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...

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.

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.