You say potato, I say potahto

Last week we read a book called "The Pot."  It was one of our predecodables, which means the book consists of sight words we've learned and rebus pictures.  The point of these books is that the children do not have to "decode" words yet because there aren't any unknown words to sound out.

Even with the picture support sometimes these books can create slight challenges.  For example, my class needed to figure out from the picture that the lumpy objects going into the pot were potatoes.  Then on the very next page round objects with little leaves were put in the pot - tomatoes.  My guess is that whoever wrote that book has never worked with Kindergarteners before.  Most of the kids in my class confuse potatoes and tomatoes all the time!  They'll say - totatoes or pomatoes - referring to either one.

Yesterday we read a story about the wind and the powerful things it can do.  I asked the students to write in their journals about the wind.  One student wrote, "The wid can mac trmdo."  Translation: "The wind can make tormadoes."  That was a new one for me!

Mayflower mayhem

This week we learned about how and why the Pilgrims sailed to North American on the Mayflower.  We looked at photographs of the Mayflower II, a replica of the original in Plymouth, MA.  My boys and I visited the ship a few years ago and so the photographs include both of them.  My class always enjoys hearing about my boys since they are also students at the school.

We talked about how little the Pilgrims were able to bring on the ship because space was very limited.  I use this as a writing prompt every year and the answers the students had this year were amusing.  Most kids say they would bring their favorite stuffed animal.  This year one little guy matter of factly told us he would bring his undies.  I tried my best to keep a straight face, but it was tough!  One little guy (who is learning English) said he would bring X and Y, my two boys!  I couldn't tell if he said that because he thinks it would be fun to go with them or if he just wanted to write about what he saw in the picture.  It's so hard to tell what is in a child's brain!

This afternoon we made paper versions of the Mayflower.  It was the perfect way to end the week - lots of cutting and pasting!  They were so excited to make their own Mayflowers and there would have been mutiny if I tried to keep their Mayflowers for a bulletin board display!

We had a little extra time so they asked if they could draw Pilgrims on their Mayflowers.  I love to walk around and have them explain their pictures:
     This (pointing to a circle) is the CANON!
     I drew rope that goes to the sails and this guy (pointing to guy with giant hands) is working!
     This is the plank.
     I put bad guys on my ship!
     My ship has a flag!
     Mine has a anchor!
     Mine too!

They weren't historically accurate, but their enthusiasm was priceless.
  

Growth Charts

While other moms complained that their babies would only wear an outfit once or twice before the child grew out of it, I kept quiet.  I was dressing my 6 month old in 3-6 months sized clothes because he finally outgrew the 0-3 months size.  When he was a toddler he was tested for growth hormone deficiency.  He was just so small and seemed to grow so slowly that we had concerns.  Turned out he didn't have growth hormone deficiency - just vertically challenged parents!  At every doctor appointment my son's growth was charted and our kind pediatrician would say - "He's on his own path and making progress.  As long as he makes progress everything is fine."

Today I met with parents of students who are still struggling to learn their letters.  Inevitably they ask the question for which they don't really want to know the answer, "Does my child have a learning disability?"  To these anxious parents I answer honestly - "It's too soon to tell."  Because it is too soon too tell - we don't have enough information yet.   I explain to the parents that learning to read and write is a developmental and individual process.

Ask yourself this question - how old are children when they learn to walk?  Did you think of an exact age?  No, you probably thought of a range of possibilities.   Some children learn to walk at nine months while other children are not independent walkers until fifteen to eighteen months.  In a room full of ten month old children you may have a few crawlers, a few cruisers (walking while holding on to furniture), a few tentative walkers, and some runners.  Of course there may be some more variations in between!  It's all very developmental and individual. So is the acquisition of literacy.

It's important to keep in mind the developmental nature of literacy acquisition despite the pressure to have students reading when they enter first grade.  Even though our little ones won't take their first state sponsored assessment until third grade, the effect of high stakes testing has changed Kindergarten.

During my student teaching fourteen years ago, my mentor teacher encouraged me to spend time in the Kindergarten classroom.   I loved visiting this classroom.  The decorations were so cheerful an brightly colored.  There was a huge, multicolored carpet with a rocking chair for story-time.  One corner of the room had a few small tables with tiny chairs. The rest of the classroom was taken up by the housekeeping center, the dress-up center, a huge bookshelf of blocks with a building area, a puzzles place, a painting easel, and lots of age-appropriate games.

My Kindergarten classroom looks more like a first grade classroom.  Half of our classroom is set up with tables and chairs for seat work.   There is a huge carpet with a rocking chair for group work.  I have a few puzzles and games, but only when inclement weather forces us to stay inside for recess do we have the opportunity to use them.  Our focus is on academics.

On the one hand, I feel strongly that we should have high expectations in our classrooms and that students can rise to the challenge.  The last two years, teaching in Lake Wobegone showed me how far some children can fly.  This year I see a number of my students who are not developmentally ready for the content of our curriculum.  This doesn't mean they have learning disabilities, it just means they're not ready.  Just like child who walks at 15 months - he walked when he was ready.

I always feel bad that I cannot completely alleviate a parent's anxiety regarding learning disabilities.  Students in Kindergarten are just beginning to learn, oftentimes there isn't enough data to know whether or not there is a disability.  Like my son's pediatrician, I just keep monitoring their personal growth charts.

At the age of three, my child finally joined the ranks of all the other children his age as his height landed him ON the growth chart.  Of course, he's still one of the shortest kids in his grade, but so were his parents.

Retrograde motion

Today a few of my students appeared to have regressed rather than progressed.  Their results on the progress monitoring of Initial Sound Fluency (ISF) were worse than on the official September assessment.  At first I was frustrated and quite dismayed.  But upon further reflection I have decided that this assessment is not going to be an accurate reflection of what these students are learning in my classroom.  I need to look at the big picture.

For example, I have seen one of me ELL (English Language Learner) students try to sound out words on a page during writing.  He does a fairly decent job of hearing the consonant sounds.  During the (ISF) he struggles to find the picture that begins with a specific sound.  The most likely explanation for this is that his English vocabulary is not very extensive.  He is trying to remember the individual words and is not able to simultaneously separate the initial sound.

For my few students who struggle so much to learn letter names, I have begun to realize that they have made some pretty lucky guesses.  However, the assessment shows me that they do not understand the letter-sound connection.  It makes absolutely no sense to them yet.  The child who scored a 3 in September, scored a 0 today.  There is progress in that regression.  I believe he guessed correctly for those 3 right answers in September.  The students have a one in four chance of selecting the right answer, statistically his odds were good.  Today he remained silent during the test.  He didn't answer a single question until the very end.   Perhaps, he knew he didn't know and didn't want to guess?  On the very last answer he was able to give me the correct letter even though he was supposed to provide the sound.  Again, that shows some progress.  He knew that lollipop begins with l!

This year my job as a teacher requires me to dust off those long lost skills of data analysis.  Being a good data analyst requires figuring out the why behind the numbers.  Just like the planets that appear to be in retrograde motion, it's all a matter of perspective (well and some physics).  My students are moving forward in the same way that Mars follows an elliptical orbit around the sun even though the data points show otherwise.

A no brainer

Recently I read an article about the four stages of sight word reading.  As I read through the article, one of the major points I gleaned is that learning to read sight words is developmental.  Well yeah.  Learning to read and write are developmental.  Kids learn when they are ready.  

But I can have TWO cookies!

According to Wikipedia, subitizing "refers to the rapid, accurate, and confident judgments of number performed for small numbers of items."  If you look at a picture of three stars, you don't have to count the stars because you know there are three stars just by looking at them.  Your speed and accuracy decrease as the number of stars increases.  

Today I had a little girl hold up three fingers, but when I asked her how many she paused to count them.  Curious, I asked her to show me two fingers.  She had to count, "1 2" before she could show me two fingers.  She had to count for 4 and 5 as well.  

Learning to count objects is part of Kindergarten.  When a child is unable to count objects at the Kindergarten screening, I'm not too concerned.  But I have never had a student who had to count in order to show me a certain number of fingers.  Now I'm curious to know what is the typical age to subitize fingers?  I think of two and three year olds who are able to show how old they are with fingers.  Do they truly understand that those fingers represent 2 or 3?  Some do.

When my nephew was a toddler he was allowed to have two cookies for dessert.  He would eat one quickly and then demand another cookie because he was allowed to have two cookies and now he only had one!  

What does it mean that this little girl still has to count her fingers in Kindergarten?  Is it truly a concern or is it developmental?  I just don't know.  I'm going to find some cookies.

 

Iamgintobeodms.

Having trouble pronouncing the title?  Well, it says "I am going to be Optimus."  You're giggling, "Oh I see it now!" or you're saying, "What is she talking about!"  One of my students wrote that sentence on Friday because he was going to be Optimus Prime for Halloween.  Apparently, Optimus Prime is a Transformer.

Watching a child acquire language is fascinating.  Those cute baby sounds become word approximations (baba for bottle).  Then approximations become whole words and short sentences.  Almost overnight it seems as if the toddler is speaking in complete sentences!  Now at the ripe old age of five, I'm asking students to go backwards.  Take your sentence, separate each individual word, and then break those words down into their individual sounds.  Holy cow!  That is hard work for these little guys!

Learning to read and write is very similar to learning how to speak according to Brian Cambourne in his book Whole Story: Natural Learning and the Acquisition of Literacy.  During writing I can observe student approximations as they put their thoughts on paper - not so much in whole sentences - but in the sounds and words they write.  Someone else might look at my students' writing and see all the cute mistakes.  To me they are not mistakes, they are approximations.  I learn more about my students from their approximations than what they get right.

My little Optimus Prime knows the words I and am and was able to put down sounds he heard for the other words, but he has difficulty understanding that each word needs it's own space.  I know that he hears /ing/ at the end of going, but doesn't know it is spelled -ing.  He heard the /pt/ as a /d/, which are similar.  When we write on Monday, I will remind him to use his Spaceman to put spaces between his words and possibly assist him with one or two sounds in his writing.

Another student in my class wrote "I see the yee g dfoo," the other day.  His sentence is really, "I see the leaves falling down."  This little one understands how to write the sight words we have learned including the spaces between the words, but is having difficulty sounding out words on his own.  He has the ee for leaves but the rest is confusing.  He hears the d and f as he says his sentence but he doesn't understand where they go.  When we write on Monday, I will sit down to help him stretch out his words so he can hear the individual sounds.  I might find out that he is able to stretch out the words into sounds, but he doesn't know which letters make those sounds.  See how confusing writing is for five year olds!

As they write, I tell my students to take risks and sound out words on their own.  Generally speaking, I can decode (yes it takes some heavy duty decoding skills to decipher some of my students' writing), but to be on the safe side I always have them read what they wrote to me.  This is good reading practice as well, but I'm only addressing writing right now.  I celebrate each student's successes no matter how small,  knowing that tomorrow those words of praise will encourage my students to take more risks and make more approximations.  Those approximations will guide my instruction for individual students as well as for the whole class.

Why isn't Star Wars a compound word?

For the past two days we have worked on compound words - our curriculum introduced the concept and the kids always have fun with putting little words together to make a bigger word.  I have these cool picture cards that fit together - two piece puzzles.  Each piece has a picture of a small word (cup, cake) and after you put the pieces together you flip over the puzzle and see a picture of the compound word (cupcake).  We went through every pair, identifying the two small words and putting the pieces together - skateboard, sunflower, birdhouse, jellybeans, lighthouse, starfish, etc.  Some of my students could barely contain their enthusiasm and shouted out the compound word before we even put the pieces together.  They loved it!  At the end of the activity I heard a bunch of students say, "That was SO fun!"

Today we reviewed compound words from yesterday and used them as our topic for writing.  I asked the students to think of their favorite compound word and draw their own pictures.  I modeled this for them on the board first.  Most of them could only draw the picture for the compound word and label it.  But I had quite a few who were able to draw the individual small words as well as the compound word and then label the pictures.  It's always so fascinating to see the varying levels of understanding.

I told students that if they wanted to choose their own compound word, not one we did yesterday, they needed to check with me before drawing their pictures.  Here were some "compound" words they wanted to draw:  Star Wars, acrobat, bow & arrow, pumpkin.  I had to explain to one little guy that while his picture was awesome, dragon is not a compound word.  Fortunately, he was equally happy to draw a cowboy.  Our language is very interesting.  Star + fish =  starfish is a compound word, but Star + Wars = Star Wars which is not.  How very confusing for little ones who are just learning what a word is.

Comfort zones

One of the reasons I began writing this blog is to force myself out of my comfort zone.  I'm an avid reader and always have been.  I am comfortable with a book in hand, but I have never felt comfortable writing which I explained in an earlier post, I Hate Writing.

Recently I read a book about teaching writing that mentioned  - if teachers are going to teach writing then they should be writers themselves.  Not published writers per se, but people who are comfortable putting words on paper. So here I am writing!

My goal is to write every day, just like I have my students do, and with few exceptions I have met that goal.   Some days I write a lot and other days just a few sentences.  For a variety of reasons, I don't post everything I write.  I have deleted quite a few entries that never made it to the public, but boy did it feel good to write them!  Then there are those entries that have remained in the draft stage because they require more thought.

Writing every day has been surprisingly easier than I thought it would be.  The experience of putting my thoughts onto paper (or typing them on a screen?) has been very therapeutic and enlightening.  I've discovered that writing about my class allows me to see my class from a different perspective.  Focusing on the words I am writing frees up the problem solving area of my brain to do some creative thinking.  It's similar to my days as a math major.  I would get stuck on a particular problem for hours and it was while I was asleep that I would figure out how to solve it - as soon as I stopped consciously thinking about it.

Lev Vygotsky, a famous psychologist developed the concept called "the zone of proximal development."  This describes the range of tasks that are too difficult for children to complete on their own but with scaffolding from an adult, the child can learn how to complete the task.  Students won't grow and develop unless they venture past their comfort zone and neither will teachers.

Do you teach Kindergarten so you can be taller than your students?

Yes, someone actually asked me that at church today.  No, I am not that short.

I teach Kindergarten because. . .
     I love helping children learn how to read and write.
     Five year olds are hilarious - especially when they are serious
     I'm allowed to be silly at work
     I love reading and sharing great picture books with children
     The joy on a child's face when they learn how to do something is priceless
     We sing lots of songs
     I understand how to help most five year olds learn - in other words, I can think like a five year old
  
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.  I am a Kindergarten teacher - it's who I am.  At the end of my very first day teaching Kindergarten, a coworker asked how my day went.  My response was, "I was born to be a Kindergarten teacher!"   Three years later, I feel the same way.  I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but now I've found my calling.

No, I do not teach Kindergarten so I can be taller than my students.  In fact, most days you'll find me sitting on the floor  or crouched down next to them.

Inch by inch

I had a melt down the other day after school - just sat at my desk and cried.  The pressure of How am I going to get all of these children reading by the end of the year? got to me and I cried.  There are still a significant number of my students who do not know all of their letters yet.  You're probably asking, "Isn't that what Kindergarten is for?  Learning letters?  It's only October!"

Over the years, expectations have changed.  By the end of Kindergarten, students are expected to be upper emergent readers - reading texts with sight words, sentence patterns, and picture support.  I'll address changing Kindergarten expectations in a future post.

The next day I did what I always do when I freak out about student progress - I assessed them!  Remember, I'm a math geek and so collecting data on my students is an obsession of mine.  After working with every student one-on-one I discovered that we are moving forward!! YEAH!  Progress is being made by every single student in my classroom!  Even my struggling student who I discussed in an earlier post learned the letters in his name!

We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but a garden doesn't grow overnight.

Inch by inch

Row by row

I'm gonna make this garden grow!

Up in the air

To be honest, I throw like a girl.  I can't really catch either (I've been known to duck).  But put me in the classroom and I can juggle with the best of them!

I have twenty students this year with the widest variance in abilities and readiness I've ever seen in one classroom.  I spend three hours every day juggling my students up in the air - desperately trying not to drop anyone and keep the momentum going forward.  I write little notes to myself all over the place:  A can't put the numbers in order, B's hand gets tired when we color the math sheet, C & D & E need to be screened for articulation problems, F wants harder homework, G's parents want a conference ASAP, etc.

At the end of each day I take my little notes and copy them into My Notebook.  My Notebook keeps me sane.  It is a paper record of all the things I need to remember about each individual child, but if I just  kept them in my brain it would probably explode.  OK not really.  If I didn't write things down in My Notebook, I would just forget them and not be able to do my job effectively.

The psychologist Lee Shulman compares the complexity of meeting the needs of your students during a normal teaching day to a physician "in the emergency room of a hospital during or after a natural disaster (p. 147 Waiting for 'Superman')."  I can't stand the sight of blood, so I think I'll stick to the craziness of teaching twenty adorable Kindergarteners.

It's all in the delivery

Every Monday we forego our usual calendar routine to share about our weekends. I enjoy learning more about my students - what they like to do at home, movies they enjoy, important people in their lives.  It also serves the dual purpose as an oral language and listening activity.  Everyone has to share and everyone has to show good listening skills.  I model first by telling the students about my weekend including the fun and the mundane.

I'm beginning to think it might be better to vary our topic a little bit.  I have one little guy who tells me every week that he goes to the zoo.  If I ask if he did anything else, he tells me he "went to the 'quarium and saw mermaids swimming with the sharks."  Yes, every week he tells me the same thing.  Then there is one little girl who always repeats the same activity as another child in the class.

Today I had little girl take the cake.  Usually she has a hard time thinking of something to share, but today she looked directly at me and stated matter of factly that over the weekend she went to Europe.  I asked her, "What did you do in Europe?"  Without skipping a beat she responded, "I saw reindeer."  I couldn't help but smile.

Children should be seen AND heard!

This weekend we went to the store and I got the most awesomest costume for Halloween.  I'm going to be Wolverine for Halloween this year!  I have a costume that has real wolverine claws and a mask and my dad was in the United States Wolverine Corps.  Wolverine is my favorite super hero.  I really like super heroes!  I have a Wolverine book and a Batman book.  Do you know I have a red cape with a lightning bolt on it?

If you give this little guy an inch he'll go on and on and on. When he's not rhapsodizing about super heroes, he'll tell you more than you'll ever want to know about sharks - all different kinds of sharks!  I enjoy every minute of his chatter.  He's using age-appropriate grammar and a rich vocabulary.  OK, so some of his details are a little off.  Like how his dad was in the United States MARINE Corps, but you've got to love his enthusiasm and his pride in his dad.

In my opinion, one of the biggest predictors of success in Kindergarten is a child's oral language skills.  So while those chatty kids might drive parents crazy, those are the students who are easiest to teach.  Sure, it takes time for students to learn when it is OK to talk in school and when it is not OK, but they get it.  I also allow them time throughout the day to talk - we share about our days, respond to a story, or  quietly chat with neighbors while working on a project.

It's the quiet kids that always concern me.  The ones who never have anything to say, who never raise their hands.  Are they quiet because they weren't paying attention, they don't know the answer, or did they not comprehend what I said?  The first one is pretty easy to address.  I try to make class time fun and engaging.  If a child is not paying attention, I have a variety of strategies to bring them back to the group.  There can be many reasons why a child doesn't know an answer to a question - hasn't learned the concept yet, wasn't paying attention earlier, it's a fairly new topic, etc. - and it's my job as a teacher to ensure that they learn the answers or find out why they haven't learned it.  If a child doesn't understand what I said and the child is a native English speaker, that concerns me.  When a child says "tiger" for a picture of a tabby cat or "house" for a picture of just a "window," these are red flags.  When a child has nothing to share about her weekend even after all the other children have shared about riding bikes, playing wii, or going to grandma's house, that is worrisome.

This year I have about five or six students who scored low on oral language assessments.  Helping a child catch up to peers in oral language is a lot harder than helping him catch up with alphabetic knowledge.  In the book Building Oral Language Skills in PreK-K, the author Cindy Middendorf cites research that shows, "Not all children who struggle with early reading skills have poor oral language, yet nearly all children who have poor oral language will struggle with early reading skills."  Last year at a literacy conference I heard a speaker mention that 70% of struggling third grade readers have poor oral language.

I've got my work cut out for me this year.

Success!

Every single one of my students got 100% on their Europe assessment today.  I am so proud of them!

Tis a gift to be simple

One of my favorite hymns comes from the Shakers - Tis a Gift to be Simple.  The tune itself is simple yet beautiful, the words equally so. 

'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free,

'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

   Till by turning, turning we come round right.

I try to find little ways to incorporate simplicity in my personal and family life. It's not always easy, but I typically find that the simplest way to accomplish something is the most effective way and brings me the most joy.

I've been learning to incorporate simplicity in my classroom. When I take a step back, assess the current needs of my students, and then address those current needs I am at my most effective as a teacher. Bombarding my students with too much information typically backfires - confusing my students and frustrating me. This year, less is more.

Today we wrote in Journals for the first time. I helped them start their sentence by writing the first two words on the board - letter by letter. I modeled how to write each letter. At one point a little girl in my class jumped up and down in her chair and shouted out, "I MADE A K ALL BY MYSELF!" We celebrated with her. She was right where she ought to be, and truly delighted

. 

Back to basics

Today I realized the importance of going back to the basics.  The school where I teach is a "Back to Basics" school which means we teach with whole class instruction, use a reading program that is strong on phonics, our math program emphasizes memorizing math facts, and science, history, and geography are an important part of our day.    Many people do not agree with our philosophy, but many kids thrive in it.  The theory is to set the bar high for students to achieve more.

Our Kindergarten curriculum is pretty amazing.  By the end of the year our students have learned about the  seven continents, including a famous landmark and animal from each one.  They've been exposed to over 100 high frequency words with the expectation that they can read at least 50 automatically.  They've had a strong exposure to phonics and phonemic awareness.  Our writing program creates Kindergarten writers who easily compose 2-3 sentences on a topic, with a good number of students writing more.  We work hard and the pace is fast in my classroom - there's a lot to cover in only two and a half hours! 

Today, however, we stopped for a few minutes and had fun.  I played a song that is a medley of the Chicken Dance, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes.  We sang, we dance, we laughed, and were just plain silly.   As we sang, however, I began to notice how many students found it difficult to do the spider motion with their fingers!  More importantly, quite a few students did not know the words to Itsy Bitsy Spider or Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes!

Earlier this week we sang London Bridge is Falling Down.  My aide and I made the bridge and told the class to make a line to go under the bridge.  My class is pretty good at walking in a line to go to recess, but this was a different type of walking in line.  They had a very hard time with it and it took way more supervision than I thought it would.  Then when my aide and I captured a child for the part "Take a key and lock her up..." the class was hysterical!   I think most of them had never played London Bridges before!

So I'm going back to the basics and teach my students to play the old fashioned way!  

A new record

I think I set a new world record today.  I met with a parent regarding her struggling child and actually mentioned the high probability of Kindergarten retention.  It is only the 7th of October!  I've never had that discussion before February!

He has made some progress.  At the beginning of the year during the letter assessment he named letters, numbers, and shapes - not the actual letter names.  During our most recent letter assessment he randomly named letters.  OK, so they weren't the correct letter names, but he wasn't saying numbers and shapes!  He has also learned to write his name, but if there are other names that begin with the same letter he cannot identify his name.  These are small steps, but he is making them.  Most importantly, this little guy can rhyme.

I've taught fourth graders who read at a first grade level and they were easy to teach compared to a child who cannot rhyme or identify if two words rhyme or not.  Children who cannot rhyme are not able to tell me that "cat & hat" rhyme or that "dog & cat" do not rhyme.  Sometimes they get it right, but they have a 50/50 shot!  Or if I say tell me a word that rhymes with "cat" they respond with "dog" or "car."  Yes, it is important to rhyme.  It indicates that you can hear the similarities between words and isolate sounds within words.  A child who is struggling but can rhyme is much easier to help than a struggling child who cannot rhyme.

This little guy in my class is learning, but so are the other students.  The learning gap will get wider and wider as the year continues.  He really should be in preschool, but mom told me they couldn't afford to send him.  Hopefully, if this little guy spends another year in Kindergarten that gap will be closed.

Flip flops and Mary Janes

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I had to learn how to tie my shoes.  I was around five years old, I guess.  We lived in an apartment in the Bronx and my mother had spent all morning trying to get me to tie my shoes.  I couldn't do it.  No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't tie my shoes!  The way I remember it, I gave up and in a fit of frustration my mother stormed out of the apartment.  What really happened - my mother left me to my temper tantrum, went next door to ask our neighbors something, and came back within five minutes.  As my mother told her version of the story, I asked her why it was so important for me to learn how to tie my shoes.  Her response, "They wouldn't let you go to Kindergarten at St. Mary's if you couldn't tie your shoes!"

In my classroom, I am asked at least once a day to tie someone's shoe.  I think to myself, why don't these parents buy their kids velcro shoes like I did for my kids!  My class is full of flip flops, Cars shaped Crocs, sandals, sneakers and Mary Janes with velcro.  Not only do our children not have to learn how to tie shoes, they don't even have to learn how to use a buckle!  By St. Mary's criteria, only one or two of my students would have been admitted to Kindergarten this year.

And I must confess, I covet the pair of sparkly, pink Mary Janes with velcro straps one little girl wears in my class (just don't tell Sister S. from St. Mary's).

The big question

How do you meet the needs of one off the charts highly gifted student, three students who are truly not ready for Kindergarten, and the sixteen students in-between?

And all the children are above average

On his radio show, "A Prairie Home Companion," Garrison Keillor ends his weekly segment about life in fictional Lake Wobegone with his famous, "And that's the news from Lake Wobegone, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

For the past two years, I taught in Lake Wobegone.  The majority of my students exceeded district expectations - some by a little but most of them by a lot!  Since our school's expectations are higher than the district's, that means that almost all of my students were above average!  The few students who did not meet those expectations typically had some learning issues.  Overall, I felt pretty successful during my first two years teaching Kindergarten.  I know it wasn't all me.  I know that many of my students came to Kindergarten more than ready to learn thanks to outstanding preschool programs and highly involved parents.

This year is very different.  During the first few weeks of school I was pretty overwhelmed by their squirminess, chatting, play-fighting, lack of attention, and general lack of knowledge regarding how to "do school."  I looked at their birth dates.  OK, so they are on the younger side of 5 than has been typical in my class.  I have almost twice as many boys as girls - well I did two years ago and it didn't make a difference then.  I've looked at preliminary assessments and finally come to a conclusion.  This year I have an average Kindergarten class.


Yes, I have a few students who are above average and a few who are really struggling, but the majority of my students are right where they should be.

Hedging the loaded question (not really)

I teach at a charter school so parents drop off and pick up their children at school - there are no big yellow buses going through our driveway.  Most of my Kindergarten parents opt to park and wait for us on the sidewalk, rather than drive through the carline.  As I dismiss students to their parents, I try to have something positive to say at least once a week:

 "J___ drew an amazing picture today."
 "M___ read a book all by himself!"
"A____ had a much better day today!"
"What a funny story about your trip L_____ shared today."

These simple little comments make a big difference for two reasons.  One, I have learned that parents crave information about how their children are doing in school.  Honestly, I learned that because I'm a mom, too.  I love to hear my children's teachers say wonderful things about my boys.  It tells me - this teacher sees my child in class.  I want parents to know -  yes, I see your child in my classroom.  My second reason is that these little interactions establish a rapport between myself and the parents.  When conferences come around, I'm not sitting across the table from unfamiliar faces.  I have established an initial relationships with these parents and we can work together.  Research shows that success in school is a joint venture between teacher, parents, and students.  I can't do it alone.

My problem is when I hear the loaded, "How is K_____ really doing in class?" from a parent whose child is seriously struggling.  It's one thing if they've contacted me to set up a meeting and we're sitting in the privacy of my classroom when they ask.  It's a whole other can of worms when they ask as I'm walking my students outside for dismissal (or during a classroom celebration).  It's interesting, but the parents of the kids who are doing fine never put me on the spot like this.  I can't lie and say, "Oh, K_____ is doing great in class," when K______ still doesn't know any letter names after a month of school.  The diplomatic thing to say is, "Let's set up a time to discuss how K___ is doing in class," but parents always seem to know I'm just hedging and that it means their child is not doing well.

I'm always open to meeting with parents and discussing their children's progress.  I'm just not open to having these discussions when I'm trying to get nineteen other students to their parents or during a fun celebration.

A sad day...

Today I took a student to the office for discipline problems.  I've never had to take a Kindergartner to the office before.  He was trying to kiss other students.  He was trying to make other students kiss each other.  It sounds cute, but he's really terrorizing these children.  He also punched another boy in the you-know-whats.  By this evening I had received two emails from parents complaining about how their children are not enjoying school because of this boy.

His life is difficult and I have compassion for the little guy, but it's hard when his behavior effects so many.  No child should feel terrorized at school, period.  The fact that it is happening in Kindergarten where kids should be learning to love school, is devastating to me.

Always look on the bri-ight side of life

Since I spent the afternoon venting about my current challenges, I've decided to look for the positives!

1.  Everyone in my class gets along.
My biggest discipline problem is the play-fighting that occurs outside (and occasionally in class).  This is of course to be expected since I have almost twice as many boys as girls in my class this year.  Boys love to play fight (my own two boys are experts at it).  These few boys who play-fight are being social and enjoying their friends.  We're learning how play-fighting is not appropriate at school.

2.  There is no girl drama!

3.  Everyone in my class can color nicely.
This surprised me since I have so many boys in my class, but they really try hard to color in the lines when I ask.

4.  Classroom behavior improves every day (despite the full moon today!).

5.  My students are very cute and very sweet.

6.  There are no OT issues!  We are all making progress learning how to write our numbers and letters.

7.  There are no serious behavior issues - no runners, no kids who hide under the table, no defiant children (this is by far the biggest positive).

8.  We're having fun learning about new things.

9.  Everyone who went to our school's preschool program is doing great!

10.  It's only September!!!!!

Trying hard not to laugh

Teaching Kindergarten brings so much joy to my life.  My students and I laugh together because learning is fun!  Some times I make them laugh - when I’m acting out a silly story or when I drop something (for some reason the dropping of markers never gets old).   But there are occasions when it is not appropriate for me to laugh.  For example, when a student's answer is so far out in left field I want to giggle, but I can’t.  Here are a few interactions I had last week during DIBELS testing:

Me:  Here is mouse, flowers, pillow, letters.  Mouse begins with the sound mmmm, mmmm mouse.  Which picture starts with the sounds /fl/?

Student:  Mouse

Me:  Pillow begins with the sound/p/, /p/ pillow.  What sound does letters begin with?

Student:  Pillow?

Me:  Letters begins with the sound /l/.  Listen, /l/ letters.  Let’s try it again - what sound does letters begin with?

Student:  Mouse?

Me:  Letters begins with the sound /l/.  Listen, /l/ letters.  Let’s try it again - what sound does letters begin with?

Student:  Flowers?

Me:  What sound does ______ begin with?

Student:  Chicken?

Me:  What sound does ______ begin with?

Student:  Grasshopper?

Me:  What sound does ______ begin with?

Student:  Heart?

I try very hard not to laugh.  After a few more interactions like these, however, it becomes very hard not to cry.

I hate writing!

I love to read (I know, I know - major understatement), but I struggle with writing. Always have.  I loved reading the assigned books in my high school English classes, but completely froze when asked to write about what I read.  I had constant writer’s block.  I went off to Holy Cross College and perused the course catalogs with longing.  I yearned to be an English or a history major, but the writing intimidated me.  So, I became a math major.

Math majors can do one of three things - become a high school math teacher (no thank you - high school kids scare me), pursue higher mathematics and teach at the college level (they seriously lost me at basic linear algebra - and never found me again), or become an actuary (the path I chose and cardboard is more exciting).  After a few years in the insurance industry, it was time to pursue other options.  When I told people I was entering the teaching field, the response was, “Of course you’ll teach high school math.”  

When I was at Holy Cross, I founded a read aloud program in two elementary schools near campus.  I loved my time in the classroom back then and opted for elementary school rather than becoming a math teacher.  I completed my student teaching in a first grade classroom, and subsequently fell in love with watching kids learn how to read and write.  

My first year of teaching was in inner-city Denver with fourth graders who read at a first grade level and could not write a sentence.  Even teaching math was a struggle because they could not read the word problems.  I pursued my Masters in literacy because I needed to understand how children learn to read and write and in the process found my calling, my gift.  Seriously.  All my life I was disappointed because I couldn’t find my gift.  I couldn’t sing with perfect pitch or draw something beyond a basic stick figure or write like some of my brilliant friends do.  Teaching children and helping them become readers and writers - that’s what I can do!

My Kindergartners write every day in class.  Through writing they learn about letters, sounds, and more importantly how words on a page have meaning.  My students write about themselves, what we’ve learned in class, a response to a story, and more.  Most days I provide a general idea for their writing (see Teaching Writing in Kindergarten by Randee Bergen).  Once a week I will allow students to choose between a free-write or a given topic.  I provide topics for two reasons.  One, most Kindergartners will rely on “I like my mom and dad.” when left to choose their own topic.  I get wonderful, varied responses from students when they have a more guided topic.  Two, the idea of free-writing always terrified me (still does) and I see how it terrifies some of my students.  Students will say, “But I don’t have anything to write about.”  So on those days when most students are writing about their own topic, a small handful will write about my given topic.  I want them to feel confident when writing and not terrified of a blank paper.  I want them to have something to write about.  I never want to hear my students say, “I hate writing.”

It is a truth universally acknowledged...

I can’t remember when I couldn’t read.  I’ve always defined myself as a reader.  Books are where I go to relax, seek solace, laugh, or just escape.  My reading goes through phases - mystery, chick-lit, romance, biography, religion, self-help, and sometimes specific authors.  For the last year I’ve been obsessed with Jane Austen.   Well I must confess, my obsession is really with  Mr. Darcy.  I read Pride and Prejudice over and over, never tiring of the story.   Yes, I read all those other novels too - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, and the versions told from Mr. Darcy’s point of view.  I enjoy them, but my first love will always be Pride and Prejudice.

I have the best job in the world.  Teaching Kindergarten allows me to share what I love most - reading - with students.  I act out Tacky the Penguin and have students help me read Green Eggs and Ham.  We read nursery rhymes and silly poems together.  We read simple texts and point to our words with alien fingers.  Planning, organizing, and creating activities that guide children on the path to literacy are challenges I relish.

The last two years I have been blessed with classes where the majority of my students began Kindergarten ready to learn.  The path to literacy lay at their feet.  My job was simply to help them on their journey.

Yes, I’ve always had those few students who’s journey was more difficult, but we kept moving forward albeit at a slower pace.  This year is very different.  While intellectually I know the path of literacy begins long before students enter my classroom, this year it feels like I’m herding a whole bunch of them to the starting line.  A few of them keep wandering away, not quite understanding why we are there.

Yes, I know we’ve only been in school for a month, but experience (and data) tells me this will be the most challenging class I have ever taught.

Teaching with heart and soul

To me the mark of an excellent teacher is one who never ceases to learn - learning all there is to know about one’s students, learning new and innovative ways to teach, and learning to ask when help is needed. I have watched new teachers fail because pride prevented them from asking for help and I have watched thirty year veterans succeed because they were open to new ideas.

I constantly strive to know my students in order to meet their individual needs. I constantly assess and observe students in different ways. Every student who walks in my classroom door needs something different - A can read a little but needs reassurance, B needs to tell me what’s on his mind before learning can occur, and C just needs a warm smile and a “Good job” once in a while. Knowing my students enables me to create learning opportunities for all of them.

I’ve always loved school and learning new things. Learning new and better ways to teach my students is always part of my school year. When I first started teaching,my knowledge of teaching reading and writing was not complete so I enrolled in a Masters program in literacy. Now I enjoy attending literacy conferences and reading books in my field.

Asking questions helps us learn and clarify what we need to know. I’ve never been one to stay in my classroom trying to figure things out on my own. I seek out those with more experience and knowledge in order to learn what I need to help my students.

My class this year is presenting some challenges and I’m seeking out as much support as possible - in school and out. Right now, just the act of writing is helping me clear my head in order that I might teach with my heart and soul.