning to read on and off for a few months but she is easily frustrated and when writing always wants my help to spell the word correctly. Well, she just happened to have homework last week where she needed to write a sentence in a book her class was making. After practicing using souns (we made "real" words and nonsense words), she sat down to complete her homework and wrote the sentence completely on her own. She was so empowered and proud that she must have read the sentence 50 times to me. The sentence was about her and her brother playing so when he work up from his nap, she must have read the sentence to him 10 times. It was amazingly wonderful to see her so happy and proud of her work.”
"I love Souns because it is a hands on approach to learning and it makes sense to learn the sounds before you actually learn the letters. This program reaches kids at their developmental level because kids learn through play and through hands on experiences which makes this so much fun for the children."
