The Early Childhood Resource Center (ECRC) features a number of success stories in its 2018 impact report, including a story about how SPARK is making a difference in the lives of one mother and her son. Their story is below. You can read the full impact report here.
SPARK, which stands for Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids, is a parent-focused intervention program that gets kids ready for kindergarten.
Having parents engaged in a SPARK lesson makes all the difference in the world.
Rosetta is a busy mom with three young children. She appreciates that SPARK lessons give her uninterrupted time to be just with her son, Carter. They’re working together to be ready for kindergarten.
As Rosetta takes the book from their SPARK Parent Partner Missy, she turns to Carter and says, “The name of this book is Bunny Cakes. Who do you think makes the cake in this book?”
“Bunny rabbits,” he replies.
Rosetta pauses after reading each page and asks Carter a question. Sometimes his eyes stray to the other items on the table, but Rosetta always brings him back to the book by asking a question or having him point to an item on the page. Together, they read and talk about how the bunny made a cake for her grandma.
For each activity Missy brought, mom and son engage together. The Bunny Cakes lesson uses the cakes in the book to teach counting, sorting, shapes, and colors. Carter names the shapes of various cakes, and then Missy asks him which cake was his favorite. He says, “The Spiderman cake, and I know my mom would like the heart-shaped cake.” Rosetta agrees.
Missy asks Carter to come up with ingredients for a cake he would like to make. He decides that his cake will require one dozen eggs, five cups of sugar, a hundred teaspoons of jelly, one bag of chips, seven sticks of butter, two cups of flour, and seven cups of honey. Rosetta has him mix the imaginary ingredients by telling him to “use those muscles you always show me to stir.”
When Missy asks Carter to draw a cake in his journal, he says, “Mom, you draw a cake too.”
And so she does.
The Early Childhood Resource Center is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System.
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