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.

Coping with the Bad Days

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.

Awana's Struggles and Successes

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.

The Making of Problem Solvers

Ahh, the weekend…after exploring fantastical literary worlds for five days with old ladies swallowing flies, purple crayon drawn hot air balloons, and wild things at every corner, I get to delve into my weekly collection of non-fiction, “adult” content at a local café.

As I briefly step away from my pre-k teacher mentality to reflect on the latest 2008 presidential contender or the Ethiopian presence in Somalia, I consider one unifying theme in each of the articles: problems.  Regardless of your political affiliation, job sector, or daily blogger of choice, it is clear that current and future generations face a wide range of political, economic, social, and technological problems.  So what are we doing in Pre-k 114 to provide our society with proactive problem solvers?

One, we are creating a problem-solving culture in the classroom.  Whether the problem is spilled milk, a friend crying, or someone saying they “can’t” do something, we respond with efforts to fix the problem.  Initially, the children said, “ooooooh” and pointed instead.  We then showed puppets in similar situations, brainstormed with the children about how to fix problems, and adopted the phrase, “We don’t say ‘oooh,’ we fix the problem.”

We also don’t give up.  We learned from the Little Engine to keep chugging while saying, “I think I can” and asking for help from our peers.  We receive positive recognition for going out of our way to help others fix problems.  Students who got to purple last week included David and Tanasia for helping each other fold up their blankets after naptime, Awana for assisting Tyrone with his spilled juice, and Kevin for comforting Karen when she was upset.

A second step is to foster critical thinking skills.  Like my favorite adult publications, children’s literature is filled with characters that have problems.  We use these scenarios as a starting point for thinking about ways to solve problems.  Here is an excerpt from a problem solving discussion we had last Friday over breakfast, as we looked at a picture of Jack (of “Jack Be Nimble” fame) jumping over the candlestick. 

Ms. Pappas: What’s the problem?
Sierra: His pants could catch on fire. 
Ms. Pappas: So what should he do?
Sierra: Call 911 to put the fire out.
Ms. Pappas: Great idea.  What if he doesn’t have a phone?
Tyrique: I could put his foot in the sink.
Ms. Pappas: Excellent idea.  What if the sink in his house doesn’t work?
Tyrone: I could take him to your house and put his foot in the toilet.
Ms. Pappas: How will you get to my house?
Tyrone: I will take a cab.
Ms. Pappas: What if I’m not home?
Ravon: He could take Jack to the supermarket for some water.
Awana: No, he not going to be on fire.  He jumped over the candle.  He was quick.

A New Year: Pre-K 114's Resolutions for 2007

In my classroom, setting and working tirelessly toward goals are crucial to our overarching theme of going from “good to great.”  I set goals for my students, use data to assess our progress toward those goals, and design lessons based on those analyses.  Likewise, I aim to instill in my students the importance of reflecting about areas in which we can improve and addressing those areas in order to grow as learners.  I also want to invest families in this process in order to ensure that a goal oriented mindset stays with my students after they graduate from pre-k.   

As part of our celebration of the New Year, we made resolutions with our families.  Each student received a note and blank resolution card the first day back last week.  Students returned the cards after coming up with a resolution with family members at home. 

2007 New Years Resolutions

Tyrone and his mother:
Our goal is to read more words and count more numbers. 

David and his mother:
Our goal is to read two books every night and find more words and letters.

Sierra and her family:
As a family our goal is to spend more time reading and sharing our thoughts.

Derrell and his mother:
Our goal is to improve Derrell’s writing of letters.

Tyrique and his mother:
Our goal is to strive for the best together.

Awana and her mother:
Our goal is to identify numbers and the alphabet and to work on writing Awana’s first and last name.

Karen and her grandmother:
Our goal is to read one new book a night and write down two new words out of the book. 

Fuquan and his mother:
Our goal is to read a book every night. 

Kevin and his grandmother:
Our goal is to help Kevin read a book until he understands how to read alone.

Jeffrey and his mother:
Our goal is to learn how to tie our shoelaces. 

Ravon, his mother, and father:
Our goal is to sing more songs together such as “The Wheels on the Bus.”

Wow!

I definitely had a “wow” moment today with my student Awana.  Awana came into our classroom in September with little knowledge and awareness of print, colors, numbers, or shapes.  While Ms. Morrison, my aide, and I have been working closely with her, we did not see significant progress until this past week.  But the great thing about her progress was that it came not just from our direct interactions with Awana, but also from Awana’s interactions with other students, her “fellow scholars.”

During afternoon choice time, I found Awana writing letters on whiteboards with a small group of her friends.  I was first happy to see Awana with the whiteboard marker that came from her own kit, since, for the first month or so, she would confuse her name with others and, consequently, use materials from other students’ supply kits.  Her friends had helped in this area by helping her find her supply kit numerous times.

Then, Awana and I had a conversation:

Ms. Pappas: What are you writing, Awana?
Awana: My friends.
MP: Oh, whose name is this? (pointing to the letter “S” Awana had written)
A: Samar.
MP: And what about this letter.  What is that?
A: “A.”
MP: Whose name starts with the letter “A”?
A: My name.
MP: Who else?
A: Aniyah.

As we discussed her writing, some of her friends began to take out note paper and envelopes.  Awana quickly jumped up and said, “I’m going to write a letter.”  She watched her friends and followed their lead.  One of her friends reminded her to put the name on the envelope.  They both dropped their letters in the mailbox and moved onto something else.

The placement of children’s names all around the room, from cubbies to classroom job charts, to mats, paid off.  Moreover, Awana’s interactions with her friends generated excitement for writing letters that represent her friends’ names and writing a letter to her mom which reflected a growing awareness of how we use writing in everyday life.