As part of my preschool teaching responsibilities I am asked to attend continuing education courses. This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on listening skills lead by Ms. House, a Special Ed teacher. She talked at length of how listening is the forgotten “fourth skill of literacy,” of how listening accounts for up to 40% of an educational experience and ended with a strong plea to work with our children and teach them how to be good listeners so they’ll thrive as learned listeners.

I left the session with a bagful of teaching tricks and the desire to write companion stories to support the Little Reps’s message of heartfelt love and listening. I’ll be ordering M. Burke-Allen’s book, Listening: The Forgotten Skill pronto!