rites of spring April 15, 2011

*I am going over the winter pre-reading assessment results and trying to focus on all the kids who were in the red zone for rhyming, alliteration, vocabulary, letter names, and/or letter sounds, and spending one-one-one time with them.  So is every other adult who works or volunteers in my room….There are always kids being pulled aside to work on something.

*The spring assessment starts in two weeks.  AUGH.  Will my babies be ready?  Have I prepared them?  Did I do a good enough job?!  I keep rolling my shoulders and taking deep breaths so I don’t get daily migraines from stress and worry.

*I had a meeting in the principal’s office today to talk about the spring preK registration for next year’s babies.  I look back to some of this year’s kids when they came to visit last spring and they were TINY.

*We’re learning about plants and seeds and planted grass (the boring kind) and radishes, plus a few marigolds, carrots, and alyssum.  The window sill is crowded with little cups.  On Monday if something has sprouted the kids will be over the moon with joy.

*We’re learning about spring, and today read Old Bear, by Kevin Henkes.  The pictures were beautiful.

*The kids have spring fever.  They are being quite difficult, for them.  (For another class, they would probably still seem like angels.)  The loud voices and lack of listening are tiring me out.

*The weather is terribly unpredictable.  When it is very cold out, they come to school with no jackets.  When it is very warm, they come to school in their winter jackets.  The parents are apparently unable to find out (tv, radio, computer) what the day’s weather will be.  Meanwhile, every morning I stand in my closet and my brain fritzes out while I try to figure out what to wear.  After changing clothes three times I’m late for school and have to settle for whatever it is I’m wearing.  Winter was easy — classic turtleneck sweater (I used to wear cashmere, but I’m not quite as young as I used to be and find cotton works better now), bootcut jeans, Dansko clogs.  Summer will be easy — crewneck tee, cropped pants, Dansko sandals.  Spring clothes?  No clue.

not reading by 3rd grade? maybe you won’t graduate April 11, 2011

A new study that came out recently found that children who do not read at grade level by 3rd grade are much less likely to graduate from high school.

A student who can’t read on grade level by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate by age 19 than a child who does read proficiently by that time. Add poverty to the mix, and a student is 13 times less likely to graduate on time than his or her proficient, wealthier peer.

ARGGGGH!  Thirteen times less likely to graduate?!  Okay, now I really do feel like I’m pushing a boulder up a hill.  My school is full of children in poverty, and filled with kids who don’t or didn’t read at grade level by 3rd grade.

I could get depressed, but I am trying to turn over a new leaf and not let stress — and other people’s problems — get me down.  Instead, I will continue to focus on catching ‘em early, and sending them off to kindergarten ready to read.

the library on a sunny day March 30, 2011

We walked to the local library today for story time.  Last time we were there, a baby toddled around and then plopped herself down on the lap of one of my little boys, who was both astounded and delighted.  She was our favorite part of that story time visit — she kept getting up and then sitting in the laps of various little boys in my class.

We talked about that funny baby today, actually, in keeping with my goal of telling stories with the kids about our shared experiences.  We had another exciting experience on the way to the library — one little girl fell down in the street as we were crossing and didn’t get up.  I was up front, leading the way, and oblivious.  My Americorps volunteer ran over and scooped her up and carried her across the street.

Roo thought it was thrilling.  ”I thought she was dead!” he cried.  Both Roo and the little girl who fell have a story to write about, that’s for sure.

At story time, the wonderful children’s librarian met us at the door, and led us to the story room.  We read three great books, including A is for Salad and Miss Brooks Likes Books, and I Don’t.  Then we went downstairs to check out the actual library itself, for the first time ever.  They weren’t as quiet as I had hoped, and they got tons of books off the shelves, which I had not anticipated (“I’m sorry!” I told the librarian, but she said not to worry, that is what she wanted them to do.)

We checked out the books we’d heard at story time (and I picked up the book I’m supposed to have read for book club on Sunday to discover that it is 500 pages long; I wonder if I can read 100 pages a day?), and then walked back to school in the sunshine.

The playground was free of snow for the first time, so I let them have a very long recess.  They ran and ran and ran, and played “Witch” and “Angry Girls” (?) and “I’m falling down the slide!” and I’m sure they all took nice long naps when they got home.

i want to drink beer with the new children’s librarian February 12, 2011

Our local library has a new children’s librarian.  The old one was good, but she went on maternity leave and didn’t come back, and her temporary replacement was a bit…hyper.  We’d walk down the street for preschool storytime, and I would cringe watching her read to my students.  She wasn’t nearly as good at reading stories as I was (very few people that I encounter are), and things would get kind of chaotic.

But now — now we have a new children’s librarian.  She rocks.  She came to us (instead of us braving the cold to come to the library), and she brought three books.  And those three books are why I want to be her friend, and her new drinking buddy.

First, she read Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.  Since I am a huge fan of Willems’ oeuvre, as you all know, I have that book.  And while I liked it when I got it (and had it signed by Mo himself), I couldn’t really read it right.  So I never brought it to school.  The Rockin’ Librarian, on the other hand, read it beautifully.  My Americorps volunteer couldn’t stop giggling through the whole thing.  The children and I were absolutely delighted.

Look, if you can read a Mo Willems book better than I can, then you are my personal hero.

Next, she read Bark, George, which is one of my family’s favorites.  I read it at school, sure, but my husband and sons and I have our own collection of favorite funny children’s books (in the living room, of course), and this is one of them.  I was thrilled that she was reading books that I love, too.

She stopped at two, but I convinced her to go on.  She had not expected that a preschool class would be as great at sitting and listening raptly to a story as mine is, but saw that a third book would be just fine.

She pulled out Punk Farm.  I nearly fell upside down, the way George’s mother does when the vet pulls out a cow, or the way Piggie does in almost every Elephant and Piggie book.  Punk Farm is legendary at my house.  We love to yell, “THANK you, Wisconsin!”  And we do, regularly.

So this woman is my new soulmate.

What shall we learn?, continued October 26, 2010

This is the first card I’ve got posted above my meeting area blackboard.  Here’s what I do to help the children meet these goals:

• Copy/print own name:  The children are expected to sign in every day.  Some of them could write their names already, but others had no idea at all.  I showed them that they can scribble or do pretend writing, and a few of them are still relying on that method.  Others have started to write the first letter of their names to stand for the whole name.  When they are ready, I show them how to write the next letter, and so on.  By the end of the year they will all be able to write their first names.  For the kids who already could, I show them how to write their names with only the first letter capitalized, instead of writing it in all caps.  When they are ready, I might even teach them how to write their last names.  Note:  sometimes I don’t have to do anything.  Their parents and older siblings learn that they are expected to write their names, and teach them how to do it at home.
• Be able to listen to a story:  This one seems easy, but I have a few students who really aren’t listening.  One little girl doesn’t understand (native English speaker, but with some developmental delays) so she plasters a polite grin on her face and then tunes out.  Some of them don’t listen because they don’t speak English.   We have story time daily, and sometimes twice a day.  My Americorps member and my assistant read to children one-on-one sometimes, particularly with the kids who aren’t being read to at home.  I try to make story time alive and exciting by only choosing really good books to read — and by throwing in lots of Mo Willems!
• Answer questions about a story:  This week I finally started to do my weekly “special story” — a repeated interactive readaloud.  Only some of the kids can answer my questions about the story — others raise their hands and then offer an answer to a question I didn’t ask.  (“What do you think the signmaker was thinking when he came back to town and the people chased him into the woods?”  J:  “He run away.”)  My hope is that with a repeated interactive readaloud every week, we will learn how to think about stories, talk about them, and learn how to answer more abstract questions.
• Learn uppercase letters/learn lowercase letters/learn letter sounds:  This is a part of our daily routine, as I have mentioned here before.

Tomorrow:  our next set of goals.

What shall we learn? October 24, 2010

The early childhood department of my school district has, in the last few years, worked hard to come up with end-of-the-year goals that are based on our state standards, and are supported by our assessments, , portfolios, report cards, and parent conference goal-setting forms.  Everything all works together.  They wrote up a list of goals on a single sheet, to share with parents, but I decided to enlarge them and share them with the kids.

The signs I made are posted above our meeting area board, and it’s at about this point in the year that I point them out to the children, read the goals aloud, and start referring to them daily as we work and play.  I started doing this a few years ago, while training to be a teacher coach.  I learned that accountability for students is just as important as accountability for adults, and wondered how that would translate to preschool.

I already listed the things we were learning about on our morning message, but decided to be more deliberate in telling the children what we were doing and why.  When I do a repeated interactive read-aloud, or reader’s workshop, the children learn that there is a purpose:  to love books and become great readers.  The list of goals tells the children what they should know to get ready for kindergarten.  “This is our job,” I say, and the children nod, serious and proud.

We’re still fingerpainting, playing house, and messing with shaving cream.  But we all have a shared purpose, and I think it brings us closer and takes us farther.

9 days down September 10, 2010

Our theme for September is All About Me (Miss Mellow and I decided to heed the advice we were given at a workshop — we are going to do fewer themes, better), and this past week our focus was on ourselves, namely, our bodies and our feelings.  I did some lessons about recognizing feelings from a social skills curriculum we have, and also some lessons on the parts of our bodies.  The children were particularly interested in their bones and their muscles.  Here are some of the things they told me this week:

“I look five because I eat healthy food but ackshully I’m four.”  (This from one of my boys who just turned four and still looks and acts three…..)

“Mrs. X!  I have muscles!!”  (From a skinny girl who had been practicing hanging from a bar on the playground.)

“Did you know I have bones in my hand?  Look!”

**************

At arrival time there were two parents in the room, getting ready to say goodbye to their respective children.  The dad turned to me and said, “When do you start reading instruction?”  The mom perked up and came over to listen.  I was a bit concerned — do they think their children are bored already?  Do they think preschoolers should be able to read at the beginning of the year or soon after?

But I started talking about the things we will be doing and they relaxed.  I told them that we will soon start learning the letters of the alphabet , and will do it in an order so that we will have words that can be sounded out within the first 4-5 weeks.  We will have readers’ workshop once a week starting in October, and then writers’ workshop once a week in the spring semester.  I talked to them about phonemic awareness, and things they can do at home to support their children.  And I found myself saying, “I’ll have an evening workshop for parents this fall on preschool literacy, so we can cover a lot of this stuff then.”

So now I have to plan a parent workshop for this fall!

Mapping the year September 6, 2010

Miss Mellow and I met at a coffee shop on Saturday morning to plan out our year.  We worked for an hour and a half and could have easily gone for another hour.  We were in the “flow” and having a great time discussing curriculum, how to balance all our frameworks and expectations (and all that is expected of us), and what really matters in preschool.

We plotted out the themes for the year, and each one will last for a month, which is different from what I have done in the past, with my 2-3 week themes.  We started fleshing out different things to focus on during each week of our themes, and realized that we need to ask guiding questions for each theme.  What is it, really, that we want the kids to know at the end of each month?

I went home exhilarated, and have been working on typing up my list so we can get it all down on paper and then share it with the rest of the preschool teachers in our district.  I’ll post it here, too.

staff development that doesn’t suck August 24, 2010

I spent the day with the other pre-k teachers in my district (by the way, how DO you spell pre-k?  Pre-K?  PreK?  Anyway.) and it was great to see everyone.  Ali (the former special ed teacher who worked in my room for four years but now has her own pre-k classroom) was there, so I sat next to her, of course.  Miss Slinger was there, and it turns out she got a job working in a different classroom.  I’m sad it’s not mine, but glad she has a job.  Her new teacher is also named Miss Slinger, which I think is very amusing.  Her teacher also looks like a baby, which in this case translates to:  she looks like she’s 22 and has never taught a thing.  I found that amusing as well.

Miss Slinger sat next to Ali, and it was fun to see how well the two of them got along.  At one point they were giggling when they were supposed to be listening, and I leaned over and whispered, “It’s really too bad that you two don’t like each other at all.”  They grinned, and I added, non-sarcastically, that they are two of my favorite people, so it’s not actually that surprising.  I think I will try to schedule a girls’ night out for the three of us.

My new assistant was there.  She is older, quiet, and very nice.  Miss Mellow was there, and we sat on either side of our new assistant.  Some irritating people were there, as well as one very nice preK (?!) teacher who is quite inarticulate (one “um” for every five words, at least).  Once when she was talking, interminably, I turned to Ali and said, “I hate you.”  She knew exactly what I meant — it was Ali who pointed out all the ums at a different meeting.  If she hadn’t, maybe I wouldn’t find it so painful to listen to this particular teacher.  We snorted like the evil teachers we are.

The topic for the morning was the main principles of the new reading curriculum that the K-5 teachers will be using.  The idea was that we would a bit of what our students will be doing in kindergarten on up, so that we can prepare them.  We did that old jigsaw thing where you split into groups, each group reads a different part of the article or the book, then you discuss with your group, and then you present the main ideas to the whole group.  I usually find this excruciating, but today it was fun.  For one thing, I got to read a really long, interesting chapter about critical reading.  I’m fairly critical; it was right up my alley.

The chapter was well-written, and I enjoyed reading about the purposes of critical reading — challenging assumptions, examining the author’s purpose and biases, looking at things from different perspectives, and knowing how to read advertisements or things on the internet (ahem) without blindly believing everything you read.  The thing is, I read the whole chapter on critical reading as a critical reader.  I found the authors’ biases — tending toward a liberal, multicultural point of view.

I’m playing devil’s advocate here (I’m a feminist and socially liberal), but it seems to me that if people are trying to persuade you to teach your students critical reading skills, and all the examples have to do with challenging assumptions about girls, or class, or colonization, or race — then it is entirely possible that you are yourself biased toward one particular world view.  It’s a world view that I’m fine with, but if we are going to teach actual critical reading, then we should expose our students to a wide variety of perspectives.  Wouldn’t it be refreshing every once in a while to be challenged to see things from a Republican viewpoint?  Or a fundamentalist Christian one?

how to help your preschooler learn to read July 29, 2010

If your preschooler asks you to help her learn to read, and it is clear that she is ready (knows letters and sounds, is very interested in and attentive to books), then I have some things that might help you figure out what to do next.

Caveat:  if your preschooler is not reading, and shows no interest, do not worry.  Seriously, do not worry.  There is nothing wrong with your child.  Nothing, I tell you!  It’s normal not to learn to read until kindergarten or first grade.  It’s a little unusual to learn to read in preschool.  The following is a list of suggestions and things to keep in mind, to guide parents of children who just happen to be ready early.

1.  Phonemic Awareness.  It is very important for a child to understand that sentences can be broken down into parts (ie. words), and words can be broken down into parts (ie. syllables), and words can further be broken down into sounds and letters.  Rhyming is one way to learn this (pat, cat, jat, mat, lat, etc. — nonsense words are just fine) because you take off the first part and change it to another sound.  Alliteration (like in alphabet books) is another way.  Read lots of poems and rhyming books, sing songs, and do lots of word play.  (Wordsaroni is a good book for that, if it is still in print.)  Research shows that children who have good phonemic awareness in preschool or kindergarten are much stronger readers by 3rd grade than children with poor phonemic skills.

2.  Direct instruction.  The book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a good way to teach reading, but it is pretty dry.  You, the adult, follow an exact script and tell the child exactly what to do.  If your child doesn’t like this approach, just drop it.  If she does like it, then go ahead, and balance it with a whole language approach.

3.  Whole Language.  This term has been somewhat discredited, but to me it refers to enjoying wonderful books, falling in love with books and reading, and using context cues to figure out what a word or sentence says.  There used to be a big battle between the Direct Instruction folks and the Whole Language folks, but now we understand that children need both.  If you use direct instruction, do balance it with reading books for the sheer joy of it.

4.  Easy Readers.  There are two series that I recommend.  The BOB books by Scholastic are indispensable.  They start with incredibly easy words that your child can sound out, and very slowly get more difficult.  This is the only series that I have found that a real beginner can read.  I also recommend the Brand New Readers series — these are books that teach your child to pay attention to pattern, pictures, and context cues.  (In other words, one series is phonics/direct instruction, the other is whole language.)

5.  Great Children’s Literature.  You probably already do this, but I find that the quality of the books you read to your child is really important.  Don’t waste your time on boring books, or commercial books (like the ones based on movies or tv shows), or didactic books (the ones that try to teach a lesson) — you will be bored, and so will she.  Find the great books — there are tons out there.