A class parents can count on // `Family math' program brings teaching home for Santa Ana students

DATE                  5/21/90
NEWSPAPER             THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION               METRO
EDITION               EVENING
PAGE                  b01
STORY LENGTH          16 INCHES
HEADLINE              A class parents can count on // `Family math' program 
                         brings teaching home for Santa Ana students
BYLINE/CREDIT         Dan Froomkin:The Orange County Register
SUBJECT TERMS         OC:SCHOOLS:FAMILIES:EDUCATION
  KEYWORD-HIT

    It's 7 p.m. on a Wednesday at Fremont Elementary School and Horacio
  Ramirez, 35, is squeezed into a chair made for much smaller people,
  happily trying to get his big fingers into a pair of tiny scissors.
     Next to him, his son, Horacio Jr., 9, is busy cutting up strips of
  construction paper into halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths.
     The Ramirezes are following the instructions of math teacher Shelly
  Heredira, who is leading a classroom of about 40 Spanish-speaking
  parents and children through the construction of a "fraction kit,"
  complete with homemade dice.
     When this class -- called "Family Math" -- is over, the Ramirezes
  will be able to take the kit home.
     And Horacio Jr. will be able to learn about fractions in an
  enjoyable way: by playing a game with his father.
     While most new teaching strategies aim to raise the level of
  teaching inside the classroom, Family Math aims to raise the level of
  teaching at home.
     Parent participation always has been considered a key ingredient to
  successful education. In fact, many experts say the traditional
  achievement gap between rich and poor children is partly a result of
  the home environment.
     Family Math, a joint venture of California State University,
  Fullerton, and the Santa Ana Unified School District, is an attempt to
  narrow that gap.
     David Pagni, a Cal State Fullerton math professor and director of
  the program, said many immigrant and low-income parents don't know
  enough about how to help their children do better at school.
     "The evidence is very clear that they want to, but they don't have
  the skills," Pagni said. "They haven't gone through college themselves
  so they just don't have the savvy, the know-how that parents who have
  gone through college already have."
     On Wednesday night, the sixth and final session of Family Math this
  semester at Fremont Elementary, three classrooms were full almost to
  bursting with parents and children.
     About 120 people responded to the invitations in two languages. In
  one classroom, the teachers spoke in Spanish. In the other two, class
  was in English.
     In the next classroom over from the Ramirezes, Jesus Astudillo spoke
  of his passionate desire to help his son, Jesus Jr., 9, do well at
  school.
     "I tell him all the time: `You must learn, to have a better future.'
  He says math is difficult. I say math isn't difficult if you know it.
  You have to practice. The best place to learn is in school. But the
  best place to practice is home."
     By bringing parents to the school, Family Math gives them a chance
  to get familiar with the modern US curriculum, which is considerably
  different from what many of them were exposed to when they were
  children.
     Dee Harmon, director of the Fremont program, said teachers tell
  parents that when they cook, their children can help them multiply or
  divide the quantities in a recipe. Or they can ask their children for
  financial advice such as, "If you had $5, could you buy a Big Mac,
  fries and a Coke?"
     Eddie Hune, whose son Edward Bryson is a fourth-grader, said he has
  taken some of those pointers to heart. When he and his son go shopping
  for toys, for instance, they keep an eye on the price tags.
     "By the time we get to the cashier," Hune said, "he knows how much
  it costs already -- plus the tax, because we did percentages, too."
     Teachers ply the families with dozens of game ideas and give them
  the materials to play them.
     Yet another goal of Family Math is to show that math can be fun. And
  in the classes, which run from 6:30 to 8 p.m., the enthusiasm is
  contagious.
     In each class, teachers give out prizes. Students and parents are
  asked, for instance, to guess the number of Skittles candies in a
  bottle. The winners jump for joy.
     Students and parents alike scream out answers. And when it's time to
  play the fraction game, the noise level soars.
     "We love this game," said Aaron Salcido, 10, erupting in gasping
  laughs every time his mother rolled small fractions on her die (high
  rolls are better).
     Pagni is optimistic that programs such as Family Math will continue
  to catch on. Already, 120 teachers in the Santa Ana district have been
  trained to teach it, and another 120 will be trained next year. Every
  elementary school in the district already offers Family Math.
     "It's a new approach in education," he said.