The Tough Questions

Many of my children, though only four or five years old, have already dealt with difficult situations such as foster care, parental incarceration, and homelessness.  While all of these issues can effect a child’s perspective and ability to trust others, parental incarceration recently posed a challenge for me as a teacher with a responsibility to educate children about the positive role of police in our society. 

Last week, we held Career Day at our school.  To prepare, we discussed possible jobs and as a class composed a letter welcoming the Career Day participants.  During our pre-writing discussion, I asked the students how they felt about Career Day.  Tyrone responded, “I feel angry because the police gonna come and lock everyone up.”  His comment reminded me of an earlier comment from Aniyah that also expressed distrust of the police and suggested we physically hurt the police so they “won’t do that anymore.”

I began to explain the reasons why people go to jail and emphasized the positive role of police officers in making us safe.  I couldn’t help but glance at two of my other students who currently have a parent in jail.  They didn’t say anything, but I wondered what might be going on in their heads.  “Is my mommy wrong?  Is she making people unsafe?  Is it a good thing that the police took my daddy away from me?  If the police are good, is my daddy bad?”

As I considered these thoughts, I began to backpedal.  I talked briefly about people making mistakes and responded to a question about everyone going to jail “for life” by stressing that many times people in jail get to leave and be with their families again.  I then wondered, for Tyrique - who will be fifteen when his mother gets out and is just developing a sense of time - what is the real difference between a life apart from his mother and ten years spent apart from her during his crucial childhood years?

I am aware of the sensitivity of these issues and the larger reality of mixed attitudes toward the police in inner city neighborhoods.  What is not clear is how to deal with them in a way that will both preserve strong ties between children and their families and define the police as a source of protection for the people in those neighborhoods.

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.

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.

Ready for Take-off: David's Story

Four months ago David’s mother remarked that she wants her son to go “sky high in life."  Now, as he begins to transition to kindergarten, David shows tremendous social and academic progress. His story shows how high quality pre-k supports multiple facets of childhood development.

Socially, David adjusted to our rules and routines fairly quickly back in the fall, but he tended to avoid playing with others and participating actively in large group activities.  He was reluctant to sing along with the group or respond during a read-aloud. He preferred playing with dinosaurs by himself in the Discovery area to playing with his friends in more populated areas such as Blocks and Sand. The challenge was to have him go beyond just following all the rules as an individual and begin collaborating more with his peers and participating during whole group lessons.

To help his growth in this area, I encouraged David and his classmates to support their friends by cheering them on with individualized chants (e.g., There is a friend who’s in our class and David is his name-o, d-a-v-i-d, d-a-v-i-d, d-a-v-i-d, and David is his name-o).  I also used stories and puppet role plays to facilitate discussions about how we can help each other solve problems (e.g., if our friends are struggling with a task, we can help them remember the “Little Engine that Could” by saying, “I think you can, I think you can” or if a friend does not get picked for something we can say, “oh well, you’ll get it next time,” just like “Susan the Squirrel” puppet did for her friend, “Danny the Dog” puppet).   

David soon started having breakthrough moments.  He expressed pride in himself by informing his mother of his “purple” status (a reward system I use) the moment she picked him up.  The next day, David would let me know how proud his dad was when he told him.  He also started contributing more on the rug.  Just this week David got to purple for his active participation throughout the day.  In terms of playing with others, David often travels between play areas with friends, most notably last week when he and Tyrique together made newspaper hats in the Art Area and drew a pirate adventure on the chalk board in the Writing Area. 

Academically, David came in to pre-k knowing some letters and was starting to write his name, but he had difficulty counting, making connections between letters and their sounds, and forming letters.  I soon made him the snack manager, which required him to count his friends every day.  We also worked with him in small group on name puzzles and exposed him to print and letter sounds at every opportunity.  His mother was also quickly responsive to my efforts to invest her in David’s progress; his father soon followed.  They worked with him on writing the sight words we learned in school, labeling pictures he drew with the beginning letter of each objects and person, challenged David with opportunities to count with everyday routines (e.g., the number of dishes needed for dinner or shirts in the laundry), and, as they noted in their New Year’s Resolution, read with him every night.  His father remarked at one of our conferences that David was so excited about books, he would stop his father repeatedly during stories to make comments.  I kept them updated on specific strengths, weaknesses, and ways they could move him forward.  I could tell from looking at his writing and hearing him explore letter sounds that his parents were using the strategies at home. 

David can now write short sentences with little guidance and is starting to sound out words.  Furthermore, he not only counts to twenty, usually without mistakes, but also suggests using counting to figure out the answer to a question (e.g., how do we know that more students voted for apples as their favorite fruit?).    

David, like all of my children, came to me in September with strengths and room to grow, both socially and academically.  I responded to these complexities with a multifaceted approach that reflects and addresses the needs of the whole child.  His progress highlights the potential of pre-k to impact several developmental areas positively and the important, collaborative role parents can play in laying a strong foundation for their children.

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.

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.”

And Still He Rises...

Friday morning, 7:45 am, and still no Ms. Alexander.  Tyrique’s mother and I have now set up four alternative conference times to meet about Tyrique.  Each time she has said she would make it.  Each time I have provided several oral and written reminders; and each time, she has not shown.   Tyrique is not a major behavior problem, but he did come in among the lowest academically in the class.  He could barely identify any of the letters in his name and struggled to pick up on basic book handling skills.  We have a lot to discuss, but still, Ms. Alexander doesn't come.  She does come, however, to other parental events: Family Show and Tell, Giving Thanks, Halloween Costume Parade, Tyrique's birthday party.  She comes late, but she comes, nonetheless. 

I grow frustrated and decide instead to focus solely on Tyrique and our work inside the classroom.   With our efforts to target his needs in one-on-one, small group, and whole group interactions, Tyrique has now started to identify beginning sounds and some letters in words on his own.  He can also write his name and read the names of his friends. 

Is family support important?  Of course.  But what happens when difficulties with parental investment arise, even as early as pre-k?  Does the child become a lost cause?  Of course not.  Should teachers relinquish their own responsibility?  Just the opposite. 

Making Peace

Karen and Tyrique had a breakthrough today. When I came to the rug after breakfast time, they and two other students were excited about the latest edition of a nature magazine. I responded by complimenting their enthusiasm and slipping in a little vocabulary expansion: "I feel so elated to see you all getting excited about a book!"

The honeymoon did not last long. As I walked away to greet a latecomer, I noticed some of the excitement on the rug was turning into an aggressive and loud conflict over who would turn the pages. Camp David was not available at the moment, but we managed to devise a three stage solution through informal talks on the rug.

1. Two of them would read the magazine for a few minutes while taking turns to turn each page;
2. The first two would then peacefully hand the magazine off to the other two with Ms. Pappas facilitating the transition; and,
3. The other two would read the magazine on their own while taking turns to turn each page.

Through a fair "Ini-mini" random selection process, Karen and Tyrique were chosen as the first two to read the highly coveted publication.

Well, mornings are a busy time, with math routines, morning announcements, newspaper letter hunts, and some anecdote collection before circle time. Sometimes Ms. Pappas forgets to go back to situations like the "Book Taking Turns Agreement." Today, however, my forgetfulness was not a problem. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Karen and Tyrique walk over to the other two students, give them the book, and say, "Here you go. It's your turn now."

At that sight, I definitely felt elation. I quickly acknowledged their success by exclaiming, "Wow. I am so proud of Karen and Tyrique for being such great friends. I am looking out for you for purple." Sure enough, they continued to cooperate for the rest of the day and were both put on purple, the highest honor on our behavior card system. If only international diplomacy were this simple.