The retention of skills and knowledge from one school year to the next is crucial for students of any age, including children transitioning from pre-k to kindergarten. Since I teach in a school-year, not full-year, program, I make extra effort to get my class’s families committed to summertime learning.
I’ve seen first-hand what can happen when that effort and commitment are lacking. After my first year of teaching, I ran into a former student and her mother on the bus, right before the new school year began. In our conversation, I discovered that the child had regressed both academically and socially. Subsequent discussions with some of my school’s kindergarten teachers revealed that this child’s experience was not unique.
Once I moved past the initial frustration and disappointment, I began thinking about how best to ensure that the learning foundation established in my classroom did not crumble after Pre-K Graduation Day. My first thought was to recommend to families some summer programs for young children. It turns out, though, that my district does not offer such programs for pre-kindergartners, and affordable non-school-based options are scarce.
Next, I decided to create summer learning supports for families myself. In the past, I had sent home books and writing materials for the summer, but had not strategically designed tools to meet my students’ needs. Sure, I’d given parents their child’s assessment results and general tips for keeping their child engaged over the summer, but this proved insufficient as it meant more work for busy parents to choose and create learning activities based on this information. So, I now give families a homework packet
with specific activities they can do with their children and the materials needed to do them. There are no dittos in the packet, but rather various opportunities for the children to review and continue to explore letters, words, writing, numbers, and shapes.
Judging by the my class’s high return rate for homework packets distributed at other school-year breaks (over 85 percent!), I am confident that my students’ families will work with their children on these activities during the summer. And, because of this family involvement, I’m hopeful that my students’ school readiness in the fall will be equal to or even greater than it was on their last day of pre-k.
Many of my children, though only four or five years old, have already dealt with difficult situations such as foster care, parental incarceration, and homelessness. While all of these issues can effect a child’s perspective and ability to trust others, parental incarceration recently posed a challenge for me as a teacher with a responsibility to educate children about the positive role of police in our society.
Last week, we held Career Day at our school. To prepare, we discussed possible jobs and as a class composed a letter welcoming the Career Day participants. During our pre-writing discussion, I asked the students how they felt about Career Day. Tyrone responded, “I feel angry because the police gonna come and lock everyone up.” His comment reminded me of an earlier comment from Aniyah that also expressed distrust of the police and suggested we physically hurt the police so they “won’t do that anymore.”
I began to explain the reasons why people go to jail and emphasized the positive role of police officers in making us safe. I couldn’t help but glance at two of my other students who currently have a parent in jail. They didn’t say anything, but I wondered what might be going on in their heads. “Is my mommy wrong? Is she making people unsafe? Is it a good thing that the police took my daddy away from me? If the police are good, is my daddy bad?”
As I considered these thoughts, I began to backpedal. I talked briefly about people making mistakes and responded to a question about everyone going to jail “for life” by stressing that many times people in jail get to leave and be with their families again. I then wondered, for Tyrique - who will be fifteen when his mother gets out and is just developing a sense of time - what is the real difference between a life apart from his mother and ten years spent apart from her during his crucial childhood years?
I am aware of the sensitivity of these issues and the larger reality of mixed attitudes toward the police in inner city neighborhoods. What is not clear is how to deal with them in a way that will both preserve strong ties between children and their families and define the police as a source of protection for the people in those neighborhoods.
The results are in! After nine months of instructing and assessing in various forms, I have comprehensive data on my students’ growth in literacy. How did they do? Each child achieved an average of 80 percent or better on a wide range of literacy assessments!
Because pre-k children often don’t show you everything they know or can do with one type of assessment, I used two types of assessments and incorporated all the objectives from each into my calculations. One type were performance-based assessments that include anecdotes and work samples collected while the children play and interact throughout the day. I supplemented these with standardized assessments administered by me to each child to test skills like letter identification and rhyming words.
Overall, 10 children out of 14 achieved 100 percent on the standardized assessments and 9 achieved 90 percent or higher on the performance-based assessments. I’m especially impressed by the individual gains made by the children, such as:
Awana, who often struggled to move forward in letter identification and listening skills, in the end achieved 85 percent on the standardized assessments and 83 percent on the performance-based assessments.
Tanasia, who started off the year too shy to even come to school the first day, achieved 100 percent mastery on the standardized assessments and 88 percent on the performance-based assessments.
I realize some in the early childhood community are skeptical of the extent to which standardized assessments are developmentally appropriate. I agree that such tests could potentially produce inaccurate results, given the young age of my students. I try to reduce the potential for inaccuracies by identifying the assessments as “fun games to play with the teacher,” which can help the children feel more at ease and less stressed by the experience. I ask students if they would like to play with me, and many times they jump at the chance to spend some one-on-one time with the teacher, especially since they get to press the “easy” button (thanks, Staples) when they finish. I remember Tyrique expressing sadness that he could not play our “game” a second time.
Consistency between the scores given by the two types of assessments suggests that these techniques can help produce more reliable results from the standardized variety. The results also show general consistency between the two kinds of assessments.
Standardized assessments are necessary in my case because the kindergarten teachers who will have my students next year use them and not performance-based assessments. This begs the question, of course, why are kindergarten teachers not using performance-based assessments? I think they should use some combination of the two, at a minimum, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their students’ strengths and needs.
I am very proud of my students’ growth and know that the combined efforts of Ms. Morrison, Ms. Bimba, each child’s family, and me contributed to their success.
Like adults, pre-k students have good days and bad days. How we as teachers deal with the latter can significantly impact our relationships with individual students, their academic and social growth, and our overall classroom culture.
Just as we differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all students, we must also individualize our approach to motivating them. Karen, though upbeat and highly participatory throughout the day, periodically comes to school in tears, clinging to her grandmother. She is quite comfortable using writing and drawing as a creative outlet, so I suggest that she write a note or paint a picture for her grandmother during choice time. This helps her remain connected even when she cannot be with her family.
Her grandmother and I have also worked on stressing responsibility with Karen. I thank all of my students for being responsible when they correctly follow our morning routine as they enter. Karen’s grandmother and I use that same terminology when we are trying to stop her from crying. This process usually takes a few minutes. She then calmly puts away her belongings, washes her hands, and is eating breakfast with her friends in no time.
Awana occasionally comes in sobbing and lethargic, particularly if she has been absent or we are returning from the weekend. If she says anything, it’s usually a very quiet, “I want to go home.” Her mother is not nearly as present or supportive as Karen’s grandmother, nor does she use writing and art in the same way as Karen. She does, however, respond well to good old-fashioned hugs. I usually ask her how she feels, let her know how I would feel, remind her of our classroom routines, give her a hug, and send her on her way to “have fun and learn with her friends.” Kevin or David sometimes chime in with their own hugs and a “We missed you when you were out, Awana.”
Aniyah often arrives late and upset about something that happened with her brother on her way to school. Despite our daily “fresh start,” she sometimes carries over some baggage from behavioral problems the day before. I am quite familiar with her affinity towards cheer leading and use this knowledge to motivate her. I often greet her with a cheer to her name or ask her to help me out with a cheer for one of her friends.
Understanding and effectively addressing mood fluctuations is an important part of my job, and through this process my students gain self-confidence and the trust in me they need to be engaged members of the classroom community. When we as teachers succeed in this role, disruptions to the class are minimized and children are less likely to use negative behavior to get attention.
Four months ago David’s mother remarked that she wants her son to go “sky high in life." Now, as he begins to transition to kindergarten, David shows tremendous social and academic progress. His story shows how high quality pre-k supports multiple facets of childhood development.
Socially, David adjusted to our rules and routines fairly quickly back in the fall, but he tended to avoid playing with others and participating actively in large group activities. He was reluctant to sing along with the group or respond during a read-aloud. He preferred playing with dinosaurs by himself in the Discovery area to playing with his friends in more populated areas such as Blocks and Sand. The challenge was to have him go beyond just following all the rules as an individual and begin collaborating more with his peers and participating during whole group lessons.
To help his growth in this area, I encouraged David and his classmates to support their friends by cheering them on with individualized chants (e.g., There is a friend who’s in our class and David is his name-o, d-a-v-i-d, d-a-v-i-d, d-a-v-i-d, and David is his name-o). I also used stories and puppet role plays to facilitate discussions about how we can help each other solve problems (e.g., if our friends are struggling with a task, we can help them remember the “Little Engine that Could” by saying, “I think you can, I think you can” or if a friend does not get picked for something we can say, “oh well, you’ll get it next time,” just like “Susan the Squirrel” puppet did for her friend, “Danny the Dog” puppet).
David soon started having breakthrough moments. He expressed pride in himself by informing his mother of his “purple” status (a reward system I use) the moment she picked him up. The next day, David would let me know how proud his dad was when he told him. He also started contributing more on the rug. Just this week David got to purple for his active participation throughout the day. In terms of playing with others, David often travels between play areas with friends, most notably last week when he and Tyrique together made newspaper hats in the Art Area and drew a pirate adventure on the chalk board in the Writing Area.
Academically, David came in to pre-k knowing some letters and was starting to write his name, but he had difficulty counting, making connections between letters and their sounds, and forming letters. I soon made him the snack manager, which required him to count his friends every day. We also worked with him in small group on name puzzles and exposed him to print and letter sounds at every opportunity. His mother was also quickly responsive to my efforts to invest her in David’s progress; his father soon followed. They worked with him on writing the sight words we learned in school, labeling pictures he drew with the beginning letter of each objects and person, challenged David with opportunities to count with everyday routines (e.g., the number of dishes needed for dinner or shirts in the laundry), and, as they noted in their New Year’s Resolution, read with him every night. His father remarked at one of our conferences that David was so excited about books, he would stop his father repeatedly during stories to make comments. I kept them updated on specific strengths, weaknesses, and ways they could move him forward. I could tell from looking at his writing and hearing him explore letter sounds that his parents were using the strategies at home.
David can now write short sentences with little guidance and is starting to sound out words. Furthermore, he not only counts to twenty, usually without mistakes, but also suggests using counting to figure out the answer to a question (e.g., how do we know that more students voted for apples as their favorite fruit?).
David, like all of my children, came to me in September with strengths and room to grow, both socially and academically. I responded to these complexities with a multifaceted approach that reflects and addresses the needs of the whole child. His progress highlights the potential of pre-k to impact several developmental areas positively and the important, collaborative role parents can play in laying a strong foundation for their children.
This time of year can be bittersweet, with many students demonstrating remarkable growth and others still struggling with some basic skills. Awana, uniquely, can do both, depending on the day or even the hour.
I recognized her needs early on and have been working intensely with her one-on-one in addition to our small and large group lessons. Awana started making connections in December when she wrote her friends’ names in the Writing Area. She recalled the formation and order of the letters for most of her friends and had developed the fine motor skills needed to write those names. She could not, however, identify the letters or the sounds in their names. That “wow” moment taught me the importance of Awana’s friends as a reference point for her further growth in literacy along with the need to build on that foundation with instruction that helped her make connections between words, letters, and letter sounds. If Awana chose to draw and write about dogs, we thought about the sound in dog. Awana thought about the dog, listened for the /d/ sound, said, “like in David’s name,” and then wrote the letter D.
As I worked with Awana with this plan in mind, I noticed that her friends’ names weren’t the only useful resource. Our transition chants involving letters, which we sing every day, also helped her make connections during choice time and small group. For example, we move from the daily schedule routine to a letter exploration activity by chanting, “Big ‘L’! Little ‘l’! What begins with ‘L’? Lunch, lunch, /l//l/ Lunch.” Recently, the class wrote a letter to the mayor about the littering problem in Newark as part of our study of the environment. To help us get writing, I thought out loud for the children, saying, “Hmm…litter, what do you hear in litter.” Before I could “struggle” with the difficult challenge, Awana’s hand shot up. She responded, “/l/, Big ‘L’! Little ‘l’! What begins with ‘L’? Lunch, lunch, /l//l/ Lunch.” She then proudly came up to the board to add the letter “L.”
And yet Awana does not always retain the information. Many times during the day she responds by shrugging her shoulders and remaining silent or just calling out random letters (or sometimes numbers). I realize some of the inconsistency may be developmental, but I have never seen such dramatic differences in the same child within the same day.
There is also the issue of her mother. Awana receives the least amount of support from home out of all of my students. I hope to send my class off in June with a toolkit filled with games their families can play over the summer to help them retain the skills they have gained. Awana will need this support the most, but given the difficulty her mother has had in keeping appointments with me this year, I fear that Awana won’t get it and these hard-won skills may fade.
[This entry was contributed by guest blogger Marissa Castro Mikoy, the director of the Universal Pre-Kindergarten Incentive Program at CentroNía, an educational community-based organization in Washington, D.C.]
As a pre-k program administrator, it can be easy to think, "I have a great curriculum, classrooms full of top-notch materials - we are all set." Experience has taught me that providing a high-quality program takes much more, from the cultivation of parent involvement to professional development that meets the needs of each teacher. Many components must converge and be fostered to achieve "high quality." Here are my thoughts on a couple of these key pieces.
Teachers: Just having "great" teachers does not necessarily translate to a high-quality program. It is imperative that programs invest in teachers and nurture their professional development. Through the program I lead at CentroNía, funds are available for all teachers to continue their education. In fact, we have a number of teachers who have gone back to school to obtain an associate's or bachelor's degree in early childhood education. Our program benefits not only from having better-prepared teachers but also from having teachers who reciprocate and invest even more of themselves in our center.
Families: The development of a strong family involvement plan is just as important. At CentroNía, we host monthly Family Nights, a time when parents share food and conversation while teachers and staff help them learn about the program curriculum, child development, parenting strategies, and more. Through these events, our families begin to view each other, not just our staff, as resources and supports. I have seen parents of different cultural and economic backgrounds develop relationships at these meetings, and one parent I know of organized a weekend play group based on relationships forged at Family Night.
At an even deeper level, Family Night helps us identify parents interested in serving on the city-wide Parent Advisory Council. Parents from each of D.C.'s 17 Pre-K Incentive Program organizations sit on the council, and among other things have helped organize written testimony and support for the city's publicly-funded program, igniting greater family involvement and advocacy at many pre-k centers.
When families, teachers, and program staff have opportunities like these to interact, form bonds, and grow, I believe the result is a strong, collaborative team that works energetically to sustain the high quality standards all parties desire.
My thanks to all of you readers and Sophia for letting me share a little about CentroNía and the D.C. Pre-K Incentive Program with you over the past week. I look forward to reading your entries and comments and responding with more of my own stories.
[This entry was contributed by guest blogger Marissa Castro Mikoy, the director of the Universal Pre-Kindergarten Incentive Program at CentroNía, an educational community-based organization in Washington, D.C.]
Transitioning to kindergarten in Washington, D.C., is not the easiest process in the world. Public charter schools, neighborhood public schools, private schools, "out of boundary" schools... For parents, learning the differences between schools and what those differences might mean for their child is key to answering the million-dollar question, Where should my child go to school?
At CentroNía, we make a concerted effort to help families find the answer. Working with and supporting all our pre-k families, especially immigrant families, has proven to be helpful and rewarding. After the transition process, I've noticed that parents are typically more confident and, in turn, more likely to participate in school meetings or to simply schedule a meeting with their child’s kindergarten teacher.
So, what does our transition process entail? Well, we start by preparing individualized transitions packets for parents. Each packet contains a neighborhood map with plotted color-coded points representing the child's eligible public school, the closest public charter schools, and private schools in the neighborhood. We also provide contact information and school statistics for each school on the map.
Next, we host two breakfast meetings for parents to drop in, pick up their transitions packets, and grab a meal. Our resident CentroNía "transitions experts" are available at these meetings to talk one-on-one with parents, helping them to review the information in their packets, understand the differences between each school in depth, and even complete charter school applications.
More individual attention follows our breakfast events, for I've found that even afterwards there are parents who have more questions but feel intimidated by the thought of calling a school's principal or counselor. I often meet with parents to coach them on starting a dialogue with a school and, in some cases, to serve as a translator.
With individualized guidance and support, a child and his or her family can transition smoothly from pre-k to kindergarten and beyond. Research continues to show that family involvement demonstrates to children the value of their education and their families' role in it. This process should be a partnership with families, and I think we, at CentroNía and across the early childhood community, are proving how that can be done. Pre-k's ability to give children and parents critical skills and confidence is a huge reason why these programs are an important first step in improving K-12 education.
I would love to hear what other communities are doing by way of transitions work. Please post a comment with your ideas or thoughts.
After reading the reports about the link between childcare and negative behavior problems later on, I thought it might be helpful to hear a parent’s take on the effect of pre-k on her son’s development. I decided to interview Ravon’s mother (“RM” for the remainder of the interview).
Ms. Pappas: Why did you decide to enroll Ravon in pre-k?
RM: I didn’t want a lot of play for Ravon. My younger brother was in your class the previous year, and I always liked the way you involved the parents in the homework assignments. I like the interaction with me and Ravon because I know what he is learning and we can work on further developing his listening and language skills together. Also, you still let them play in your classroom, but they learn through the play. Daycare was just play, play, color, color, all day long, but not enough learning.
Ms. Pappas: What do you think about recent studies that link childcare programs with negative behavior later on?
RM: Well, I used to work in daycare, so I agree. They tend to baby the kids instead of giving them ways to solve problems when they misbehave. They don’t explain things as much. The regular elementary school pre-k is different. You explain to the child why they are wrong and how they can correct themselves.
Ms. Pappas: How much education do you think a pre-k teacher needs in order to benefit children?
RM: I think experience goes a long way, often more than education. Some people with experience over education can deal with children better. My grandmother had no education and kept eight children in line.
Ms. Pappas: What are the benefits of pre-k?
RM: I have seen so much growth with Ravon. He’s expressing himself better. He’s more disciplined, and he wants to come to school. He doesn’t want to miss a day. My husband and I are so happy.
Ms. Pappas: What are your hopes for Ravon?
RM: Ravon can write, express himself more, interpret things better, read at least on his level.
Ms. Pappas: What about in the long run?
RM: I want my son to go to college. I want him to have a very decent job. I want him to enjoy what he does. It's not as much about the money. I really want him to be happy.
“Your students’ growth will be your growth”: wise words from one of my three greatest role models as a teacher, an older Teach For America teacher who taught in my district.
Each year, as we begin to discuss signs of spring in the sprouting flowers and leaves outside, I can also notice my students’ academic growth, particularly in basic literacy skills. As I observe them throughout the day, I see how the individual action plans I created and implemented facilitated their achievement. The anecdotal notes and work samples in their portfolios provided insights into my students’ strengths and weaknesses. I then used that data to develop teaching plans for both me and the students’ families to follow. While I started using these plans last year, more practice with anecdotal note taking and familiarity with analyzing skill deficits using our performance based assessments strengthened my ability to target and address student needs this year. The success of this valuable teaching tool makes me feel like I have really improved as an instructional leader.
Here are just a few examples of their growth:
• David’s anecdotes and work samples from the fall revealed the need to work on listening skills (e.g., incorporating ideas from discussions into play). Consequently, I linked my questions before and during choice time to ideas we had discussed during circle time. I also brought in more topics that seemed to appeal to him, such as transportation and animals. David recently approached me with a toy airplane and his name card and said, “Look Ms. Pappas, the airplane ‘bout to take off on the runway. It can’t just go straight up, it has to go like this,” as he rolled to airplane on the flat surface and then had it take off. • Tyrone’s target areas in the fall included relating stories to his own life. So, I worked on this skill with Tyrone in whole-group and small-group instruction, modeling how to connect stories to our own experiences. For example, during a read aloud of Cat in the Hat, I might relate to the experience of the children sitting at home on a rainy day by saying, “I remember when it was pouring rain and I couldn’t go outside to play tag with my friends. I felt sad.” I also designed activities around comparing and contrasting characters’ lives with our own. Tyrone’s recent literary insights include: “I took a long train like the one in the book to New York.” and “I went to the zoo too. We saw an elephant.” • In the fall, Fuquan was strong in letter identification and was starting to identify beginning sounds in words. From that foundation, he needed to work on making letter-sound connections and using that skill to write words. My plan for him included playing letter-sound sorting games in small group, discussing sounds in words one on one during activities like journal time, and singing songs about letter sounds during transition times. Fuquan is now labeling his drawings with the letters that match the pictures and can write short sentences with some guidance from me.
I look forward to using my improved planning skills to make the most of the precious few months left with my students this school year.
Pre-K Now is a public
education and advocacy organization that advances high-quality, voluntary
pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds.
Visit Pre-K Now >
Four months ago David’s mother 
