Show # 99- Elaine Weitzman, Hanen Centre

In this episode, I talk with Elaine Weitzman from the Hanen Centre. The Hanen Centre is an international organization focused on helping parents and educators enhance the language and literacy skills of young children. The programs they have been developed are research-based and the information they offer parents is practical, easy, every day things we can do to truly enhance how our children learn.

The Hanen centre has come out with a yearly calendar that gives parents and teachers a month by month, week by week resource of how to specifically help build critical language skills for young children. This is a straight-forward, easy to use guide to doing simple things that can have a big, long term impact on your child's education and literacy.

To give you some perspective on how important this is, a recent show entitled "Going Big" on This American Life by Ira Glass featured a segment regarding the Harlem Children's Zone, an ambitious program focused on helping parents help their children in the same way the Hanen Centre does- and it's working miracles in terms of improving children's scholastic outcomes.

It's simple things, like reading to your child, asking them questions, talking about emotions, answering those endles "Why?" questions that help spark your child's curiosity about the world and encourage them to develop these critical skills necessary for later literacy and academic success.

Please contact the Hanen Centre through their website at www.hanen.org. The calendar for 2009 is now available, and sample months are available on their website.

Click here to listen to Elaine Weitzman, Hanen Center- Developing Early Language Skills with your kids