RAISE-A-READER
Books help out in pediatric ward
Heath Hotomani sits in the pediatric ward of the Regina General Hospital pointing to pictures in a book he’s reading.
Hotomani missed the first two weeks of school because of complications following a tonsillectomy.
The surgery means he can’t speak much above a whisper so his mother, Donna Allary, talks about his favourite book.
“He reads his Bible every day,” Allary says. “I have a hard time getting him to read, but that’s the one book he’ll read all of the time. It comforts him when he’s scared or has problems. His grandma reads about a book a day and goes through books like crazy. They’re really close and read the Bible together. He has a collection of four or five Bibles.”
Her eight-year-old daughter is a bookworm who has stacks of books, including those of Robert Munsch, in her room.
“Her auntie gets her lots of books and they read before bed,” Allary says.
She encourages both children to read by telling them, “the more you read, the more you know,” Allary says.
It’s something that can continue for kids like Hotomani even while they are cooped up in a hospital room thanks to the passion of Tegan Webber, a child life specialist, and teacher Heather Lewis.
Teaching the ABCs of literacy takes many forms on the pediatric ward.
Webber uses books to help patients understand procedures, such as X-rays, MRIs or CT scans, or their scheduled surgeries.
“We talk about what we’re seeing, how we feel about what we’re seeing and any prior experience they might have had with the test or procedure,” she says.
Art therapy also helps children get through scary times. Webber and her young patients decorate anesthesia masks for them to take to the operating room.
“I’m always looking for different art mediums that I can use to help them express themselves,” Webber says. “That might be as simple as taking syringes and filling with them with different coloured paint and let them express themselves through syringe painting ... There’s a release that they feel from doing the art.”
From infants to teens, music is integral to Webber’s work.
“We sing to babies to promote their brain development,” she says. “The melody actually enhances brain activity and promotes brain synapses to form. It’s highly important, especially for babies who have been here for months on end because they’re at high risk for a delayed development.”
Brightly coloured books on a cart are wheeled around the ward. Children on isolation get board books and iPads, which can be wiped down so they are germ free.
To put her patients at ease, Webber reads relaxation stories, such as Sitting Still Like A Frog and Ladybird’s Remarkable Relaxation, and plays relaxation and meditation CDs.
She encourages children with chronic illnesses to draw and write about their experiences in Digging Deep: A Journal for Young People Facing Health Challenges. Often siblings are on the ward, so Webber uses books to explain to them what is happening to their sister or brother.
On bingo days, pictures of hospital equipment replace the numbers on a bingo card to help children understand their environment and what’s happening to them.
“It teaches them vocabulary in a fun and engaging way,” says Lewis, a Regina Public School teacher who has taught in Regina’s hospitals for five years. “We always offer books as prizes.”
The pair have found that audio books and iPads are invaluable teaching aids.
“The Internet opens up a whole library of its own,” Lewis says. “We often have subscriptions to educational websites that offer books for guided reading.”
While undergoing difficult procedures, children are distracted by reading online or playing games on iPads.
“A child that was having a full body cast application used the iPad,” Webber says. “It took about an hour and a half and when the cast was finished, she didn’t even realize that it was done because she was so into the game ... The iPad is the No. 1 distraction piece for me.”
Besides the literacy activities dreamt up by Webber and Lewis, a librarian assistant from the Sunrise Library is on the ward once a month to provide story time, crafts and activities.
No day is the same for Lewis who teaches pre-kindergarten to Grade 12.
“If they’re feeling well enough, they’re encouraged to participate in school — whether that’s bedside tutorial or coming to the classroom to receive classroom instruction,” she says. “Books are always offered as a valuable choice of something that they can do if they’re not feeling their best.
“They can borrow books and take them back to their room to read themselves or have someone read to them or they’re used for actual instructional activities.”
Any school-aged child in the hospital has access to school services. The top classroom priorities are math and English language arts, but other subjects are also offered.
“If it’s a Grade 11 chemistry course that I have not taken myself nor am prepared to teach, I can tap into other teachers to support me or use online resources,” Lewis says.
On any given day, she teaches anywhere from one to 12 students.
“It’s like a one-room school in a way,” Lewis says.