April’s Teaching Blog

I actually re-read my blogs from time to time.  I am a reflective learner, and I thrive on new ideas and constructive criticism.  All of my blogs have had really nice comments and positive feedback, and that makes me feel successful in this endeavor.  In the beginning, I was like blog?  Skiiiiiiiiiiiiirt (brakes).  I’m not on facebook, I don’t frequent blogs, and part of me thinks its weird and stalkerish for people to write about their lives for all to read.  When I was little, I had a diary.  The diary had locks, and no one was allowed to read about who I had a crush on.  This seemed a little counter-intuitive for me, but you know what?  I really liked it.  It really gave me a way to thoughtfully reflect on my reading, and I really like writing, so it worked.  I also really liked reading what people had to say about my blog, it made me feel happy.  I liked that people were reading what I had written, and although I don’t think that my blog was super-insightful, I’d like to think it was slightly enjoyable to read.  The blog helped me to remember what I had read, and it was also nice to read other people’s takes on the same readings.

I hate that I’m not teaching this year because this class has really given me a new lease on literacy teaching.  Last year I felt like I was a pretty good literacy teacher, especially for a first year teacher.  I had lots of engaging activities, and all my kids grew.  They liked reading, they liked writing, and they rarely complained about anything that we did.  God bless those little souls.  One of my favorite parts about this class was reading the research.  I’ve never had a class that required the readings of recent research, and I have to say that it is really interesting.  The Kidwatching Project was a great way for me to get back into the classroom, and the inquiry project gave me great ideas about creating a Family Literacy Night, but my favorite part by far was reading and blogging, which at the beginning of this course, I thought would be my least favorite.  I love being surrounded by teachers who love to learn, who have opinions, and who care as much about teaching their kids as much as I do. 

It would be hard on here to wirte each and every thing that I have learned over the course of this semester, but the most important things that I will take away are:

1.  DO NOT USE DEFICIT THINKING.  It helps no one, and it really has caused me to reflect on every child that I encounter, even some adults. 

2.  Vocabulary is key.  Encouraging the development of a rich vocabulary in children gives them a wonderful foundation for all literacy activity they will do in their life.

3.  My fellow teachers have lots of valuable opinions that I take to heart.  I listen to what people have to say in class, I read what they say on their blogs, and I reflect on these.  I am a moderate, though, and I see all sides of an argument.  It is really hardly ever black and white for me, and I’m sticking to that.  BUT, what everyone has said in class has instigated reflection and even changed my opinion on subjects.

Literacy is for lovers.

I thought that the article for this week, “Diverse Perspectives…” was a nice synthesis of a lot of the things that we have learned in this course.  I have to admit, though, with the Kidwatching Project hanging over my head, I haven’t analyzed this article as thoroughly as I have others. 

With my mind on Kidwatching, I appreciated that this article had bold titles for its sections, making it really user friendly.  Since this article is an essay on a book review, almost a Cliffs Notes for the book, I really enjoyed it.  I don’t enjoy reading things that I feel are bogged down in unimportant information, and this article definitely was not.  It was right to the point…fabulous.  Side note… Sometimes I really feel as though my generation is unamused and almost annoyed by things that are not fast-paced and user friendly.  I feel like an old person saying that, oh you know, those young whippersnappers don’t have patience for anything, but I do feel like that.  I fit into that stereotype of the “me” and “technological” generation.  Imagine what these kids in our classrooms will be like in the future…they have never known a time with no computers, ipods, nintendo DS, internet, and lots of colorful, stimulating toys.  I think that in itself makes our job a little harder, it is really hard to compete with pokemon or whatever they like.  Its like, ooooh pay attention to me, I have books and pencils, when at home they have way more entertaining things to look at on TV.  I like that it keeps me on my toes, but reflecting on that makes me want to raise a simple child.  Side note done….

The biggest thing that I took away from this article is INTERVENTION.  So important, and it gives a child the best hope for overcoming and compensating for differences.  We really have to identify these kids early who may need some type of differentiation, and modify our instruction to that.  I like how the author called the home life the “situation variable”.  What a nice euphemism.  Throughout this class I have been searching for a way to not use deficit thinking, but to address the obvious home situations.  SITUATION VARIABLE!  That is so key in understanding, helping, and intervening for a child.  You have to know the home situation first and foremost in my opinion, because at 5, kids are a TOTAL product of what they have been exposed to.  It’s not deficit thinking, its recognition thinking. 

A cute way of saying, Ms. Washington is up in the dog house.  I’m going to make a confession, and I really hope that it does not make me seem like a bad teacher.  I include families in everything when I teach, family night, I correspond regularly, I call with positive comments about their child, I made a point to write a note home to each child every month and praise them.  But I realized something when I was reading…I’m afraid that I was doing some of these things selfishly.  At parent teacher conferences, I wanted parents to see literacy and school from my perspective.  I feel like I sometimes ignored their perspective, but then I got to thinking more…

At the school that I taught at last year (ps. I only have one year experience teaching, so I’m a little green) I think I would have been uncomfortable asking a parent, “So what types of things do you like to read with Johnny at home?”  I say this because I am afraid I would come across condescending.  I’m afraid it would come across accusatory, so I stayed in my safe zone of talking about what we do at school.  Honestly, that’s all I ever was asked, “How can I help my child with what you are doing in the classroom at home?”  What if the parents didn’t have time to read at home?  What if they didn’t go to the grocery store with a list?  What if they didn’t receive magazines in the mail?  No telephone, so no telephone book?  No money for print on tv?  No activity books?  It was too scary for me because I was working with a population of people, who for the most part, didn’t have a lot of extra money to buy or create print-type materials. 

The readings made me think though.  I think that without realizing it, I incorporated literacy from home in my classroom.  Not to toot my own horn, because honestly, I didn’t really think I was doing something research based, I just thought I was doing what was best.  I’ve used telephone books in dramatic play, mailing letters within our classroom, catalogs, appointment books, bills, money, receipts, recipes, and address books.  All of these things were incorporated into center time, not really into whole group instruction daily, but the kids were exposed to it. 

Bottom line:  Realize what kids are doing at home.  Be in contact with the parents, know what each child’s home life is like.  Love them, do the best you can, and value their culture and home.

English Language Learners are of great interest to me.  I loved learning Spanish, and i stuck with it all the way through middle school and high school.  I took a Spanish course in college, and when I received a 36 on my first exam, i quit.  That’s right, I’m a Spanish drop-out.  I couldn’t hack it.  I had the choice to quit when it got too hard, but these ELL kids in our classrooms, they don’t have the choice.  It doesn’t matter that they struggle learning English, they still have to do it to survive.  I really feel for ELLs.  You come to school with no pre-k experience, you don’t speak the language, and you cant even really make friends because you dont know how to talk to them. And your teacher!  Shes telling all the kids what to do in English, they are doing what they are supposed to, and poor little ESOL child just doesn’t get it.  He feels left out in all senses of the word.  Que triste! (how sad!)  I am currently in a Spanish for Educators course, and it has really helped my remembering of the Spanish that i learned oh so long ago.  I am ADAMANT about making my classroom comfortable and inviting for all, even if it means trying to communicate in a language that i feel uncomfortable with, because in reality, that’s what these kids are trying to do. 

Sarah has the same attitude about ELLs.  I will admit, it can be frustrating at times when a child is hitting another child on the head, and you cant remember the words for “PLEASE STOP!  YOU ARE GOING TO GIVE HIM A BRUISE!”.  But I can say that it is true that just reaching out with the little Spanish you have to your ELLs goes a long way.  There is nothing like seeing a child who is frustrated because he doesn’t understand the task, and then saying “muy bien!  Tu eres muy intelegente!” (very good!  you are so smart!!) and seeing their little face light up like “Holler!  I understand Mrs. Washington!”  In regards to teaching ELL students, a little bit goes a really long way.  Love them, do the best you can with what ya got, and they really will shine.

Oh yeah…and read the research. 

1.  Focus on potentially problematic sounds that the ELL may encounter.

2.  Do the assessments whether their English is limited or not.  Really, all kids have limited English.  So do adults.  It may give you valuable insight.

3.  HIGH QUALITY VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION!

4.  Use visuals.  If someone said to you “fliggenflaggenhiperdonker”…no clue.  But if they showed you a picture or acted it out it all becomes crystal clear.

5.  Give students time to respond.  The ELL student often has to translate and think a little longer about their response.  Give them time.

I speak a little Spanish.  I speak enough to get me by, and I really like the fact that I can communicate with my students and parents that speak Spanish.  I understand Spanish speaking children and their parents wanting to learn English.  And the best part is… its possible to speak more than one language!  It is totally possible for kids to speak one language at home, and then to use another mainly at school.  I think that they can not only do it, but they are smarter for it.  Goooooo bilingual!

The video was cool, it was kind of like seeing theory in practice.  I like how they stressed honoring home language.  I’m probably going to say something a little unpopular, but I DEFINITLEY agree with honoring home language.  I’d like to think that we are honoring school language too, in all types.  I’m all about the balance, y’all. 

The book is great about giving real examples of how to implement practice, so I toast to you, Barone, Mallette and Xu, for your wonderful graphs, lists, examples, and research.  It really stood out to me when the authors pointed out that in English we use so many different sentence structures, an ELL student would have a hard time extracting the meaning from these sentences.  Share time was always hard for my ELL students, and I liked the ideas that BMX (my acronym for Barone, Mallette, and Xu) put forth about encouraging participation. 

SO WEIRD!  I was looking for an article about emergent literacy and disability for class today, and my goodness, but up popped an article by my professor at Appalachian State!  I always knew Dr. Koppenhaver was a smart man.  I am particularly interested in autism and emergent literacy, and Dr. Koppenhaver has written a slew of articles on this topic!  Who knew?!?!  This particular article studied nonspeaking preschoolers with autism, and discussed motivating academic, linguistic, and social interactions aid interventions with these children.  It includes a list of successful approaches to increase these motivations.  Dr. Koppenhaver designed a study to see the results of implementing these interventions, studying “autistic labeled” 4-year-olds.  His results found that all of the children demonstrated measurable and observable gains in the understanding a use of print.  Although it was a short study, he really made a case for his research, and he really did keep it short and sweet.  Great article, great professor.  Definitley a must read for those who have children with autism in their classrooms.

And on to the required reading…It is interesting to me how this article really integrates what is being taught in my Child Development and Disability course.  Things that I took away from the article:

1.  What a great way to have visually impaired children interact with text… act it out!  Use props!  These strategies work for both sighted and non-sighted children.  Since these children cannot see the illustrations, they must be put in some tangible and tactile form for them to understand the concepts.  Woop woop to Wendy, Pat, and Nancy (pseudonyms, duh)!

2.  I really liked the alphabet braille boxes where the children read the first letter in braille and then there were objects for them to feel that began with that letter.  This is great for sighted children as well. 

3.  I thought it was interesting that visually impaired children were exposed to braille as early as possible, seeing as how we are so concerned with developmentally appropriate practices with sighted children.  We are concerned with a classroom of 3-year -olds that have the alphabet displayed in the classroom, but these visually impaired children are learning their version of the alphabet ASAP.  I personally don’t have a problem with exposing babies to letters, I talk about letters with my 8-month-old.  Call me developmentally inappropriate, I’m inappropriate anyways.

4.  Let’s expose sighted kids to braille and talk to our sighted students about children who are visually impaired.  We talk about different cultures and expose children to their customs, we talk about different religions and celebrations, lets talk about visually impaired children and what they have to do in order to learn and function. 

Good articles, good examples of strategies, I give it 1.5 thumbs up.

record, that is.  Personally, I enjoy running records.  They are a pretty quick way to see where your kids are with their decoding skills, comprehension, etc.  Although, I hear that once they move into first and second grade, it is a much more involved process to do a running record on a child.  Apparently, you have to time their reading, and obviously, they read longer books.  In my school last year, the first grade teachers spent a LOT of time doing running records.  But no siree, not in my kindergarten.  They were quick, and you can give them under the pretense that “Oh, Nicole, can you come read this story to me?”  My kids loved reading to me, so this was pretty routine. 

My only problem is this:

In many school systems, running records are administered using preprinted running record sheets that contain the exact text the student is reading in a matching leveled book. To allow a teacher to administer multiple assessments with a single student, two or three books at the same reading level may be provided in a kind of kit.

A concern with these kits is that the reliance on such materials can lead to an assumption that teachers need not (or are not permitted to) stray from the boxed kit in order to fully assess children’s reading skills. Authentic opportunities to assess students may then be lost due to the constraints of the testing kit.

from learnnc.org

I agree that it would be so wonderful to do assessments in informal places during centers.  In the school system I was in, we had DRA kits, and a level 2 had to be mastered in order to pass from kindergarten to first grade.  My principal, I’m sure, would have been pretty ticked off if I decided to use a book that was not in the DRA, because how could I POSSIBLY know if this child was ready for first grade if I didn’t use the standardized DRA books?  In order to leave my classroom on the last day of teacher workdays in June, I HAD to have each child’s DRA level written and graphed to pass to their first grade teacher for the next year.  It was important that all these children had been tested on the same book.  Now don’t get me wrong, I see that these books are designed to target specific skills that build upon one another and progress throughout the DRA.  But I think it would be nice to be trusted that I, as a college graduate in Elementary Education, have the competency to know if 2 books are comparable and able to assess a child’s reading ability. 

I like running records, just not the bureaucracy that sometimes goes along with it.

I’ve waited until the very last possible moment to post a blog, the time is now 2:17 pm, and after a day of admiring snow, I guess that I’ll get down to business.

Repeated readings = duh.  Just like anything else in kindergarten, it must be repeated time and time again for it to stick to their little long-term memories.  You have to sing the same songs over and over, play in the same free choice centers, count everyday, face it.  Kindergartners are creatures of habit, and this is a GOOD thing.  Biologically, being creatures of habit probably helps them learn.  Repetition and modeling, 2 keys of good kindergarten learning.  I love to model my thinking!  The kids love when I think out loud, they love to help me think through the problems I encounter throughout the day (writing, reading, math), and even though it may seem silly sometimes, how would they know how to do it if someone hadn’t explained it to them and shown them the correct way to think?  As teachers, we need things modeled for us (think student teaching) and the kids need things modeled for them to become critical thinkers and “good” readers. 

The Case for Informational Text…good read.  Sometimes I don’t always think about how important it is for young children to be exposed to informational text.  Working with thematic units has really helped with this, though.  Lets say that for a field trip we are going to a farm.  Our unit for that week will be “The Farm”.  We will read fictional stories about farmers and animals, we read informational text to learn facts about these animals, and then this theme is also incorporated in other activities and centers around the room.  I’ve never read research on “thematic units” but I swear, they work for me, and they really lend themselves to informational text.  Not to get all “sexist”, but little boys heart informational text.  It’s true.  If its about garbage collectors, snakes, etc., the boys are going to love it.  Maybe the male mind just thinks more concretely and they want to know about “real” information, not made up stories.  Now I don’t mean that all boys are this and all girls are that, but there are definitely gender differences, in my opinion.  And most boys like books about trucks. What a novel way to get kids excited about reading!  Give them something they are interested in! 

Reader’s Theater is a wonderful tool for developing fluency in upper elementary kids.  I am personally a big fan, but I’ve never really thought to attempt to develop reader’s theaters for kindergartners. When I was student teaching, my class did a Reader’s Theater for family night, but it was just the kids memorizing lines so all the parents would be impressed.  Most of them weren’t reading, and overall, a big fat waste of time.  We did the Hungry Caterpillarby Eric Carle (a suggested story to use in the article), but the kids memorized the book in small pieces, rather then doing the developmentally appropriate activity suggested:  Have the children feed the caterpillar as they read.  Its all about modification I suppose.  Kids love acting and moving, therefore, I love to use it in my little classroom nest of emerging readers. 

Pretty much have read my sunny Sunday afternoon away, but I can say that I’ve taken some valuable information away with me in the process.

I drew a heart on top of the article Revisiting the Language Experience Approach.  Loved it. It’s easy to sometimes to get bogged down in the planned curriculum and pacing guides that the county you teach in gives you, but the LEA is the way to go.  The LEA “draws upon the real life experiences of students.”  What 5-year-old doesn’t LOVE talking about themselves and the things that they do?  And to think how beneficial this approach is to our English-language learners.  I loved the idea of creating a whole class story on chart paper where each students gives a sentence, Ive never done that before.  Then I had the idea to create a class “big book” where each child creates a page on chart paper.  Also, to have copies of the students writings and the class stories for the kids to read.  Guarantee that would be some of their favorite reading material.  This article also gave me the brilliant idea to have kids write about their art work.  Once they have finished a painting in art center, have them write at the bottom about their art!  I’m all for the LEA.  The article that used LEA with process writing was also a good read.  It kind of incorporated what administrators like to see in your classroom with the developmentally appropriate LEA.  I really like the fact that students “publish” their work because I think it gives them so much ownership in their writing.

Then, I read everyone’s favorite 36 page article…Social Contract for Writing.  At first, at the risk of sounding dramatic, the task of reading seemed a little more than I could handle.  Once I started reading, though, I was rolling.  I don’t have much experience with 2 year olds.  They are probably the age group (from birth to kindergarten) that I know the least about their development.  This article did a really good job of informing me what a white, middle class, suburban, Mommy’s Day Out 2 year old could do.  I’m not going to knock her though, throughout the article she admitted the articles shortcomings, and agreed that there should be further research on children of diverse backgrounds.  When I read the title, I thought, “Social contracts?  Shes getting these kids writing contracts to not hit and bite one another…how odd.” But I was pretty off.  I like her idea of describing the way that children interact with writing is a form of social interaction.  Writing is so social, its social in kindergarten when you share your one sentence writing with the person beside you, its social in 5th grade when you write a letter to your friend about the boy you are totally in love with, and its social right now, as I write this blog at 24-years-old.  I love her idea that kids get the “point” of writing right from the start, rather than learning the specifics of letter formation first.  I really liked the way that she analyzed their responses to the centers, but did anyone else notice that most of her interactions occurred on January 11?  Almost all of her transcripts of interviews with children were on this day.  Maybe a coincidence.  Anywho, I liked her approach to it all, I’d just like to see studies of children who were not all the same, maybe who had limited access to materials at home (deficit thinking?!?!), who didn’t speak english as a first language (would definitely be hard for these kids to talk about their pictures and writing), or who had delays and disabilities. 

I think that my favorite part of blogging is making up the titles.  I love to rhyme and play with words, maybe that’s why I love teaching kindergarten. 

The reading on CALP was particularly eye-opening because I really struggle with the best way to reach ELL students.  Having only taught for one year, I have only had one ELL student that I could call my own.  Manny (name has been changed ) came to me with no school experience and very frightened, understandably.  Manny had an older sister in the 4th grade and I was really thankful for her.  She helped me communicate with Manny (she came after school when I would work with him one-on-one) and when Manny had some behavior issues, she was able to relay messages home to their parents when my limited Spanish ability could only communicate bits and pieces.  His family was WONDERFUL about coming in and meeting with me and the were so happy to work with Manny at home. They were great.  Manny had no problem communicating with his peers, he had so many friends!  But just like Joaquin in the reading, he could not answer questions in class when I asked him.  I thought that he was nervous to speak in front of the class.  He always brought items for share time, but never wanted to talk about them, he just wanted to show them to the class.  I would encourage him to talk about his objects, but until around winter break, he always declined.  I spoke as much Spanish as I could to him, and he really liked that.  Around Christmas, I asked him to start sharing in Spanish and he really liked to do that. He had plenty of BICS, but his CALP was where he was struggling.  He was one of my brightest students, and given a puzzle he could put it together faster than I could, and he could build structures with blocks that looked like an architect had designed, no lie.  His artwork was gorgeous, I asked if I could keep some of it and displayed it proudly on the front of my desk.  He was gifted.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I read on page 3 of the article “Rather than students like Joaquin being written off as stupid…”  SKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKIRT! (the sound of squealing tires) WHAT?!?  STUPID?  Who would write a child off as STUPID?  As a teacher, I am called to teach.  Not make a judgement about a child who cannot speak my language in the classroom setting.  I am not perfect, nor do I claim to be.  But I would NEVER say that about a child.  I may say a child is struggling within the classroom, but STUPID?  Jeesh.  I want to help ELL children learn English WHILE maintaining their Spanish and help them to be successful.  That right there is deficit thinking at its worst. 

Reaching ELL students is so important.  These children have just as much to offer in our classroom as students who speak English so to marginalize them as “stupid” is just absolutely redicuolous.  I did like the article pointing out how important it is to recontextualize for our ELL students (as well as english speaking students).  I think that the key is respect thier language differences and to try and bring as much of their language into the classroom as possible.  ELL students in our classrooms did not choose to come to a school where no one spoke their language.  It is our jobs as teachers to make them feel as welcome and important as possible.