“A circle’s like a ball, a circle’s like a ball…round and round, it never stops. A circle’s like a ball.” As you can imagine, I have this and all the other shape verses running through my head all of the time! But you know what…they really work! For the first time since I started teaching at the pre-kindergarten level, my students are interested and engaged in learning about shapes. More importantly, they are retaining and transferring their knowledge. When we see a ball in our large muscle room or on the playground, more than one student says, “Hey! It’s like a circle!” Similarly when I get out our box of numbers I hear a few mention, “It’s like a square!”
It seems that with the repetition and fun hand motions, my students have really taken to learning about shapes. Sometimes I forget that many of them are experiencing these concepts, even the simplest of things, for the very first time. I have to remember to take a step back and experience them through the eyes of a four or five year old. It is easy to assume they must have heard about shapes at home or in another preschool setting or on TV. But really, most of them are at a very basic level. And those that are more advanced like to learn how to spell the shape or try drawing and cutting with shapes or play “Shape I spy!"
Just goes to show you, the sometimes annoying, but always engaging songs, and fingerplays are just what our early learners need to be successful.
In Clayton Christensen's book, "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive
Innovation Will Transform Education," I have finally come to the
dreaded chapter on early childhood. In chapter six, Christensen says
flat out that America shouldn't invest in voluntary preschool because
it won't work. He then uses one of the most important studies of early
language learning, Hart and Risley's "Meaningful Differences in the
Everyday Experiences of Young American Children," to argue that pre-k
is too little too late to help kids' language development. The only
supportive evidence he sites is this study. I doubt Hart and Risley
would agree that preschool should not be funded because kids make the
most gains in language development from 0-3 years old. Christensen states:
"Rather than funding programs that hire people to
substitute for parents who aren't succeeding at preschool talk, quite
possibly we might have a greater impact if we taught children how to be
parents before they become parents."
I actually agree with the above statement that some prevention,
especially parenting courses at the middle school level in health
classes, would help prevent some language delays in all children. But,
the reality is that Hart and Risley's study, published in 1995, did not
account for the current economic environment. It was also completed
before welfare reforms, which required poor parents to work. At the
time, teaching poor parents how to talk to their children may have been
the only intervention needed, but now, that would not be enough. What
Hart and Risley do not say, and what Chirstensen takes for granted, is
that it is too late for a child who is 3 or 4 years old to gain
language at a rapid pace.
This is why Head Start has, for approximately 40 years,
included parent involvement and parent literacy training in its
comprehensive services offered and required of parents. In fact, our
program recently received an Early Reading First grant through VCU to
implement, as part of a holistic literacy program, family literacy
strategies based on Hart and Risley's work. To say that children learn
most from 0-3 is not the same as saying kids don't learn from 3-5.
Shouldn't poor kids have the chance to catch-up even if they do start
out behind?
As a novice teacher, I am constantly looking for ways to improve my technique and expand my repertoire of ideas for the classroom. I am enrolled in a Masters of Education degree program at George Mason University, read research articles about effective teaching, observe other teachers at my school, and – arguably most importantly – collaborate frequently with my colleagues.
I am fortunate to work in a school that has five early childhood teachers – four Head Start teachers and me, the preschool teacher. All five of us work closely together on a regular basis. We share ideas about unit plans, assessments, field trips, best practices, and challenges that we are facing in the classroom. Each of us comes from a different background and brings a slightly different perspective to each conversation – one teacher is certified as an English as a Second Language teacher, one is a former special education teacher, one worked in a Montessori school, and one worked at a non-profit designed to increase access to books in elementary schools. We all have different areas of expertise, and because we collaborate frequently, we are all able to draw upon each other to improve our own teaching and by extension, our students’ achievement.
In addition to collaborating with teachers at my school, I also collaborate with other Teach For America corps members on a regular basis. We share documents and ideas over a listserv, problem solve together, and come together once per month for professional development (PD). This past weekend at PD I had the opportunity to lead a session about tracking data in early childhood, share resources with first year teachers, and engage in a thought-provoking discussion about the relationship between developmentally appropriate practices and rigor in early childhood. Even as I was leading a session, I was taking in ideas from other corps members; one participant showed me a system that she was using to track reading levels for her students, and I immediately thought about how I could modify it to keep track of Suniah and Makiera’s reading progress.
Observing Teach For America alumni's classrooms and hearing them talk about their current endeavors is also another tremendous benefit of this PD. Just this weekend I was in a pre-k classroom with a “Book-Star Hall of Fame” – a fabulous display of books that the class has read and studied, and something that I definitely want to implement in my classroom. Last month I learned about an organization – Women Empowered in Education – that an alumna is starting to promote women in the field of early education.
I credit these tremendous opportunities for collaboration – both within my school and within Teach For America – with much of my professional growth as a teacher. I have had the opportunity to learn from other people’s successes and challenges, engage in discussions that challenge my own thinking, and contextualize my daily work within the broader issue of education and the achievement gap. In the end, I am a better teacher, and my students are better equipped for success.
In our pre-school year planning, my colleague and I decided to make November "Eric Carle month." We wanted at least a three week period in which we could use the literature and illustrations of Eric Carle to teach our early childhood concepts. The classics “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?,” “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” and “The Secret Birthday Message” provide exposure to colors, days of the week and shapes, respectively. However, as you begin to share these stories with students, much more is happening. The repetitive text supports early literacy development. Students are able to read stories on their own and feel successful. In addition, the bold pictures and predictable text help students create practice plot lines and character profiles.
One of my favorite aspects of teaching is the opportunity to witness students transferring information from one domain to another. For example, after reading “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” two of my students went to our calendar to consult which days the caterpillar ate his food. With my help, they were able to use our calendar to retell the story to each other.
We have spent the last few weeks working with shapes. “The Secret Birthday Message,” written and illustrated by Eric Carle, is full of great shapes. I was amazed when one of my English language learners made a star out of play dough and brought it to me exclaiming, “star, present!” He recalled that the gift at the end of our Secret Shape Hunt was marked with a star.
One of the most important reasons for author and illustrator studies is to allow students to relate to real life authors and illustrators. After exploring Eric Carle’s website together we learned that he is just like us. He has a family, a house, a dog and loves to paint. This has inspired my students to be authors and illustrators. We know that we can write stories and share our creations with others. We have even written to Mr. Carle to find out more about him and his work!
These kind of connections are so important for our students. It invites students, even at the young age of four or five to be involved in their own learning. It challenges them to look beyond their school day to see that what they are learning affects their lives!
I recently had the opportunity to read Peg Tyre's new book, "The Trouble With Boys".
It inspired me so much I asked the author if she would participate
in our Inside Pre-K 5 Qs interview series. She happily agreed and
offers some very interesting and thoughtful answers to five questions
that relate her work to pre-k education.
In a conversation with another parent, what would you say are the benefits
and risks of preschool for boys? I think the value of preschool for all children is pretty well
documented -- it can lay down the building blocks for school success and
enhancing lifelong learning. The problem really comes in when preschools run
programs that are developmentally inappropriate for little children, especially
little boys. In particular, programs that are highly academic, that consist of
hours of uninterrupted teacher-directed activity, that prize quiet time over
physical movement. Often, when boys are enrolled in these kinds of pre-schools,
they flounder. They attract an intense amount of negative attention from
teachers and that is very sad. Unfortunately, it can be the first blot
that turns in into a pattern of academic failure.
How do
you see the role of pre-k in our society? Interesting question. And a big one. There
is a discourse among early educators that suggests a very democratic notion --
that preschool is a great leveler -- and often we talk about preschool as if it
functions in the same way for all kids. But practically, that doesn't seem to be
the case. Poor kids need pre-k a great deal -- to get them away from the TV, to
expose them to a language rich environment, to help them develop pre-literacy
skills, familiarize themselves with the mechanics of reading (left to right,
which way to hold a book) to learn numbers and colors and days of the week, and
social/emotional skills like self-regulation. Middle class and affluent kids are
usually getting the enrichment then need at home -- it's good to have it
reinforced in preschool but there needs are different - or maybe, they aren't as
great.
What did you learn about pre-k during your research
for this book? That it can be tough to
be a little boy enrolled in preschool right now. And it can be tough to be his
mom. What has changed about society's perceptions of boys over
the past 10 years? It think we
have become very intolerant of what boys are like, how they think, how
they play and how they express themselves.
What is the most
critical issue facing boys and their parents today? There is a pipeline that carries all
children from preschool to college and I think the data shows that there
are several places along that pipeline where boys are fall out. My book is
really about those places were boys-- for a variety of reason -- disengage from
education -- often with disastrous results. I think it is critical for parents
to address this problem in their schools and in their communities. Right now we
have 2.5 million more girls than boys in college -- a staggering gap. But
when you ask college presidents why there are so many more college ready girls
than boys, they will tell you that the problem begins in preschool. We need to
address it early so all our children can get the best education possible.
The Trouble With Boys: A
Surprising Report Card On Our Sons, Their Problems at School and What Parents
& Educators Must Do
Today was one of my proudest moments as a teacher; for the first time, Suniah and Makiera read books all on their own! Both of these students developed a strong foundation in print awareness, alphabetic principle, and reading comprehension in my class last year, and this year they have learned to read several basic sight words. With knowledge of letter sounds, sight words, and "word attack" strategies, they were fully prepared to start reading.
I worked with Makiera first; we picture walked through the pages (essentially predicting what the book will be about based on the illustrations), discussed the relevant vocabulary, and reviewed some techniques of good readers. I read the title of the book aloud to her, then encouraged her to read the pages. She was great! She pointed to each word as she read, and used a combination of picture cues and beginning sounds to figure out unfamiliar words. Makiera read two level AA books (the first level of a series of leveled readers) with minimal assistance, putting her squarely at an AA instructional level.
Suniah was next and as a student she's naturally much more excitable than Makiera. When I told her we were going to practice reading today she nearly fell on the floor giggling! I was a bit more poised, but I think we were equally excited. We began by reading Big, a level AA book from Reading A-Z, and Suniah caught on fast. I then conducted a running record as she read The Funny Cat; she needed help with one word on the first page, but was able to use this information to figure out the pattern in the rest of the text and read the remainder of the book with only one more slip-up. Suniah was so excited to have read all by herself! She got to the end of the book and recalled, "That cat was so funny! He wore glasses!" We went back through the text and recalled all of the other things that the cat wore, and then she proudly proclaimed, "Let me read it to you again!" I happily obliged.
At the end of the day, I explained to Makiera's father and Suniah's grandfather what they had accomplished today. Both men were thrilled, and both girls were eager to reread the books for their families and talk about the text. Researchers and policymakers alike often note that the achievement gap is evident in pre-k; I see the realities of these statistics everyday in my classroom. However, on days like today, I am reminded of the tremendous power of my work to close that achievement gap and truly set my students on a different life path.
There is a first time for everything. Last week I had a classic, textbook style four-year-old blunder happen in our classroom! It was like a scene from an old Family Circus comic strip. But, I guarantee it really happened!
Most pre-kindergarten teachers understand the importance of hands-on materials. In my sensory table last week, I used a substance called Glurch. It is a mixture of equal parts white glue and liquid starch. When they mix together they form a strange putty or oozing material that solidifies and partially liquefies. I use this substance to help practice fine motor skills (squeezing and cutting with blunt scissors) and to provide sensory opportunities. We spent much of the time talking about how to work with the Glurch, including the expectation that the glurch would stay inside the sensory table.
Then it happened. As I looked towards the table I saw a large chunk of Glurch resting on the top of Thatcher’s head. I begged him to not touch it, but sure enough, he wanted to try removing it from his own head! By the time I reached him the Glurch was deep into his almost chin-length hair. My assistants and I took turns throughout the rest of our class period, pulling tiny pieces out one by one.
Like every good story, there is a moral. Thankfully, I have developed a good relationship with Thatcher’s mom. Since the beginning of the year I have worked to learn about her family, their hopes, dreams and things they struggle with. I know she trusts and values what we are doing at school. With this knowledge, I called her and explained our situation. Thankfully, she was understanding and Thatcher went home to have a good hair washing.
This experience reminded me of the importance of making and maintaining good relationships with families. It is so worthwhile to involve them and value their input. With that respect comes mutual trust and an opportunity to support our students from every angl
Yes, as many pre-k teachers know, algebra starts in pre-k. We introduce
much of the foundation level mathematical concepts necessary to be
successful in Algebra. And, with the push to offer and even in some
states require algebra in 8th grade, pre-k finds it might be even more
necessary as a means to achieve future success in math class. My TLN
colleague Anthony Cody offered this:
Poor academic performance is the single strongest school-related predictor of dropping out.
So it would seem that it is critically important to not only give
students the opportunity to take Algebra, but also to make sure they
are adequately prepared for it. Because if they do not succeed, they
will have failed the rigorous challenge we have placed before them, and
this will increase the likelihood that they will not finish high
school.
And this is where things get complicated.
I think Anthony has hit variable X right on the head. High
standards are great if kids are prepared to meet them and the issue of
preparation begins with us. Web 2.0 tools give us a little help.
One
of the Key aspects of success in Algebra is the ability to recognize
patterns. When you boil it down to those terms, well, I doubt there is
a pre-k teacher in this country who hasn't taught patterns! We usually
start with beads or blocks - definitely with manipulatives - but
sometimes the "tools" we use can distract from the goal. The National
Council for the Teaching of Mathematics offers some great material on
their website, as well as the standards to provide guidance. Here is a
super pattern activity from the NCTM E-Examples. You can generate repeated patterns with this pattern machine. Check it out with your students. I guarantee at least one "Wow!"
To
get the most out of the tool experiment a bit before you show the kids.
Notice that you can change the number of blocks in the pattern by
clicking the arrow for pattern units up or down. If you click on the
red block you can change its' color by choosing one of the other
colors. You can also click on the blank blocks to choose color.
When
you get ready to try this, ask your students prediction questions like,
"What does this machine do?" I am sure you will get some interesting
responses. Then move on to, "What will it look like when ..." Most of
all, have fun with this 21st Century learning tool.
Election 2008. It is finally here and my time spent at the polls was well worth it. Fortunately, my schedule allowed me to get in my vote at a time when it was not busy. However, I wish I had more reason to stick around. The energy at my precinct was contagious! There were families who had recently become citizens, exercising their rights for the very first time. There were friendly election judges ready and willing to answer questions and support voters. But the greatest source of energy was coming from the families that came, as a family unit, to vote together.
In MN, and in many states nationwide, children are encouraged to vote along with their parents through a program called Kids Voting. Although this is primarily a K-12 initiative done through the school systems, my precinct had a special area just for kids. My favorite young voter was a red head, carrying an American flag, who eagerly stated, “I’m voting for ‘THAT BAMA MAN’.”
What an inspiring, hands-on experience. They say people, especially young children, learn best by “doing.” This opportunity allows parents to set an example for their child and really have some meaningful dialog about our duty as citizens of our country.
In my class today we voted on how to greet our friends. We have been talking about voting for a few weeks and finally are getting to a point where my students understand you have to make one choice. We vote by putting our nametag in a basket, a sticker on a chart, and have progressed to raising our hands. Although the outcomes are maybe less important, they are hearing the language, practicing in hands-on ways and becoming individuals who can think for themselves.
I spent all day in a workshop as part of a new Early Reading First
grant funded by the U.S. Dept. of Ed. It is part of a comprehensive
grant to support early literacy in 13 classrooms in my school system,
all Head Start. In the training, the presenter made a point about how
researchers in the 1990's began to find that at-risk children who were
able to read, even after pre-k experiences, began to fall behind by
third grade. One of the reasons given for this was students' lack of
vocabulary and oral language experiences in preschool. Students who
start with fewer words when they come to kindergarten are not able to
understand enough words by the time they reach third grade in order to
comprehend the words they read in content areas like science and
history.
This struck a chord with me today because I realized
that this week is a really amazing week to talk about new words with
young children.
Some of the new words, such as those below,
might come up naturally, because of America's election of its first
president of color. Please add some more words that your students
brought up today in the comments section.
These
might be new words for young children, and if addressed in
developmentally appropriate ways, powerful words that they can use for
the rest of their lives.
My favorite word from this list is
"future." Many of my colleagues are African-American and if you don't
spend time in the African-American community, you might not feel the
weight of what happened yesterday. One of my mentors, an
African-American woman who has worked for Head Start since its
inception, mentioned that it was because of Martin Luther King Jr. that
yesterday's election was possible.
Sitting in that room today,
with a number of African American women, some of whom remember Dr.
King's words in the first person, was an amazing experience. Today it
felt like more than an important day, a historic day, an amazing
experience. It was the fulfillment of a prophecy. Martin Luther King said,
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by
the content of their character.
In a sense that
happened yesterday. We may never erase the stain of slavery and racism
from our country's flag but yesterday, we began to wash it in the river
of history and see that its colors are even brighter than we thought.
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pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds.
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