A Fair Shot

As my children prepare for pre-k graduation and the move to kindergarten, I cannot help but wonder about their futures.  Will Karen become a doctor?  Will Awana have the chance to choose between being a ballerina or a doctor?  Will Aniyah’s behavior regress and threaten her academic progress?

I have worked to introduce school to my class as an exciting and fun place where they can make friends, learn, and be successful.  Anecdotal evidence and various forms of assessments suggest that my students have already started to realize their potential and are on the path toward high achievement in school and beyond.  Parents’ strong attendance at our class events and interest in enriching their child’s learning over the summer also bode well for my students’ academic prospects.

Yet my students still have many years during which their attitudes toward school, themselves, and their peers could change for the worse.  Most of them will continue to live in unsafe neighborhoods and struggling school districts.  The research showing that students in inner city schools who have had high-quality pre-k do better than those who have not gives me hope.  I know that my instruction in the classroom and the active support of family members during this critical stage in children’s development will have life-long benefits.  I also believe innovative changes are occurring in the K-12 system, many of them spearheaded by my fellow Teach For America alums.  But, on an individual level, it is still hard to predict how high each child in my class will build on the pre-k foundation he or she gained this year.

My time in the classroom has been, above all, about providing the kinds of opportunities for my students that they deserve.  The playing field is not level, even for three and four year olds.  High-quality pre-k teachers alone cannot ensure that a child won’t face educational and societal inequities down the road, but the vibrant and challenging learning environments we provide are the first step toward giving all children an equal chance at success.

The Pudding

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.

Snowed Under

No, I’m not digging out from an anomalous May snowstorm, but I do feel quite overwhelmed by end-of-the-year paperwork.  Like other teachers, I have mostly assessments and annual school wide forms to complete this time of year.  My pre-k program has additional sets of the former handed down by the district and the state.

The state mandates the use of ELAS, a performance-based assessment system focusing on six language arts/literacy expectations. Normally, I would not voice concerns about ELAS; despite the tedious paperwork involved, it has been very helpful as a tool for targeting the strengths and weaknesses of my students.  My concern is this: the collection period for ELAS ends in June, but my support person from the Office of Early Childhood has insisted we hand in the paperwork nearly a month earlier. Why? My guess is because other pre-k sites have been delinquent in handing in paperwork on time in the past.

The problem with this creative revision of the ELAS timetable is threefold:

1.    This time of year many pre-k students start to demonstrate remarkable academic progress, especially those who entered pre-k younger than the other students.  If we stop collecting anecdotes and work samples from those children in mid-May (to ensure we can finish the paperwork before Memorial Day), we may fail to capture this growth and, thereby, provide the state, our schools, and parents with inaccurate results.

2.    We are also responsible for a social skill checklist and the district’s experimental assessment forms (requiring the collection of anecdotes covering over 30 expectations) in the same time frame.  Now, I am all for an Amazing Race-style challenge for teachers to balance three assessment systems, simultaneously, while also instructing students.  But, if we are really in early childhood for the children and not just to satisfy the sadistic cravings of paperwork hungry bureaucrats, we should think realistically about how our demands on teachers affect their ability to perform in the classroom.

3.    I have always handed in paperwork on time along with additional individualized action plans for my students.  If the folks at the Office of Early Childhood were as organized and well managed as they should be, they would put additional pressure only on those teachers who need it.  In a sense, they should differentiate their approach to employees in the same way that they require teachers to differentiate our approach for the varying needs of our students.

Well, I have to go now…because this paperwork is not going to fill out itself.

Choice Time = Critical Time for Student Growth

"Choice Time" is a critical time for pre-k students to grow academically and socially.  During choice time in my classroom, the children can go to any of ten interest areas that provide a wide range of opportunities for learning through hands-on, experiential activities.  Each area has labeled materials and books pertinent to that area (e.g., Blocks has books about building and transportation; Dramatic Play has cooking and career books; Art has books of art with famous paintings).  These materials help teach how literacy permeates all areas of life.

Here is a glimpse into choice time in Pre-k 114:

Blocks Area – Quite logically, the blocks area contains different types of blocks - wooden and plastic, large and small.  In addition, we have worker hats, transportation toys, animal toys, and people figurines.  We put illustrated labels on all toys to help make children aware of letters and words and how we use print in a functional way.  When this photo was taken David and Samar were trying to construct a tunnel through which the car could pass.  I asked them to recall what the tunnel looked like in the book we read.  They found the book and discovered they were missing the top part of the tunnel.  They also learned about cause and effect when they pushed a car through their construction project too fast and the tall sides fell in.

Dramatic Play – This area includes everything from plastic fruit to a medical kit.  The children take on pretend roles ranging from mommies and daddies to doctors and waiters.  We expose them to different functions of print by including real maps, menus, recipe books, and bus schedules to support their play.  I often engage students with open ended questions that build their vocabulary and target their individual needs.  In the "doctor's office," I asked Doctor Tyrique whether he was going to fill out a prescription for my medicine.  He responded by grabbing a notepad and writing my name.  We worked on listening for the sounds in Pappas and connecting those sound to letters.  In the photo, Tyrone is writing a grocery list for his family.

Art Area – This area includes a wide range of materials intended to spark the children's creativity and invite constructive and open-ended dialogue between the teacher and student.  Rather than tell children exactly what to make, we give them tools such as water color paint, paint markers, hard and soft clay, and collage materials.  We provide an example, and then encourage them to express themselves with their tools.  The symmetrical paintings shown on the back wall in the photo exemplify this process.  I showed students how to paint on one side and make a mirror image on the other side by folding their paper.  They then made their own paintings and, in the process, learned about symmetry.

These examples reveal the successful results of learning through play, or what I would deem constructive play.  Teachers create interest areas with opportunities for children to explore and grow in various content areas.  They then use choice time as a chance to target individual student needs identified through ongoing, performance-based assessments, and analysis.  As children explore and discover, teachers can seize teachable moments and move their students forward.

A Window on Bilingual Pre-K

[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.]

The birds are chirping, trees are budding, and flowers are blooming -- Happy Spring everyone!

I appreciate the opportunity to fill in for Sophia this week, provide a window into the pre-k program I direct, and read your comments. I thought I'd focus on the activities that make CentroNía's practices unique to the early childhood education field, the importance of high-quality bilingual education, and how our program supports children and families in the transition to kindergarten.

CentroNía is in the heart of a diverse and vibrant neighborhood in Northwest DC. Our classrooms are filled with children of families who speak Amharic, Spanish, English and Vietnamese. To support our children's native language and culture, we engage in a dual language model of instruction in Spanish and English. Every classroom is outfitted with a designated English speaking teacher and a designated Spanish speaking teacher. All learning centers are labeled in Spanish and English print, and passersby in the hall quickly notice the children engaged in conversations with each other in both languages. We aim to provide a safe environment where the children can express themselves in their language of choice while also having the opportunity to speak in the language they are learning.

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that second language acquisition is successful if children are given the opportunity to develop a strong foundation in their native language. (This letter to the editor in The Washington Post sums up why bilingual education, contrary to the assertions of folks like Newt Gingrich, is effective in teaching children English.) We are beginning to look at how to measure second language acquisition by administering the Brigance Screening in both languages through a baseline and post assessment. But we already have many anecdotes showing our children's progess -- here is one.

Four-year-old Diana entered our pre-k program with knowledge of Russian and English. At the beginning, Mom was concerned that Diana might get "confused" learning a third language. My suggestion was to see how the first couple of weeks went and to observe her comfort level in communicating with her classmates. Fast forward nine months and I can tell you that Diana is singing in Spanish, learning to write her name and identify letters in English, and increasing her Russian vocabulary with her family. Her father stopped by my office one day to say, "Marissa, who knew we had a genius on our hands?" I share this story in part to say that, if children are exposed to an additional language in an intentional and research-based model, we would see many more "geniuses" entering kindergarten.

I strongly believe that our success comes from the support and celebration of a family's linguistic and cultural differences. We bring these differences into the center and make them part of the classroom environment. I hope the benefits of supporting English language learners are seen by more and more of our community stakeholders. It is only in this way we will be begin to see a stronger public education system.

Not all Assessments are Created Equal

Recent debate over Head Start’s National Reporting System got me thinking about the challenges of assessing what three and four year olds know and what they have learned from their pre-k teachers. Early Stories sums up the NRS debate with some great examples.

Not being a Head Start teacher myself, I have never administered the NRS.  I am required, however, to use the Brigance screening in the beginning of each school year to identify developmental delays.  While some of the sections are helpful (e.g., following two and three step directions; fine motor and gross motor evaluations), many of the questions seem to measure a child’s exposure to certain words and objects rather than development.  For example, in one section Brigance asks the child to identify a picture of a tractor.  I personally fail to see how the inability of a four year old from the inner city to identify a tractor indicates any sort of delay in her development.  The test also requires children to identify several body parts including the jaw and ankle, a stretch for any four year old in my opinion. 

I think my ideal pre-k assessment tool would breakdown the four areas of child development (i.e., social/emotional; physical; cognitive; and language) and be able to measure each of those components regardless of a child’s background.  Unlike the Brigance screening, such an assessment may have to be partially or entirely performance-based since a child may not reveal the full extent of his problem-solving or language skills in a single one-to-one interaction at the start of the year.  A teacher can, however, observe a child within the context of play with materials and areas the child has chosen. 

Creative Curriculum’s assessment system is entirely performance-based, uses the “developmental continuum” to assess all four areas of development, and is both the most comprehensive and least biased assessment I have seen.  While it can be quite helpful in providing information about your students, it is not necessarily the most accessible data for kindergarten teachers to use the following year, so I do think the more traditional assessments (e.g., letter identification, book handling checklist) have a role to play. 

The Power of Planning

“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. 

Lessons in Diplomacy

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.

             

To Teach or to Assess? Is that Really the Question?

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.

Which Came First, the Assessment or the Children?

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:

1. I am so proud of Ravon;
2. 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
3. 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:

1. The Early Learning Assessment System (ELAS) – a state mandated performance-based literacy assessment charting student growth in six areas.  Reported three times per year.
2. A district mandated checklist charting growth in the areas of social emotional, gross motor, and fine motor development.  Recorded twice per year.
3. A district mandated beginning of the year Brigance Screening used mainly to identify any developmental delays.
4. 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.