Grandparents to the Rescue!

To be honest, I was just thinking of my own needs. My grandson lives 1000 miles away. I wanted to see him, hear him, and be part of his life. He was just born. My daughter could hold him up to the webcam. But what about when he was older?

I wanted to talk with him. At age one he didn’t have a whole lot to say. But I could send him pictures to look at that were appealing and funny, and made noises and moved around. So I had some made and did. When he was just a bit over one he toddled over to the computer and said “duck!” My daughter called me and said he wants to see the duck. We connected to grandparentgames.com, which I had set up for this purpose and I showed him the duck. He was excited. He quickly learned that I would show him whatever he wanted to see and he asked frequently to talk to me. Of course, I had an idea behind all this. I had decided that I would teach him to read. I had written a book (Reading and Understanding, 1980) on how to teach reading and I had taught my kids to read when they were three. I liked the experience and so did they. I knew there would be times when his parents would be unavailable or tired. I wanted him to think about finding me. And then, we could do some fun stuff. I wanted a way to be in his life on a frequent basis.

So, that is how Grandparent Games was born, and it has become a model for my thinking about how education can be easily aided by those who have the time to help. The site has (or will have) the alphabet, numbers, three letter words, stories written using only three letter words, visits to the aquarium and the zoo, and a host of other things ready to send to my grandchildren when they are ready for them. The animations are funny and great to watch and children want to see them all again and again. I have the time and inclination to teach him to read, and now I have created the materials as well.

Of course, building this caused me to wonder about something more significant than me and my (now 2!) grandsons. What about all these people down here where I live, in retirement land, with so much time on their hands? Couldn’t they be made of use?

But they don’t know how to teach reading or math or geography. Really? Sure they do. They just don’t have the proper materials to make it easy for them to do, and they may not have anyone to teach.

Here is an idea: let’s fix that. Let’s let all the people who want to teach, and this includes lots of old people, become the mentors of kids who would like to learn, all mediated by the internet. It is easy to do.

Go to www.grandparentgames.com a site that launched this week and will keep growing.