I am on spring break this week and have had the wonderful opportunity to relax a bit and take some time to reflect on my classroom. I've been reviewing student achievement data, evaluating their progress toward goals, and making plans for the remainder of the school year. As part of this process, I have also spent some time looking over my students' portfolios. Each child's portfolio is divided into four domains (social/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language) and contains artifacts (work samples, pictures, and notes) that demonstrate their development in that domain. I use the materials in each child's portfolios as a way to assess their progress and determine individualized goals. I also share the portfolios with families during parent-teacher conferences, and send them home with students at the end of the year.
I absolutely love looking back through my students' portfolios! Not only is it an authentic way to gauge their progress, but it also reminds me of just how much they have learned in school. I'll walk you through some pieces of Julia's writing as an example.
August, 2008. Julia drew this self-portrait on the first day of school. She added some details such as feet and hair, but neglected to add arms and a nose. Julia spent several minutes laboring over her first name; several of the letters were crowded, but they were all legible (her name has since been removed for privacy purposes).
November, 2008. Julia was very interested in the presidential election this year! We talked about what elections were, learned a bit about each candidate, and then held a mock election in our classroom. Julia wrote this piece the day after the election. She included many more details than in her August portrait, and also demonstrated an understanding of perspective – she explained to me that she drew Barack Obama significantly larger than John McCain because he had won. Julia writes letter strings for each word in her sentence, but does not yet associate specific letters with the sounds that she hears in words.
December, 2008. Julia wrote this piece completely independently. She demonstrated an increasing attention to detail by using a different color crayon to make the snow, and she drew simple figures to represent herself and her mother. Julia devoted the majority of her paper to writing, which displays an increased understanding that she can use writing to convey her ideas. She still uses letter strings and does not associate letter shapes with the sounds in words.
January, 2009. In January, Julia began using inventive spelling to write unfamiliar words. I helped her “stretch out” the words to hear all of the sounds, and she wrote what she heard. She knew how to read the word “is” and was able to recall that knowledge for her writing. Julia's ability to correctly identify all the sounds – including the vowel – in “big” was a tremendous accomplishment.
March, 2009. Prior to writing this piece, Julia found a picture of Barack Obama with his arms folded across his desk and announced that it looked like he was “hugging himself.” From there, she decided to draw a picture of the entire Obama family hugging themselves. She was careful to draw their arms wrapped around their bodies, and drew a line for the desk under each of them. Julia was extremely interested in writing about her story; she spent over 20 minutes writing Barack Obama’s name and sounding out the rest of the words in her sentence. I sat with her the whole time, but did not give her any assistance with stretching out the words or identifying letter sounds (as a side note, when she was stretching out “hugging,” she pronounced it “hucking”, hence the “HC” that she wrote). Julia started to lose patience by the last few words in the sentence, but overall did a wonderful job and was extremely proud of her work.
Julia has worked hard on her writing this year and has made tremendous progress. For the last two months of school, Julia will focus on writing a beginning, middle, and ending sound for each word, as well as continuing to learn and use sight words in her writing. We will continue to add work to her portfolio to document and celebrate her progress!
March appears to be the month of new students! This week we were happy to welcome Tamara, a recently-turned-three year-old, into our classroom community. My students were eager to show Tamara around and were fascinated by the fact that Tamara had replaced Ruby as our "newest friend."
On Tamara's second day of school, she walked in to find her name and picture on a myriad of belongings around our classroom -- her writing box (for markers, pencils, and pens), her "situpon" (to cushion the carpet), her journal, her center nametag, her small group nametag, her cubby, her bathroom clip (a way to keep track of who has used the bathroom before naptime), and more. Tamara was beyond excited and kept bounding from place to place, pointing to her picture, and saying "Tamara, Tamara, Tamara!" Helping her associate her picture with her printed name is one of the first literacy skills she will learn in school, and she is clearly excited to get started!
Today, I took Tamara's excitement and translated it into a small group activity about sequencing letters in your name. For each child, I wrote the letters in his/her name on small squares, and put the squares in an envelope labled with their name. The ultimate goal of the lesson was to help the children learn to spell their names without requiring them to rely on fine motor skills and write the letters legibly. But for Jose, I think the most valuable part of the lesson came even before he saw his own name envelope. We were flipping through the stack of envelopes reading everybody's name, and we came to Tamara's name. Nobody in our class has a name that starts with "T," and my students were stumped about what this new word could say. I told my students that it was Tamara's name, and Jose looked at me in disbelief; "She got a name?!" he exclaimed. The fact that Jose had been talking to Tamara and using her name for that past day and a half indicated that he knew who she was, and that she was called "Tamara," but he hadn't made the connection that the spoken word "Tamara" could be written down and also represent her name. This short exchanged reinforced -- in a very exciting way -- the idea that all spoken words can be written and all written words can be spoken, which is a critical pre-k literacy skill.
There are some children's books that can completely captivate a class. Students are eager to read them again and again, incorporate them into their play, while making connections between the books and their lives. The Gingerbread Boy is one such book.
Some of my students from last year remembered the story. As soon as I showed the cover, Makiera commented, "It's like we read last week! The fox is going to trick him!" Now granted, we read the story last January, not not last week, but she remembered the most important part of the book! I encouraged Makiera and others who were familiar with the story to try to remember the characters who chase the gingerbread boy. My new students were completely captivated as I read. They actually gasped in surprise when the fox finally swallowed the gingerbread boy!
In addition to reading the book by Paul Galdone, we also read a version of the story by Richard Egielski. We completed a Venn diagram of similarities and differences between the stories, and my students charted wonderful connections. Everything from specific quotes ("Gingerbread Man" vs. "Gingerbread Boy") to characters (there is a fox in both stories, only the Egielski version has a police officer) to plot events (both Gingerbread Boys have to cross water) were recalled in their observations.
We also played "Gingerbread Boy" outside, made patterns by gluing pictures of the gingerbread boy and the fox, retold the story using props, choral read the repetitive text, found sight words in the repetitive text, made a graph of which character students liked the most, discussed our favorite version of the story, and finally, on Thursday, we baked our very own gingerbread boys! My students rolled the dough and assembled the gingerbread boys, then we all walked down to the kitchen to put them in the oven. My students went outside to play while the gingerbread boys baked, but when they came back inside they were shocked to find that the gingerbread boys had escaped! We then proceeded to go on a gingerbread boy hunt around the school; I had prepared teachers to give us clues about where the gingerbread boys might be, and my students were beyond eager to follow the directions and find their cookies! They ran from one classroom to the next, searching for the cookies, and explaining their quest to anyone who would listen. When we finally arrived in the main office we could smell the cookies. My students searched all over until finally Aaliyah spotted them. Julia was so excited that she literally couldn't stop jumping up and down!
We took the cookies back to our classroom and enjoyed a (surprisingly tasty) snack, then brought cookies to everyone who had helped us in our search. We completed one more graph -- "Which part of the gingerbread boy did you eat first?" -- and then settled in for a class retelling of the story.
By incorporating The Gingerbread Boy into so many aspects of our classroom, my students had countless opportunities to comprehend and interpret the text. This increased their interest in the book, which allowed them to fully engage in all of the learning opportunities I had planned. It's amazing how much power one book can have over a week's worth of curriculum!
Do you have other recommendations for fabulous books that you have read with your students? If so, please leave them in the comments section so that we can all benefit!
Our dramatic play center has turned into a restaurant for the month of December. The table has a tablecloth, the waiters wear aprons and carry trays, and there is so much literacy development I can barely contain it!
Today was the first day the restaurant was open. Immediately four of my Spanish-speaking students took their spots. One was working the cash register and taking orders, two friends were in the kitchen and one was patiently waiting for their food to be delivered. I overheard several phrases in Spanish as a “waitress” called to the cook. As the customer settled into his meal I noticed the waitress with the pad of paper and pencil. She copied the letters and pictures that are on the menu, gave it to the customer and exclaimed “DOS!” Which I am assuming meant he owed her two dollars.
Later during our choice time, I noticed one of my most active and distracted students had made his way into our restaurant. I, again, went to observe. Normally this child would last 2-3 minutes at an activity like this. There wasn’t quite enough structure. However, with his notepad and pencil in hand we added meals to the Chef’s Special board, whipped up a batch of brownies, organized the beverages and planned some recipes. I was really impressed. He wasn’t ready to clean up at the end of our choice time! With some negotiating we agreed to work on our recipes tomorrow.
The learning opportunities in a dramatic play area are so genuine and so experiential. This, however, does take time and effort as a teacher. I make sure dramatic play is stocked with the essentials of a restaurant: food, trays, table, aprons, chef’s hat, menus notepads and pencils. Our menus and signs have picture cues and many of them can be written on with dry erase markers. We talk everyday about the expectations of each students while they play.
I could make my students sit at a desk and practice their letters and drill them on early literacy concepts. But I can assure you that what they learn through play is much more meaningful.
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!
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.
"Where do you want to work this afternoon, Aaliyah?" I asked during our center planning time. "I want to work in library." Aaliyah replied, and then paused. "Will you read to me?" I
replied that I would love to read to her, and explained that I would go
to the library as soon as I was done helping the other students plan
what they wanted to do during center time. I encouraged Aaliyah to go
to the library and read Big Wolf and Little Wolf,
one of her favorite stories. She meandered over to the library, found
the book, and started narrating the story to herself. As other
students walked by, she invited them to join in the songs from the
book. By the time I got there, Aaliyah had nearly finished the book. "Will you read it again?" She asked excitedly. We settled into the pillows in the library and proceeded to read Big Wolf and Little Wolf, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, Sheila Rae's Peppermint Stick,
and several other stories. Aaliyah and I stayed curled up with our
books for nearly thirty minutes. We read, discussed our favorite parts
of the books, drew connections between stories, and had a great time.
Moments like this are my favorite part of the day. Aaliyah is one
of my most active students, and she often struggles with picking a task
and seeing it through to completion. When presented with books,
however, she is more than capable of staying focused for an extended
period of time. Aaliyah's love for reading allowed us to engage in
authentic, complex conversations about books that challenged her
thinking and reinforced important literacy concepts.
Aaliyah
didn't come to school with this zeal for books. Last year, when she
first entered my class, she showed very little interest in reading at
all. She rarely chose to work in the library, and even when she did,
she would only stay briefly.
But in our classroom, it is pretty hard to ignore the books. We
have "book bins" in all of our centers, engage in four read alouds per
day, play games related to books, make graphs of our favorite books,
and often share our favorite books during morning meeting.
Additionally, this year I began a "Home Lending Library," so all of my
students are able to take books from the classroom home to read with
their families. Needless to say, Aaliyah -- and most of my other
students -- quickly developed a passion for reading.
Even
Suniah, who came to school with strong reading comprehension skills and
an interest in books, has developed an increased love for reading. She
can very clearly tell you her favorite books -- Jamaica Tag Alongis
her current top pick -- and draws connections between stories. Suniah
seeks information from books -- last week she referenced the last page
of It's Pumpkin Time when trying to remember the stages of pumpkin growth -- and often uses plots from books to guide her play.
Developing
genuine love of reading in pre-k helps my students learn academic and
social skills, and lays the foundation for academic success for years
to come. So as Aaliyah often says, "Let's read some more!"
One of my main goals throughout the year is to teach my
students that people write for a purpose. In the real world, people
don't just write for the sake of writing; we write to remember
information, share stories, recall events, and more. I provide my
students with countless opportunities to learn about writing throughout
the day -- from journaling, to modeled writing, to using the writing
materials available in all of our centers -- and we talk about
different reasons why we write in each context.
In addition to all of these more intentional teaching
opportunities, my students also learn from watching adults write in
natural contexts likw when I take attendance or write anecdotal notes.
I take anecdotal notes on my clipboard each day during center time.
While most of the time this doesn't faze my students, sometimes they
come over to look for their name or letters that they know in the note.
Whenever they ask what I'm writing, I tell them, "I'm writing a note
for myself so that I can remember all the great things that you're
doing!" This reiterates a purpose for writing and also makes my
students excited. I often read the note back to them -- they love to
hear my record of their actions!
Last week during center time, Mayala came up to me...
"Ms. Rosenbaum," she asked, "can I write on your [clip]board?"
"Sure, Mayala." I replied, "What are you going to write?"
"I gotta write a note!" She answered frantically.
I gave Maya a clean
sheet of paper, my clipboard, and my pen, and she got to work. She
started writing lines of B's, a's, Y's, and M's (letters from her name
and her brother's name). She wrote from left to right and top to
bottom, and persisted for several minutes. Mayala then brought her
paper to me.
"What did you do?" I asked, curious to see if she would give any more specificity about the note.
"I wrote you a note!"
She exclaimed, so proud of herself. "It says, 'I like when your
feelings are pretty. I like your friends in their clothes.'" As
Mayala read her note, she swept her finger from right to left and top
to bottom (the opposite of when she was writing).
Mayala's note was about feelings and friends, two topics that we
had discussed in depth over the past two weeks. Earlier that day we
had read Todd Parr's The Feelings Book,
and we talked about some of the clothes that the characters were
wearing. Mayala was clearly still thinking about the book, as her note
was reflective of our conversation earlier in the day. She also
demonstrated an understanding of print awareness; she knew that she had
to write letters (not pictures), and that her writing should progress
from left to right. She confused the print directionality while
rereading her note, so tracking print is something that I will
intentionally focus on for the next few weeks with Mayala.
Through a combination of intentional teaching and natural writing
observation, Mayala is beginning to learn the importance of writing to
share ideas. She is enthusiastic about learning how to write, and will
be able to take advantage of countless opportunities to practice and
improve her writing skills throughout the school year!
At the beginning of the school year, I am very intentional about introducing all of our centers and classroom materials to my students. We started the first week of school by opening two centers - first toys and games, then art - and have been introducing approximately one new center per week. Each time we introduce a new center, we do a "guided discovery" of the center and its materials. The guided discovery allows students to: generate ideas about what to do in the center, practice executing their ideas, and discuss how they used the materials. I find it to be an extremely helpful technique because it encourages students to be creative and take ownership of their ideas. Plus, they are eager to try out their ideas in the center and it encourages them to use the materials appropriately!
This week, we introduced sand into our "Sand and Water" center. As part of our discussion during the guided discovery, we generated a list of ideas about how to use the sand. Here are the ideas that my students came up with:
At sand and water I can...
Pick up the sand (Stephen)
Pick it up high (Suniah)
Build a big house (Aaliyah)
Make it big (Jose)
Make a castle (Mayala)
Put it in your fingers (Julia)
I drew a small picture to represent each idea next to the words, and included the contributing student's name next to their idea. We then hung the poster in the sand and water center, and I modeled how to reference it for ideas during center time. Soon I heard Makiera say, "Look, I can pick it up high!" as she pointed to the poster. And later that afternoon, when one student started spilling sand on the floor, Mayala said, "Don't put it on the floor! You can build a castle!"
This method of writing with students -- especially when used in conjunction with a guided discovery -- is an easy way to incorporate functional print into the classroom. Students begin to learn that people write for a purpose, and they develop an understanding of how people can use print in their daily lives. Rereading the writing also reinforces print directionality and the differences between letters, words, and sentences. All of these concepts represent important early literacy skills that will prepare my students to become excellent readers and writers!
It's hard to believe that we have been in school for a month! We currently have seven centers open in our classroom -- discovery, cooking, art, sand and water, blocks, toys and games, and library -- and will open the remaining two centers -- dramatic play and computers -- next week. Even in just a month of school, some of my students have already started to develop their "favorite" centers. Ana loves to work in library, Liliana enjoys drawing intricate pictures in art, and Suniah can most often be found in the block area.
While each center naturally lends itself to a specific type of activity, it is important to remember that every domain of development and academic content area can be addressed in every center. For example, Suniah has been working in blocks fairly consistently for the past two weeks. She builds small houses with foam blocks, makes furniture out of bristle blocks, and assigns family roles to the miniature people. Suniah likes to work with her peers, but she sometimes gets frustrated when they don't follow her directions. Having observed Suniah in blocks for several days, I knew that she was naturally getting practice identifying shapes, comparing quantities, and thinking creatively about problems. These are all important cognitive development skills that my students learn in pre-k.
During center time this week, I made a note that I wanted to observe Suniah and join her play to facilitate some more social/emotional and language development. Suniah went to blocks at the very beginning of center time today; she made a flat rectangle of blocks, added several bristle blocks in the middle for "beds," and lined the miniature people up in rows. Over in art, Aaliyah started talking about the TV shows that her mother likes to watch. Suniah apparently heard this, because she soon announced, "Okay, guys, it's time to watch TV!" This was my opportunity to jump in.
"Suniah," I remarked, "did you hear Aaliyah talking about her mommy watching TV?"
"Yeah, we're gonna watch TV!"
"Oh, is there a TV in your house?" I asked, gesturing to her block house.
"Nooooo, it's right here!" Suniah exclaimed with exasperation, gesturing to our alphabet chart on the wall. "They're gonna watch the hippopotamus channel!"
"The hippopotamus channel? With the letter H?"
"Yeah! They're gonna watch the ABC TV!"
At this point Stephen, Jose, and Julia came over to Suniah to see what all the excitement was about.
"Sit down," Suniah instructed the other students "It's time to watch the ABC TV! Now we're gonna watch B.../b/ /b/ baby!" Suniah confidently pointed to the "B" card on our alphabet.
"Now C.../c/ /c/ caterpillar channel!" exclaimed Stephen, eager to get in the game. Suniah obliged, and pointed to the letter C.
This process went on for several minutes; Stephen, Jose, and Julia eagerly called out letters and Suniah quickly pointed to the letters, adding in any information that her friends may have missed (such as the letter sound or corresponding picture).
With a little bit of careful "kid watching," I was able to determine what developmental domains Suniah needed to focus on in centers, and I was able to naturally integrate those domains into her play. She practiced working collaboratively with peers, taking directions from others, and identifying letter names and sounds. In the future, if Suniah continues to work frequently in blocks, I will encourage her to read, write, make patterns, build more complex structures, etc. -- the possibilities are endless!
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