A Listening Ear

All I have to do is turn on a cable news show with talking heads barking at each other to know how important listening is for the young generation I teach.  I work intensely with my students on their ability to listen to teachers and each other.

Like any other skill, I start my plan for listening skills by familiarizing myself with the state’s idea of mastery.  The NJ Preschool Expectation for listening is pretty comprehensive.  In addition to following directions with several steps, students must demonstrate proficiency in engaging in a dialogue with others and incorporating ideas from previous discussions and songs into play.

With these guidelines in mind, I design lessons that cover each component.  These can be games explicitly dealing with following directions (Simon Says has always been my favorite) or increasingly complex directions given to students in small group and one-on-one interactions during choice time.

Story time discussions are obviously valuable opportunities for students to strengthen listening skills as they listen to the teacher read to them.  Students can also work on listening to their peers as we engage in a dialogue about the story.  I have taught my children how to build on the comments of another student and respectfully offer alternative ideas by using phrases such as “I agree” or “I disagree.”  During a recent read-aloud of the book Giraffes Can’t Dance, Jeffrey noted, “I think the giraffe is gonna leave the jungle ‘cause the lion mean to him.”  Samar then responded, “No, he not gonna leave.  The other animals will be nice to him.”

As you can imagine, with 14 four year olds egocentric tendencies can pose challenges for the frequency and depth of these kinds of interactions.  Tanasia, whose mind was often on her family in the beginning of the year, would comment on her brothers and sisters regardless of the topic of our class discussions.  After months of working on listening skills and becoming more comfortable in the classroom, she now makes comments and asks questions pertinent to stories.  During a story for Mother’s Day just last week, in which the mother is in a wheelchair, she asked, “Ms. Pappas, why she in the wheelchair?”  Derrell demonstrated his own growth in listening by answering her: “I think she fell in the street and was hit by a car.”

Students also show progress by incorporating ideas from discussions and stories in their play.  After building a house in the Blocks Area, Fuquan told everyone to step back and then cried, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,” thereby applying his knowledge of the Three Little Pigs to his independent work.  Ravon showed me a turtle moving slowly in the Discovery Area after we acted out The Tortoise and the Hare during Outdoor Play time.

These skills lay a strong foundation for our students as they head off to kindergarten, having gained an understanding of how to follow directions and recognize the perspectives of others in pre-k.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have some “Hardball” and “O’Reilly Factor” to catch up on...

Becoming Social: Karen's Journey into our Community

Karen's grandmother told me from day one that she was concerned about her granddaughter's social skills.  She had never been to school before and spent most of her time around adults: uncles, grandparents, and cousins.  Karen already excelled in basic literacy and math skills after working with her great grandmother, a retired school teacher, one-on-one for the past year.  Her transformation into a highly sociable member of our classroom community highlights the benefits of pre-k, even for those children who can attain academic readiness at home.

Karen's experiences made her quite focused on reading, writing, and interacting with Ms. Morrison and me in the fall.  She chose to read in the Library, play with Table Toys, or paint by herself during Choice Time.  Like David she was quite hesitant to join her fellow four year olds in more social areas such as Dramatic Play and Blocks.  Yet she listened to and comprehended stories read on the rug, could write her name, and was starting to make connections between letters and their sounds.  While I kept challenging her with her academics, I knew the real challenge for Karen would be developing relationships with her peers.

I exposed Karen to the same community building lessons as David.  But whole group songs about our friends and puppet role plays did not motivate Karen to socialize with her friends.  She would cheer on her friends and participate in role plays at the rug, but then continue to play on her own during choice time.  I needed to use a more proactive and involved approach that both reflected Karen's current comfort level and built on that comfort level to further her social development.

Karen gravitated toward and listened to me because I was an adult.  So, I invited her to play with me and then suggested we either join her peers or invite them to play with us.  She agreed and, over time, discovered how much fun her friends could be!  I remember her laughing with Samar in the Discovery Area while they tested magnets with various materials.  She even started problem solving independently with her friends in December.

Karen has come a long way since September.  Just this week, she chose to go to Dramatic Play and was soon taking her friends' orders at our pretend restaurant.  She and her friends joked about changing their names in the Sand Area last month.  She still sometimes prefers "alone time," like when she became adamant about separating the seal and the alligator in the Water Area so the seal would be safe, as shown in the picture.  Yet she frequently experiences the very social interactions that will help her build and nurture relationships for years to come.

R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y

Certain birthdays represent meaningful thresholds in our society; times at which someone decided we are ready to take on new responsibilities.  After seeing Aniyah today on her birthday, I’m beginning to think we should add the big ZERO-FIVE to that list.

Aniyah often has difficulty concentrating on group work and respecting others when they are speaking, but today I saw improvement.  During clean-up time I noticed Aniyah reminding her friends to put their name cards back.  We all know that if we forget, we will have to wait a couple of minutes before going to choice time the next day.  As Aniyah told classmates to “put your cards back, and be responsible” with a sing-song tone, I rushed over and thanked her for being such a great cheerleader.

We decided, spur of the moment, on a new title that connects her affinity for cheering to the classroom activities: Responsibility Cheerleader.  Her face lit up, and she smiled as she repeated the cheer while heading into the bathroom to wash her hands before lunch time.  I plan on applying this role to other parts of the day and think that, if she takes ownership of the cheer and receives encouragement and appreciation from me, the new role could, in fact, make her more responsible and respectful of her friends.

Aniyah also did a great job focusing during whole-group time on the rug, usually a challenging activity for her.  When she did call out disruptively, I did not call on her.  She ended up crying, because she did not get a chance to convey her thoughts.  I consider that a breakthrough as it indicates she is caring more about participating in discussions than doing her own thing.

Now, I’m not really sure if it was a heightened sense of maturity on her birthday that led to Aniyah’s super day or her mother’s promise of a Princess Barbie birthday party in return for better behavior.  So, I’m covering my bases and have spoken with her mother about an individualized behavior contract, which I plan on creating with Aniyah tomorrow morning.  As I have learned from experience, if we can isolate those behaviors we want to change and design rewards around a child’s interests, the child, the family, and I can more effectively focus on specific problems and lasting solutions.

We shall see…

Out of her Shell

“Hello, my name is Tanasia Britch from Pre-k 114.  We will now sing Dr. King,”

Tanasia exclaimed loud and clear for everyone, grades pre-k through two, to hear.

She did it!  After a tough transition in the beginning of the year, Tanasia slowly began to participate in classroom activities without much encouragement from me or her peers.  Moreover, rather than repeatedly crying and inquiring about the time of her mother’s return, she now focuses on a wide range of subjects including bears and cars.  The more she shares with us in terms of her thoughts and interests, the better able I am to chart her academic growth.  Her gradual progress culminated in her widely acclaimed introduction of our class performance during the school assembly commemorating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Her other accomplishments during the past two weeks include:

1. Counting each of her friends for snack time in a clear and loud voice without skipping anyone;
2. Identifying and chanting out the letters in the word "like" in our modeled morning message for the first time; and
3. Choosing to read books to and with her friends rather than reading alone.  Tanasia even encouraged her friend to read with her when she saw her friend crying.

As I reflect on her growth, I consider two major reasons for Ms. Morrison’s and my success with Tanasia:

1. Student-Driven Instruction: We took the time to understand Tanasia's interests and provided opportunities for her to talk about and make things for her family.  Our discussions at the rug, during lunch, and at choice time included plenty of open-ended questions which allowed Tanasia to speak openly about what was on her mind: her sisters, mother, father, and auntie.  If the mouse ate cookies and asked for some milk, we learned about how happy Tanasia feels when she eats cookies and drinks milk with her sister at home.  In addition, while Tanasia first hesitated to join her friends during choice time, she began to gravitate towards the Art and Writing areas once she learned that she could take home her finished products.  Tanasia may have been physically separated from her family, but since she had the chance to talk about and make things for her siblings and parents, she still felt connected to them while in school; and
   
2. Classroom Culture of High Expectations: We consistently responded to Tanasia’s crying with the expectation that she would eventually become more of an active and enthusiastic member of our classroom community.  Rather than excuse her from class activities or call her family to pick her up, we taught her all of the routines and rules like the rest of the children.  If she needed to cry when she first came in, she could, but she still needed to unpack, put her Math Homelink journal in the bin, wash her hands, and get her own breakfast.

Students as Teachers: An Amazing First Day Back

"Happy New Year!" I exclaimed to each of my students as they walked in today. In the past, this week back after the holiday break often proved somewhat hectic, with many of the children getting back into the swing of our daily routines. This year's return is shaping up differently. Here are a couple of highlights from the first day back:

• While I planned to review our "talk it out" approach to conflict resolution later in the week, the students independently devised their own scenarios today. As part of our introduction to a three-week exploration of winter, I showed them two bears: one fully dressed for winter and the other wearing only a tee-shirt. After we passed them around, I asked them what they noticed about the two bears. Samar responded, "That bear with the jacket hit the other bear with a block." We then began discussing various ways we could respond to such a situation. The students came up with everything from apologizing and telling an adult to getting another block the two bears could share. We ultimately did talk about and explore winter throughout the day, but the teachable moment involving the bears was particularly valuable because it derived from student interest and demonstrated their deepening understanding of how to solve conflicts.
• After reading the poem "Chicken Soup with Rice" for January, we laced up our make-believe skates and tried pretend skating while sipping our own soup in the auditorium. We discussed potential dangers such as: "wind that could blow leaves in your soup" (Kevin); "rain that could make the soup taste nasty" (Derrell); and, "snow that could make the soup cold" (Sierra). As we skated around the auditorium, we managed to escape a wolf "hiding behind a tree" (Jeffrey), but suddenly a dragon appeared. We just started exploring snow and ice today, so, like any good pre-k teacher with Greek roots, I had to use a bit of the Socratic method. After breaking it down with detailed questions, we figured out that the fire from the dragon would melt the ice, causing us to have to swim back to our classroom instead of ice skate. As Ravon said, "Whew, that was a close one."

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.