The kids who need preschool the most June 26, 2008

This article in the San Jose Mercury News reports that only 15% of preschol-age children living in poverty are in high-quality programs.  This is where I want to tear my hair out and rant that we should more like the French and the Italians, and have universal preschool.  This is where I want to run around and shove yell, “Wake up, people!  We are missing an incredible opportunity to reduce crime and poverty and illiteracy!”

I used to teach kindergarten in high-poverty areas.  Every day I went home feeling like a failure, because it was so hard to give my students everything they needed — but had not received — in their first five years of life.  I needed to go backward and get them through preschool, but then to have enough time to get them through kindergarten and ready for first grade was almost impossible.  Now that I teach preschool, I can take a child who has missed much of what he needed in his first four years of life, and take him through a year of rich preschool experiences, and yes, get him completely ready for kindergarten.  It is amazing the difference a year makes.

What we did this year June 3, 2008

I asked the children to tell me the story of our year yesterday, so they told me things that we did, played, learned, and sang, and I wrote it all down.  Here are some samples:

This year, we:

• had a necklace of nametag on the first day of school
• didn’t know how to write our names on the 1st day of school
• learned how to write our names
• had field day
• had a fall party
• made necklaces on the 100th Day of School
• had Hat Day
• had Crazy Hair Day
• ate popcorn and cake
• had Hot Chocolate Day
• had Gingerbread Day
• played with trains
• had Pizza Day (wow, notice a food theme?)
• had Dress Up Day
• learned how to count the numbers
• learned letters
• learned how to tie shoelaces
• went to the library
• went to the park
• sang “I Think You’re Wonderful”
• sang “I am a Pizza”
• sang “Octopus”

We even looked at our daily sign-in book from the first day of school.  Only one child could write her full name, and many of the kids didn’t even try.  There were also lots of mysterious and cryptic scribbles.  Then we looked at the page from that morning, and it was amazing to see the difference.  Even M. can write her name.

This is a nice thing about this part of the year, when you look back on all your great memories.

What parents do May 30, 2008

I mentioned M. once before — it was her birthday and I forgot to check the calendar, and missed it.  And she is so non-verbal most of the time that she never mentioned it. 

M. is one of my special ed children, with developmental delays, speech difficulties, and possibly some sensory stuff going on.  Lately she seems to be worse than ever.  The special ed teacher, sp. ed. assistant teacher, and my assistant teacher and I have all noticed that she seems to be going backward.  This is unusual — I take pride in the fact that my special ed children thrive in my classroom and make huge strides.  Two of my students this year are moving into regular ed for kindergarten next year.  But somehow with M. we are not making progress.  Today we were doing insect math and she was unable to recognize the numbers 1, 2, and 3.  She could count to five, but if she counted to three and I asked, “what comes next?” she had no idea.

One problem is that maybe her needs are so great that my classroom is just too overstimulating for her.  My classroom might not be the right place for her at all.  Next year for K she’ll be in a small classroom with all developmentally-delayed children, and it should be perfect for her. 

The title of this post, though, is “what parents do,” and I wonder just what M.’s parents are doing for her.  Her parents are very young, and both M. and her baby brother were very premature.  Ali has been to the apartment and says that there have been many police calls there in the past year for drug dealing and other problems.  M.’s mom hasn’t come to any of her IEP meetings or her transition meeting, and she still hasn’t even registered her for kindergarten.  Usually when we call her the phone is disconnected, and when we send out the social worker, nobody answers the bell.

How would M.’s life be different if her parents were different?  If her mom had been able to carry her full-term?  If her parents talked to her more?  If they gave in to her less?  (M. cries a lot as her main method of problem-solving.  We are guessing that it gets her what she wants when she’s at home.)

Then I look at Miss L., who is perhaps our biggest challenge this year.  Miss. L.’s parents are older, college-educated professionals with financial stability.  They have an incredibly hard road to go down with their youngest, for whom every day is a struggle.  I cannot imagine what she’d be like if she had parents without resources, without parenting skills.

And I wonder what M. would be like if she DID.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom May 21, 2008

We’ve finished learning the alphabet, and some of my little friends actually know the whole damn thing, so we’ve been celebrating our accomplishments with some spirited readings of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. On Monday we made a mural, and each child did his or her own little chicka tree, using templates I found here.

Now the children keep going around muttering, “chicka chicka boom boom,” and they are fighting over it in the reading corner.

Miss Nelson is Missing May 21, 2008

Now that we’re in the home stretch, our theme is “Ready for Kindergarten,” and all the books on our shelf are about kindergarten and school.  Z. commented that some of them looked familiar, and I told her that we’d had a bunch of them out at the start of the year.  I was impressed, but not surprised, that she remembered.

Yesterday at storytime I didn’t have enough time to introduce our new “special story” (the repeated interactive read-aloud), so I grabbed Miss Nelson is Missing off the shelf. 

(For those of you who aren’t familiar with the book, Miss Nelson’s class is the worst behaved in school.  They never listen to their poor, sweet teacher.  One day she goes missing, and in her place is the substitute, Miss Viola Swamp.  She has an ugly black dress and is perhaps a real witch.  She is strict and mean and scary, and everyone buckles down.  Finally, when they are exhausted from working so hard, Miss Nelson comes back, and from then on the children all appreciate her, do their work, and behave beautifully.  No one ever knows that there is an ugly black dress in Miss Nelson’s closet….)

I had never read this book to any of my preschool classes, and I wasn’t sure how it would go.  However, with all their practice discussing books this year, they loved it and had a lot to say.  With a little guidance, they even figured out the true identity of Miss Viola Swamp at the end.

When I closed the book, I asked, “Why were the children so happy to see Miss Nelson at the end of the book?”

Z. said, “They missed her.”

I asked, “How do you know they missed her?  Why do you think that?”

Z. replied, “Well, when you are gone, we all miss you.  So I think Miss Nelson’s class missed her the same way.”

Zing!  My heart melted.  It is so nice to be appreciated, especially by four and five year olds.

On not being safe May 19, 2008

How’s this for a headline?  “Teacher tries to help preschoolers stay alive.”  I nearly spit out my coffee this morning when I saw that one.

Preschool teacher Marisol Sierra, who teaches in the Chicago neighborhood where schoolkids are getting shot, has incorporated gun- and gang-safety into her preschool curriculum.  That’s worlds away from the usual curriculum of colors, shapes, ABCs, friendship, storytime, and counting, but it makes perfect sense.  It’s just incredibly sad at the same time.

I remember my first year of teaching kindergarten, in one of my city’s worst neighborhoods, when the little girls in the house corner would play “call 911 — my boyfriend is coming over to kill me!”  I had a police cap in my dress up box, and would put it on and come over to reassure them and let them know that they were safe.

I also had to put on my police cap when I saw the children in the house corner doing the “duck and cover”, dodging bullets.

My turn under scrutiny May 13, 2008

I had a formal observation today.  What I mean is, I was the one being observed.  (Usually it’s the other way around.  I do 2-4 observations a quarter.)  Every one of us, even the master and mentor teachers, needs to be observed once each quarter, and this was my last observation of the year. 

The mentor teacher who observed me is a fifth grade teacher, who seemed delighted at the chance to observe someone who is outside her world of upper-primary and middle school (usually she works with the middle school teachers).  She also mentioned, somewhat wryly, that her last visit to a preschool was when her children were that age, and let’s just say, that was a loooong time ago.

The odd thing was, I was nervous.  I had a hard time concentrating on preparing for my lesson before school started, and during prep, Jan was laughing at me because it was so odd to see me so discombobulated.  I saw my master teacher in the office when I was getting something off the printer, and I told her, “I’m nervous about my observation!”  She just rolled her eyes at me and told me not to be ridiculous.

My master teacher was the one who did my most recent observation, and that lesson rocked.  She gave me awesome scores, and I was absolutely thrilled.  So I know I’m a good teacher, and I know that I know my stuff.  I’m also usually so confident….

Back to the room.  I finally got my head together and I carried off the lesson on ordering the numbers 1-6, with my audience of special ed teacher, parent volunteer, para, and the mentor, who was madly scribbling notes.  (Have I mentioned my trained monkey routine?  I am always being watched.  It is never just me and the kids.  I’m used to it, but some days….)

And it went okay.  I mean, it went well, but I can think of lots of things I could have done better.  I didn’t ask good enough questions.  And did they all get it?  Some of my kids don’t know all the number names to six; why was I asking them to put the numbers in order?  And the fact that Miss L. was falling apart the whole time didn’t really help. 

On the plus side, I had three kids (including Z., who had wonderful braids and ponytails all over her head in honor of Crazy Hair Day) order the numbers 0-19 with no sweat, and the stuff I did in the whole group was pretty cool.

This stuff can make you crazy, though.  I think I’ll go into my final observations of the year feeling more mellow and more forgiving than ever.  School is almost over, after all.

Early entrance to kindergarten May 12, 2008

Today we had a visitor.  It’s a common occurrence in my classroom, only today, our visitor was four years old.  We’ll call him Charley.  Charley’s dad brought him to school so that I could watch him play in my room for an hour, and evaluate whether or not he will be okay to enter kindergarten in the fall, even though he won’t be five by the cutoff date.

It’s a new system, instituted last year, that works better than the old system.  The old system was that parents begged the principal, and the principal said yes or no depending on their gut, or their mood.  It was very inconsistent and unfair, so the early childhood department came up with a procedure that all schools are supposed to follow. 

So now, in the spring, I have small visitors who come and work in my room with my students, and I observe them and fill out an observation form.  If they get enough points, they pass, and they can come to K in the fall.

I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, I’m glad that the early childhood dept. got involved, and that they came up with a consistent procedure.  On the other hand, I think it is still a bit too lenient.  I think many of the parents who want their child to get early admittance to K are really thinking about the full-day aspect, and not having to pay for daycare in the afternoon (if their kids are instead sent to a pre-K classroom like mine).

Also, it’s a grade skip.  Starting kindergarten a full year before you’re supposed to is a grade skip, and I think it should only be for the kids who are clearly advanced academically, socially, and emotionally.  Besides, don’t a lot of experts say that boys tend to mature more slowly at that age, and shouldn’t be pushed ahead?

Hoagie’s Gifted page has a bunch of articles on the topic, as does this article from the ERIC Clearinghouse.

Charley did fine.  He was quite reserved, but he separated from his dad readily, and did respond when spoken to.  He followed directions, paid attention to what was going on around him, and followed our routines.  He had fun playing in sand, and even got along with our Miss L. — that is, until she hit him and had to leave the sand table.  I talked to his dad, who said that they just moved here from another state, where the cutoff is different, and where, had he stayed, he’d be going to kindergarten in the fall automatically.  Also, he knows his letters and sounds and is starting to learn how to read.

I’d be interested in hearing what other people think.

Teaching grown-ups May 8, 2008

Some weeks ago, a person from the early childhood department was visiting my classroom, and she saw me doing story time using the repeated interactive read-aloud strategy, so we talked about how it works, and I offered to do a little workshop on it for the other pre-K teachers in the district.  She said, “sure”, so then she came to my room three times to videotape me doing the three read-alouds.

Yesterday was the all-day meeting for the pre-K teachers, and my part was after lunch, after the head of the early childhood department spoke to us.  (I was hoping she’d leave for some important appointment, but alas, she stayed put.  I’m not sure how she feels about me, because on the one hand I have a solid reputation as a good teacher, but on the other, I ask difficult and pointed questions at our meetings.)

A third of the way through my presentation (what is a repeated interactive read-aloud (RIRA)?  how is it different from the way teachers usually read stories?  what does the research say?  how is it connected to the standards?  etc.) I started to worry, as no one was asking questions and everyone’s face looked blank.  Thankfully, Sarah’s video was perfect, and people started to warm up and ask questions, and at the end, the other teachers were excited about it and I was hugely relieved.

It was quite nice to come back to school today and hang out with four and five year olds.

Diary of a preschool teacher May 6, 2008

As a part of Joel at So You Want to Teach?’s Blog Revolution Project, I am tasked to write a post in the form of a list.  Try as I might, I could not think of a title that involved a list.  I like the ‘diary of a preschool teacher’ title, anyway, and think it could be a regular feature.  Anyway, with a nod to Joel, here is the subtitle of today’s post:

5 THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY IN MY CLASSROOM:

1. I taught my kids how to wash their hands.  These are preschoolers, remember, so I do see children licking their hands and wiping their noses without benefit of a tissue.  Washing hands is a big deal to me.  Today A. came out of the bathroom too quickly to have washed his hands, and prevaricated when I said, “Did you wash your hands?”  I said, “Can I smell them?” and when he said no, sent him to wash.  Then, in morning meeting, I acted out how to wash hands (get hands wet, get one squirt of soap, do NOT wash it off immediately but instead rub your hands together and make bubbles, rinse, dry) and they were fascinated.  All morning long kids kept coming up to me saying proudly, “smell my hands!” and I got to smell lots of tiny, soap-scented hands.
2. We had a visitor.  We always have a visitor.  At least she wasn’t here to see me, and I didn’t have to perform my trained monkey routine.  She was from the autism program, here to observe Miss L. to weigh in on her placement for next year.  Everyone knows Miss L. is not autistic, but Ali is trying to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s in her attempt to get our girl into a regular ed kindergarten with an aide.  It was interesting watching the autism evaluator interact with Miss L., who was very friendly and chatted away.  She was able to identify different facial expressions that the evaluator made (”that’s mad….that’s confused….now you’re happy”) and she even asked the evaluator questions about herself.  Not autistic, clearly.  Now if we could only figure out what she IS.
3. We discovered that it was M.’s birthday on Friday and we missed it!  Don’t know how I managed to do that, but since M. is barely verbal most days, it is understandable that she never mentioned it.  Today she got her birthday crown and we all sang to her and she was happy.
4. We learned a song about frogs.
5. We started learning about numbers again.  I discovered that O. can name the numeral 8!  Whoo hoo!  He also knows 1, 2, and 4.  But he still can’t rote count “one two three four five”.  He gets stuck at four.  I’ve got Z., who can count well past 100, and then I have my special needs darlings who are working on the first five numbers.  Well, we’ll just have to keep working.