Last week, I had another round of bilateral talks - a.k.a. parent-teacher conferences - which again revealed the importance for pre-k teachers to possess good “diplomatic skills.”
Going into the conferences, I was enthused about discussing my children’s progress. Tanasia, who had struggled to come out of her shell, is now participating throughout the day and moving forward in basic math and literacy skills. A look at David’s writing folder demonstrates clear and constant growth, progressing from self-portraits he labeled with the letter “D” to short sentences written with little guidance using invented spelling.
I grew concerned, though, as I considered a few remaining difficulties with two family members in particular: Kevin’s grandmother, who emphatically disapproves of our literacy program; and Tyrique’s mother, who after more than five attempts to reschedule during the last cycle of conferences still never came.
Despite my efforts to engage her, Kevin’s grandmother had barely spoken to me since our confrontation in January. She had, however, continued to complain to Ms. Morrison during the after-school program proclaiming, “I can’t wait until this year is over.” While this round of conferences focused more heavily on social development and an explanation of a new assessment, I decided to start off our conversation with positive comments relating to her primary concern: literacy. I began by discussing Kevin’s ability to read short sentences with little guidance from me (for example, he can read, “I like to see the fat cat run on the mat.”). I showed her a short, teacher-made assessment I gave to Kevin the day before and modeled how he used his knowledge of letters, letter sounds, and sight words to read. She was so overjoyed with this positive communication that I was able to shift gears and discuss Kevin’s need for further development in other skill areas, such as taking on roles in Dramatic Play, taking turns, and using words to solve conflicts.
Given her absence from the previous conference, I did not expect Tyrique’s mother to respond to the school’s formal efforts to set up conferences for this round. I therefore made plans to reach out to her informally about two weeks before. In addition to mentioning something positive about Tyrique’s performance each time she came in, I would say that I couldn’t wait to talk more about it and show her his great work at the conferences. The day of the conferences she said she couldn’t stay, but we rescheduled for the next morning. I made a comment about celebrating Tyrique over muffins in the morning. She laughed and at 7:45 the next morning was at my door. We had a productive conference and even discussed some behavioral issues which she too has noticed at home.
In both of these cases, I believe it was my ability to talk with parents about their children in a positive light that helped us get past indifference and hostility. It goes to show that, even when parents and teachers don’t see eye to eye or see each other frequently, communication between a child’s home and school is achievable and beneficial to all.
David pulled a toy car back and forth and as he released the car said, “Look Tyrique! The car going down the road fast. We gonna have a race.”
As I heard David refer to cars and racing, my ears perked up. I had just completed small group and was preparing to circulate our classroom’s interest areas to collect anecdotes showing the children’s progress and to seize some great teachable moments. We are currently exploring transportation, and David was incorporating ideas from class discussions and “read alouds” into his play. While I often have to refer to my individualized student action plans
to remember the specific target areas for each child, David has struggled to pick up on this listening skill for some time, so I knew instantly that it was a breakthrough moment.
Last year, when I first started using the performance-based assessment system, I typically spent the first couple weeks of each collection period working with children using their individual plans, rather than taking anecdotes. As I have become more comfortable with performance-based assessments and familiar with my students’ needs, my approach has become less compartmentalized. I can now simultaneously assess progress and work with children on other skill areas. I responded to David with questions leading into an informal one-on-one lesson on print awareness and vocabulary.
Ms. Pappas: Great, David, how can we make it go faster? Is there something we can use? David: Uhh, I don’t know. Ms. Pappas: What if we used a ramp? Do you know where it is? David (shrugging his shoulders): No. Ms. Pappas: You know what, I sometimes forget where it is too. Is there something we could put on the ramp so we know it is a ramp? David: I don’t know. Ms. Pappas: Well, how do you know the hats go here? David (sweeping his finger from left to right over the label for hats): Because it says “hats.” Hats, hats, /h/, /h/ hats. I see the letter h! Ms. Pappas: So what could we do for the ramp? David (grabbing a paper and marker): We could write it. Ms. Pappas: Great idea. What should we write for ramp? David (writing the letter “R”): /rr/ R! Like Ryan!
The next day David came to me briefly after entering blocks and, with a strong sense of urgency in his tone asked, “Ms. Pappas, where’s the ramp for the cars? I want to make them go fast.” The other pre-k teacher unfortunately needed to borrow the ramp, but David was able to construct his own ramp using flat boards from memory.
As I prepare for parent-teacher conferences this week, I notice dozens of other instances like this one, where a more efficient and dynamic exchange between teaching and assessing has resulted in more substantial student progress. That’s not to say that the state or district should inundate teachers with more assessments to maximize teacher quality. There is a tipping point. Yet the question I often hear at teacher workshops - “When am I going to have a chance to teach with all these anecdotal assessments?” - presents a false dichotomy between the two.
Ravon: Ms. Pappas, look, I found the word calcium on my milk.
Ms. Pappas: Wow! Great job, Ravon. How do you know it says calcium?
Ravon: Because I see the letter “C” with the other words like “cat” and “car.”
At this moment, I am thinking three things:
I am so proud of Ravon;
How fast can I write down exactly what he said on my clipboard, so I can use this exchange as evidence of his growth in early literacy?; and
How will I ever balance active teacher-student engagement with anecdotal note taking if the school district requires me to collect anecdotes on another 50 skills for still another assessment system?
While I appreciate the value of performance-based assessments in helping me target individual student needs, I also sometimes wonder if a drive to make assessment as comprehensive and in-depth as possible comes at the expense of quality teacher-student interaction. I am not sure if state and district policymakers realize what their mandates look like on a day-to-day basis at the school level.
In my school, we now have four types of assessment, soon to be joined by a fifth:
The Early Learning Assessment System (ELAS) – a state mandated performance-based literacy assessment charting student growth in six areas. Reported three times per year.
A district mandated checklist charting growth in the areas of social emotional, gross motor, and fine motor development. Recorded twice per year.
A district mandated beginning of the year Brigance Screening used mainly to identify any developmental delays.
Math checklists from the district mandated math curriculum charting growth in various skill areas. Recorded three times per year (recommended but not required).
Recently, the pre-k teachers in the district had a workshop on Creative Curriculum’s comprehensive performance-based assessment, which covers 50 skills and is recorded three times per year. I personally like Creative Curriculum’s assessment the most and hope the district will replace other assessments with it. All signs, however, suggest the district will make it supplemental and, therefore, probably more cumbersome than helpful, despite its potential to hone in on a wide range of student needs.
I would love to hear about teachers’ and administrators’ experiences in other states and school districts - just post a comment and we can compare and discuss.
“Hello, my name is Tanasia Britch from Pre-k 114. We will now sing Dr. King,”
Tanasia exclaimed loud and clear for everyone, grades pre-k through two, to hear.
She did it! After a tough transition in the beginning of the year, Tanasia slowly began to participate in classroom activities without much encouragement from me or her peers. Moreover, rather than repeatedly crying and inquiring about the time of her mother’s return, she now focuses on a wide range of subjects including bears and cars. The more she shares with us in terms of her thoughts and interests, the better able I am to chart her academic growth. Her gradual progress culminated in her widely acclaimed introduction of our class performance during the school assembly commemorating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Her other accomplishments during the past two weeks include:
Counting each of her friends for snack time in a clear and loud voice without skipping anyone;
Identifying and chanting out the letters in the word "like" in our modeled morning message for the first time; and
Choosing to read books to and with her friends rather than reading alone. Tanasia even encouraged her friend to read with her when she saw her friend crying.
As I reflect on her growth, I consider two major reasons for Ms. Morrison’s and my success with Tanasia:
Student-Driven Instruction: We took the time to understand Tanasia's interests and provided opportunities for her to talk about and make things for her family. Our discussions at the rug, during lunch, and at choice time included plenty of open-ended questions which allowed Tanasia to speak openly about what was on her mind: her sisters, mother, father, and auntie. If the mouse ate cookies and asked for some milk, we learned about how happy Tanasia feels when she eats cookies and drinks milk with her sister at home. In addition, while Tanasia first hesitated to join her friends during choice time, she began to gravitate towards the Art and Writing areas once she learned that she could take home her finished products. Tanasia may have been physically separated from her family, but since she had the chance to talk about and make things for her siblings and parents, she still felt connected to them while in school; and
Classroom Culture of High Expectations: We consistently responded to Tanasia’s crying with the expectation that she would eventually become more of an active and enthusiastic member of our classroom community. Rather than excuse her from class activities or call her family to pick her up, we taught her all of the routines and rules like the rest of the children. If she needed to cry when she first came in, she could, but she still needed to unpack, put her Math Homelink journal in the bin, wash her hands, and get her own breakfast.
The first years of school are far too critical to waste time on ineffective strategies. Accountability in pre-kindergarten programs is therefore vital to the academic and social growth of our youngest learners.
The word "accountability" may conjure images of standardized exams and hours of tedious test prep—not exactly what we would deem appropriate for a four year old. So what do assessments and accountability look like in a pre-k classroom? Well, despite the obvious attraction of handing a multiple choice test with fifty rows of neatly curved "a to e" oval bubbles to a four year old, the reality is that assessment in pre-k just isn't that easy. Yet that doesn't mean accountability in pre-k is or has to be non-existent.
Four year olds don't always show you what they know. Their moods, interests, and developmental stage can affect their performance on a day to day basis. And if they do demonstrate growth in a particular skill area, they certainly do not all do it in the same way like drawing a picture or responding to questions orally. But if you watch and interact with them everyday, all day, while taking anecdotes and collecting work samples, you can have the data needed to chart growth, design properly differentiated lessons that meet the needs of all learners, and hold programs accountable. My students' words, actions, drawings, and singing are my "a, b, c, d, and e" answers.
Take Tanasia, for example. For the first two months of school she spent the majority of her day either bawling and asking, over and over, "When is my mommy coming?" or in a state of total silence. Our one-on-one interactions often incited desperate pleas for her mother. Then, in early October I began to observe her making connections between the print around her and her friends' names during choice time. That is when I knew not only that she was starting to adjust and build relationships, but that she was picking up on basic literacy skills. She would point to letters on labels in Dramatic Play and say to her friend Karen, "Look, it's the K like in your name." If I confronted her with a barrage of letter identification questions, she would clam up and start to cry. I began to address more and more of those skills during choice time where she felt increasingly comfortable.
One of my students last year struggled with letter identification but masterfully used movement to act out stories or create his own. My extensive anecdotal notes reflected these weaknesses and strengths. I consequently decided to address the latter with the former by working with him one-on-one to create movements for each letter. We waddled like penguins for the letter "P," made elephant noises with a long trunk for the letter "E," and so on. I recently met up with him down the hall in his kindergarten class, at which point he pointed out a letter and made the movement we had devised.
My recent analysis of the anecdotal notes revealed that Kevin (aka the "anti-sharer") is a visual learner. Stay tuned for a post focusing on how my aide and I teach the fairness of sharing using a visual approach that puts him in charge.
Partnership and cooperation between teachers and parents are so critical to pre-k. What happens at home impacts events at school and vice versa. Even though I spend months interacting with my students, recording their progress, and collecting their work samples, I need parental involvement to fully understand each child’s interests and needs. And I need parents’ trust if I’m going to get the information that, as David’s mother put it, will help their children go “sky high and have a better life.”
For example, last week our school held a parent-teacher conference night. But well before that week, I laid the groundwork to make sure my students’ parents came. I share information about their child's progress 2-3 times per week, either orally for those parents who drop off and pick up their children or through informal notes to those parents who work during school hours. I also reinforce that they are always welcome in my classroom by inviting them to special events like “Family Show and Tell” and our “Giving Thanks Party.” The use of both formal written invitations and constant oral reminders to anyone and everyone in the family we see helps boost attendance and demonstrate my sincere desire to invest each family member in their child’s education. Then, during conferences, I use an open dialogue format, as opposed to a more overbearing and arrogant top-down approach with me talking at them. Rather than just delivering and explaining the report card, I use an individualized action plan to guide discussion of the child’s strengths, target areas, and ways both families and I can move the child forward.
This last time, thirteen out of fourteen parents or guardians showed up for conferences. Several parents remarked that their child does things like rhyming and retelling stories at home -- activities I’d not seen these children do in school. This information is invaluable, since I now know the issue is not a skill deficit but a matter of not feeling comfortable or motivated to show these skills in the classroom. Now I can design teaching strategies that more accurately reflect each child’s needs. Thank you, families!
I think results like these prove that parents will make time to be involved if teachers make time for them and create strong home-school connections.
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