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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.
Last week, the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics released an important report called “Para nuestros niños: Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics." The report highlights the fact that much of the achievement gap between Hispanic children and their peers exists before they enter kindergarten. Citing research on how high-quality pre-k and other early childhood programs improve Hispanic children’s school readiness, the task force issued recommendations aimed at:
- Increasing Hispanic children’s access to high-quality early education;
- Increasing the number of Spanish-speaking educators; and
- Designing and evaluating strategies to strengthen Hispanic children’s language and literacy skills.
What do you think about these objectives and how we can achieve them? How does your pre-k program help Hispanic children and families overcome barriers like access and language?
She did it! After three weeks on her individualized behavior contract, Aniyah finally earned enough points to present a special cheering show in front of the whole class.
As she stepped into the spotlight, Aniyah was surprisingly shy, unlike her attitude when giving frequent, disruptive cheers at inappropriate times. This “command performance” cheer was a bit more subdued. Yet as her friends cheered her on, her face brightened, and you could hear a sense of pride reverberating through her voice. She cheered while clapping out each letter, “A-N-I-Y-A-H, A-N-I-Y-A-H, Aniyah, Aniyah, I am Aniyah! Aniyah, Aniyah, Aniyah!”
When I shared news of Aniyah’s show with her brother and mother the following day, the pride became contagious. Her family members smiled widely and seemed relieved that Aniyah was showing progress.
Aniyah’s road to victory was not quick and easy. She initially responded to the point system just as she had to our whole class color card behavior system, asking me angrily why I gave her a one or a two or a yellow or blue card instead of connecting her behavior to the negative consequence.
As we had one-on-one conversations each day, focused on her specific behaviors and the number of points that corresponded with them, she began to grasp the relationship between her choices and the consequences. Towards the second week, I would ask her how many points she thought she earned for the day, and she could usually guess correctly based on her own assessment of her behavior.
What does Aniyah’s behavior look like on the rug now? She usually listens to her friends and me attentively and rarely creates a disturbance by calling out. We, of course, still have our cheering moments, but these have become exceptions.
Perhaps best of all, Aniyah’s behavioral improvements have facilitated intellectual growth. She engages more actively in discussion during stories, making predictions and thinking critically about how to solve the characters’ problems. Just last week, she posed the “water car” solution to the problem in Leo Lionni’s classic, Swimmy. After losing his school of fish to one deep sea predator, Swimmy found another school of small fish so petrified of big tuna fish that they would not swim around the ocean. Aniyah’s solution required the small fish to drive a water car out of the ocean away from the big tuna fish. Aniyah was so focused that she not only suggested the idea but also wrote “wtr car” on our solutions list without guidance from me.
Her behavioral and academic progress have gone hand in hand, and I look forward to more improvements in the months ahead. This is one contract that both sides of the table are happy with.
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.
No matter how many times I tell my kids, “We cannot always do everything we planned, sometimes we have to be flexible,” the sudden need to pick up and leave in the middle of a lesson still frustrates me.
This time it was Friday afternoon and we were just getting into a comparative discussion of Anne Rockwell’s Big Wheels and Cars, when some unexpected visitors arrived: a repair team to fix a leak in our radiator. To be honest, when I discovered the leak on Monday, I briefly vacillated between reporting it or just hoping it would go away…no, not because I want to teach my students about the wonders of flooding or a potential gas explosion, though experiential learning would be developmentally appropriate. In fact, I dreaded the prospect of abruptly relocating materials and my students to the auditorium when it came time to fixing it.
Well, it happened. And despite an inner desire to scream out of frustration, as their leader I, of course, had to redirect my children calmly and quickly. We grabbed some toys, a bin of books, and some map floor mats for continuing our exploration of transportation. We then lined up and headed to the auditorium. The students became so focused on our new mission that we even received a compliment from a fourth grade teacher who remarked that it would be difficult to get her students that quiet. We finished the literary discussion and then set up informal centers. We also took full advantage of the stage to practice public speaking and rehearse for our future American Idol auditions or Grammy night performances. Step aside Beyonce and Justin…
What happened with the leak? Well, as of now it’s still not fixed, and we may have to move somewhere else for a few days or the whole week. The uncertainty means the need for more flexibility. There, I said it again. And, yes, regardless of my frustration with the situation, I will have to flexible since I cannot control the leak or the pacing of its repair, but I can still maximize constructive learning time with my students.
Update: I came into my class early Monday morning only to find the furniture still relocated and to learn that nothing was done over the weekend. I organized various center and whole group materials that my students, Ms. Morrison, and I could transport easily into the library. The final call that we needed to move came in the middle of Morning Meeting. Despite my frustration at having to leave during our attendance routine, I remembered the need to be flexible and quickly pulled out a rubber band to guide my students. We discussed the need to stretch a little--essentially to "be the rubber band." It turns out my students are incredibly elastic, maybe beyond "rubber band elastic," even "bungee cord elastic." They adapted quickly, made creative and print rich Valentines for family and friends, explored patterns with shapes, sorted "shiny" and "not shiny" coins, and created a backdrop of train tracks for our Dramatic Play area, just to name a few of the options available.
And the radiator? Unfortunately, they did not finish fixing it. In fact, for whatever reason, they seemed to stop working on it shortly after they arrived. It is now Thursday evening, and we are still unsure when the radiator will be fixed. The saga continues...
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.
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.
Continue reading "The Making of Problem Solvers" »
From high attendance at special events to an open and inviting dialogue at one-on-one conferences, my relationships with students’ families this year have been both positive and strong. That is until last Thursday.
As I welcomed one of my students and his grandmother with my usual energetic greeting, bright and early during the before school program, the grandmother abruptly cut me off with sharp and heated criticism of the homework assignments I have sent home. She wanted to know when I would be sending home “letter work,” like she has seen in “all the daycare centers.” She has become weary of the open-ended assignments, which often include searching for letters around the house on food containers and in magazines or having the child tell a story with pictures and then dictate the story to an adult.
Her bottom line was this: She wants dittos. There, I said it, the “d” word, dreaded among early childhood experts. Like them, I advocate a different “d” approach, one that is perhaps the anti-thesis of the malignant ditto: “Developmentally Appropriate Practices.” She then went on to critique my teaching of her grandson during the day, arguing that I wasn’t “teaching him his letters” and that she would instead have “to buy some workbooks for him to use at home.”
As a pre-k teacher striving to meet my class's developmental needs, I provide my students with plenty of opportunities to learn through hands on experiences that are meaningful to them. If the sand table particularly interests her grandson, he will find plenty of letter tools to explore the alphabet in the sand. If he chooses to pretend he is a doctor in the Dramatic Play Area, we will surely learn about letters and, perhaps equally as important, why we use them, as he writes down his patient’s diagnosis and prescription. I also supplement this experiential learning with various letter songs and games.
I, therefore, started to wonder how pages of letter matching and tracing activities would help lay a strong foundation in early literacy for her grandson. To top it off, her grandson actually knows all of his letters and the letter sounds. We are currently working on sounding out and writing words. When I tried to explain my strategies and her grandson’s progress, she just replied, “I don’t want to hear it. I know all about it, learning through play. I don’t want to hear it.” She then proceeded to storm out, leaving me feeling puzzled, powerless, and, quite frankly, nauseous.
It is now January. I have had one formal one-on-one conference with her and several informal conversations at our special events. She has never once mentioned any concern about our work. I am not sure what exactly prompted the negative exchange, but I do know that our relationship has been damaged. I suppose I could treat her comments as an irrational rant, and just keep doing what I am doing. But as a teacher, I serve my students and their families. If there is a conflict, it is my responsibility as the classroom leader to think objectively about how best to handle the situation.
I have decided to provide her and the rest of my students’ family members with a list
of ways we teach letters and letter sounds in the classroom. I look forward to hearing her response.
Ravon: Ms. Pappas, look, I found the word calcium on my milk.
Ms. Pappas: Wow! Great job, Ravon. How do you know it says calcium?
Ravon: Because I see the letter “C” with the other words like “cat” and “car.”
At this moment, I am thinking three things:
- I am so proud of Ravon;
- How fast can I write down exactly what he said on my clipboard, so I can use this exchange as evidence of his growth in early literacy?; and
- How will I ever balance active teacher-student engagement with anecdotal note taking if the school district requires me to collect anecdotes on another 50 skills for still another assessment system?
While I appreciate the value of performance-based assessments in helping me target individual student needs, I also sometimes wonder if a drive to make assessment as comprehensive and in-depth as possible comes at the expense of quality teacher-student interaction. I am not sure if state and district policymakers realize what their mandates look like on a day-to-day basis at the school level.
In my school, we now have four types of assessment, soon to be joined by a fifth:
- The Early Learning Assessment System (ELAS) – a state mandated performance-based literacy assessment charting student growth in six areas. Reported three times per year.
- A district mandated checklist charting growth in the areas of social emotional, gross motor, and fine motor development. Recorded twice per year.
- A district mandated beginning of the year Brigance Screening used mainly to identify any developmental delays.
- Math checklists from the district mandated math curriculum charting growth in various skill areas. Recorded three times per year (recommended but not required).
Recently, the pre-k teachers in the district had a workshop on Creative Curriculum’s comprehensive performance-based assessment, which covers 50 skills and is recorded three times per year. I personally like Creative Curriculum’s assessment the most and hope the district will replace other assessments with it. All signs, however, suggest the district will make it supplemental and, therefore, probably more cumbersome than helpful, despite its potential to hone in on a wide range of student needs.
I would love to hear about teachers’ and administrators’ experiences in other states and school districts - just post a comment and we can compare and discuss.
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My name is Sophia Pappas, and I teach pre-kindergarten at an inner-city public school in New Jersey. By sharing my classroom and my thoughts, I hope to give you more insight into the benefits of high-quality pre-k and how we can all play a role in creating and improving these vital programs. And I want to know what you think, too, so please don’t be shy about leaving comments and using this blog as an outlet for ideas, reflection, and debate.
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pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds.
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