People featured in this column have been selected randomly from the telephone book and cellphone numbers contributed by readers.

--

ASOTIN - Karen Parkman has spent the last 20 years jump-starting toddlers. Kindergarten used to be the venue for such work. But the fast-paced digital age all but requires earlier learning.

So playschool leads to preschool, leads to kindergarten, leads to elementary, middle, high school, college and sometimes beyond.

"I think some kids won't make it if they haven't had a preschool experience," Karen said. "It's just really hard."

The mother of three grown children, Karen is a teacher at Kingdom Kids Preschool in Clarkston. Sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church there, the private tuition school has about 45 children ages 3 to 5.

"They're smarter than us," Karen said of the students' ability to not only adapt, but embrace computers and all the other electronic gizmos today's world offers. But there's still room and a need, Karen added, for some old- fashioned teaching; like reading a story to the class out of a book with pages and pictures and simple entertaining sentences.

"We still do that, but it's much harder," Karen said of having children sit in a semicircle on the floor to hear a story read by the teacher. "They have trouble focusing. When we're reading a story, it's a lot harder to get their attention and to keep their attention."

Traditional show-and-tell is another example. Kids are more prone to bring a cellphone or a laptop computer to share with their classmates.

"Twenty years ago," Karen said, "it was Sesame Street figurines and stuffed animals."

So she and her co-teachers encourage children to still bring things like Lincoln logs and pets.

"We've had goats. We've had sheep. We've had rabbits. We've had cats and dogs," she said. "With horses, we go outside to see the horse."

Snack time also remains a big deal.

"The snack person of the day is the leader," Karen explained, "and they get to sit up by me and do the calendar and count the kids and all that."

Number and letter recognition remain important parts of the preschool curriculum. This past week, for example, was the letter G week. So there was a lot of gorilla talk.

"We had X a few weeks ago," Karen said, "so we dressed up like pirates and looked for a treasure. Next week is P, and we're going to have a pajama day."

Of course, the children will then go home and probably tap back into the digital world.

"I think parents really need to limit the time they let their kids play on computers," Karen suggested. "I think computers are great for a lot of things, but they spend too much time on them."

Raised in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast, Karen came to Asotin with her husband, Tom Parkman, more than 30 years ago. He worked for Potlatch Corp. at the time and now has his own electrical engineering business.

"I came here kicking and screaming," Karen recalled. "We picked this place (along Asotin Creek) because, I swear, it was the only green place in the whole valley."

Because of her husband's gainful employment, Karen said she was able to stay home with her children when they were toddlers.

"I feel sorry for parents now. In almost every family both parents have to work," Karen said. "When I started out there were still stay-at-home moms. You had that choice. And now there are very few stay-at-home moms, and that's sad to me."

All of the Parkman children attended school in Asotin and Karen said they not only received a great education, but made use of it. Valerie, 30, is a veterinarian and Melissa, 28, is a pharmacist. Both daughters live in Portland, Ore. Son Randy, 24, is an air traffic controller in Springfield, Mo.

"I got to stay at home. It's just such precious time," Karen said. "And if you lose that, you never get it back."

But she and other staff members at Kingdom Kids Preschool, Karen said, are determined to work with parents to provide the best preschool experience possible.

"I think we're producing leaders, I really do," Karen said. "Because we give them so many opportunities to be a leader in the classroom and it's such a positive environment. We really work to make it positive and those kids feel really good about themselves."

---

Johnson may be contacted at djohnson@lmtribune.com.