Bringing Balanced Literacy to Students with Intellectual Disabilities

In a little over a week my awesome research team and I will be on an airplane headed to Florida for the 15th annual Council for Exceptional Children's Division on Autism and Developmental Delays (DADD) conference. We can't wait.

We're presenting the work we did last year on adapting guided reading and balance literacy practices to work with students with low incidents disabilities (Intellectual Disabilities, Autism). Last year our ID team along with a general education kindergarten teacher and one of our school's reading specialists took current research that supports using balanced literacy approaches that is typically found in the general education classrooms and applied it to working with our students with intellectual disabilities.

We spent today combing over our power point trying to make it bridge the gap between addressing practitioners like us and a more research-based audience. (Sadly it feels like a hard gap to bridge. Why is the gap between research and practice so wide? Why is it that what is currently

published in education research rarely makes it into the hands of actual teachers? )

You can follow my personal growth in the project here as I blogged about it last year. The project came about very organically as our team found a need in our classrooms and began collaborating and seeking resources that would help us bridge the gap between the general education balanced literacy instruction and what we were doing in our intellectual disability classrooms.

We set up our classrooms to meet a balanced literacy structure using reading focus lessons, word walls, shared reading, interactive writing, guided reading, centers, and a reading workshop structure. We took what we knew about guided reading and task analyzed it down to meet the needs of our students so that we were still using a guided reading structure but meeting the exact needs of our students, while still giving them opportunities to interact with real books.

As we talked today we realized that perhaps of all the elements we put in place last year teaching the students to interact with real books was the simplest but most powerful act we did. Many of the programs in place to use with students with intellectual disabilities teach specific skills in isolation without giving students an opportunity to open a book, turn the pages, look at the pictures, think about the story and look at the words all at once. Although the programs can be great and teach excellent skills, solely using a program often holds us back as teachers from pushing our children forward. We assume because they  haven't mastered a certain part of the program or a specific skill that they aren't ready to move beyond and have greater literacy experiences. Following the program allows us to forget that we're teaching a life-long habit and not a rote set of isolated skills. We simply forget to give the children books and let them experience the pleasure of turning the pages in a book themselves.

Using the balanced literacy approach allowed us to use the research-based programs that taught specific skills, but also let us teach the children how to use all their reading skills at once- to open a book, look at the pictures, point to the words, think about the sounds the words made, using the writing skills, answer comprehension questions- the list goes on and on- all around one specific text. Merely putting a book into their hands added an element of fun to the lessons.

The results surprised even us- some of our students made significant gains in both their book handling skills and their ability to interact with a text (essential read simple texts) but also in their specific boxed programs. Our students became more engaged in the mere act of reading. Looking at books was something they could sit and do independently for an extended period of time- which often surprised people who visited our classroom. The assumption was often that our kids could go on the Ipad or the computer to have something to do, but would not read independently. We were able to show their parents that reading was an actual leisure activity. They could buy their child books instead of Ipad apps.

While we found research that supported what we were doing it was not research that fell into our laps- we had to seek it out, which is something that is difficult for any teacher to do. It is rare that we have the time or energy as teachers to look for current research. Frequently we rely on our districts and schools to apply professional development opportunities for us and we often don't question the research behind what is given to us. We're hoping that our presentation next week will reach actual teachers and will be a part of bringing the research into the classroom.

Whenever I leave this collaborative team I feel energized and ready to dive into teaching. Even the tangential conversations that arise as we go through our data and previous lessons lead us to look at our teaching in new ways. As we're considering our children's growth and progress we find more meaning in our project- why it worked and why we need to keep it up.

If you happen to be at DADD next week look us up!

Touch and Feel: Adapting our Guided Reading Texts

Another Donors Choose project up and running! 

Adapted Version of The Snowy Day

This whole year has been one long exploration into how best to bring reading to students with low incidence disabilities such as autism and intellectual disabilities. It started with trying to adapt our read aloud texts to make them more engaging for my students. After working together with a great team we're getting ready to spend time this summer adapting actual guided reading texts.

Max Cleans Up turned into a touch and feel book

Our school ordered the guided reading books for us and they are already in our hot little hands. Now we just need the artsy materials so we can turn what would be a regular guided reading book into a multi-sensory reading experience to engage our readers. We've put up a Donors Choose project and we're over halfway to our goal (shameless plug: if you donate this week your donation is matched. We have $61 to go, but if you type in INSPIRE as the code at checkout your donation will double.)

Poor man's adapted guided reading book. This summer we'll use velcro to let the kids match words into the texts.

Adapted Miss Nelson is Missing

In my adventures with adapting regular texts this year I learned that the glue, even a glue gun, doesn't stick well to laminated pages. However foam stickers do. The Donors Choose project will get us sheets of sticky back foam paper, foam number and alphabet stickers, foam sticker shapes, and foam sticker animals. It will also get us Wikki Sticks and our own copy of Rhyming Dustbunnies that we'll throw into our pool of texts to adapt this summer.

We are ridiculously excited about our work this summer. Not only will we be adapting text but we'll be working with a reading specialist and a general education kindergarten teacher on making our literacy block model a general education balanced literacy approach. We're leading a training on this in July as well as a series of trainings next year.

Spring Break Woes

Spring break is almost over. I'm not sure how that happened. The whole week was wonky, starting with the snow fall on Monday, and as you can see from the picture, Little Lipstick was not impressed. 

First day of spring break. Not what we expected.

Don't get me wrong. Little L LOVES snow. Her favorite book is The Snowy Day. She loves her snowsuit. She loves putting on snow clothes. She loves watching the snow fall. She loves feeling the snow go "PLOP" on her head just like in the book. She loves watching Mommy walk with her feet pointed out, like this. She loves riding in the stroller while snow falls around her. She just doesn't like interacting with the actual snow. And of course, I'm sure she's not thrilled with Mommy snapping a picture at her distress. 

The snow threw us off our spring-break game. Somehow the week turned into a stay at home and cuddle week instead of a "let's enjoy this week off to get busy and go on adventures" week. 

I spent a lot of this week pondering my decision to be a teacher. It's been ten years since I started. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. I love the work. I love the day to day with the kids and I love the intellectual challenge it inspires in me. 

Perhaps it's the fact that my little brother, five years younger than me, is in the midst of his first year at a big law firm, showing the world how successful he is. Perhaps it's the continued anti-teacher movement in the media, perhaps it's frustrations at work, perhaps it's a looming ten year college reunion  perhaps it's just my yearly "what am I doing with my life" crisis. I'm feeling regret at ending my doctorate program, regret at staying in the classroom, resentment of my enjoyment of my job.

Why do we do this to ourselves as teachers? Why is being a teacher not enough? Every year I hone my craft, become a better teacher, read books and do action research that improves my work in the classroom. Yet it's not enough. 

If I leave the classroom and pursue a doctorate will I miss the day to day excitement of teaching? Will the intellectual stimulation be enough to keep me from regretting a job I'm good at. 

Why isn't teaching enough? How can we make it more than "just teaching" while still being a team player, a member of a collaborative school, and making a true impact on children's lives? Why does it have to be "just" teaching?

Play, Beautiful Play

During recess I watched my class recover from their initial disappointment of being stuck indoors because of the rain. They'd tried to convince me that they'd be fine outside despite the rain drops, but regardless we were holed up inside our classroom making the most of it. 

We invited another class in the intellectual disabilities program to join us. Their teacher and I sat back and watched as our kids interacted with each other in pure free play with the toy kitchen, doll house, toy barn, and toy castle (Thank you Donors Choose folks!!). It took a few of them a bit to get into it. At first they sat there, staring at the toys, unsure how to use them to interact with one another. But they slowly became more and more engaged in it.

The deeper into it they got the more we were able to dive in beside them and start working on their academic goals. Beyond just their essential social skills of how to share, listening to one another's ideas, and taking turns with the toys, we were able to really guide authentic practice of vocabulary- 

"Put it on top"

 "Put it under"

 "Make the doll go through the door"

"Can I have the little cup?"

"Who is playing in the house?"

These are skills we work on every single day, sometimes with flashy games on the smartboard that I guess you could technically say we were "playing". But nothing as authentic and student led as this.

We ended up letting them play for an entire hour. They were so engaged in imaginative play and working so calmly, in ways we'd never seen before, that we just couldn't bring ourselves to stop it. I can honestly say that they got more out of that play session than they would have gotten out of the smartboard lesson I'd prepared on Martin Luther King, Jr. 

I think the thing we forget when we think about play in schools is just how much academics our kids get out of play. They need a chance to apply these abstract skills they are learning to their concrete lives- by playing. They can count money, retell stories, use their social language, and read recipes- all while "playing". I watch my 16 month old play kitchen and all I see is how many skills she is learning at that exact moment. She's not playing- she is working hard. Our school kids need that too.

I get so much authentic data from free play- and that's at times when I know the skills are secure- that's when they can do it unprompted, independently, and out of context.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I wanted to share our absolutely beautiful hour of learning from this afternoon.

Retelling Center Success!

Thanks to our awesome Donors Choose donors we have a toy barn and farm animals to use to act out stories we've read. 

Today I put Farmyard Beat into the retelling center- asking the children at that center to act out the story using the barn and the animals. I modeled what I expected and then set them loose.

I occasionally heard one of the girls tell the other girl not to play, and by the end of reading workshop I could hear a bit of non-retelling behavior. Yet when we gathered back on the rug as a class for share time my skepticism of their behavior vanished.

I started by asking them specific questions about the story- out of order- "What happened last?" and they were able to tell me, without prompting, using detailed, specific language. Because they'd acted it out they had a much firmer grasp of what happened in the story. 

They were answering questions that were beyond their specific goals and objectives and showing me a true understanding of the story- hooray for comprehension through play! 

Touch the Book!

Last year I started a teacher research project with my librarian and speech pathologist on using physical objects to teach children with disabilities how to retell stories. It was awesome and we were so excited by what we were seeing emerge from our students. Then I switched schools and ruined everything. I thought I'd be able to keep up the research part of it, but this year has proved to be a busy one and I haven't had a chance to document, write, research, and take data like I wanted to. I have managed to continue to use the theory behind the project and although I haven't been able to take data on it, I've been very pleased with how it's going. Because I also switched from teaching a non-categorical population to a specific classroom for children with intellectual disabilities I've also had to enhance the project even more, but it continues to work out.

Our Current Routine and Book Adaptations:
About every two weeks we start a new book. It's a book that I've adapted- cut up, laminated the pages, and glued things onto so it will be interactive. In Max Cleans Up I made parts of the book that were suppose to be sticky actually sticky using two-sided tape. When Max dumped sand all over the floor I used glitter glue so they could touch the rough sand. The Easter egg he was hiding in his underwear drawer was also touchable to draw their eyes, fingers, and therefore their attention to the important object on the page. It helped them attend to the important parts of the story and therefore follow the narrative of the story. It's part of teaching them how to listen to a story as a narrative and not just something passive that is in front of them.

I've also added words using Board Maker software to each page. One phrase goes on each page in the book, "Clean up, Max!" , or, "Sneaky Gorilla!" for Goodnight, Gorilla. I'm also using Boardmaker to make icons that represent the beginning of the book, the end of the book, and 'next' so that I am drawing their attention to 'FIRST', 'NEXT', and 'The End' of the story- vocabulary they need to know to retell a story.

Retelling Center:
After the first week the book goes into the retelling center along with objects that can be used to act out the story. For the Knight and the Dragon we had a castle, dragon, a knight and a princess. I bought Max and Ruby dolls so they could act out the narrative while putting all of Max's objects into a big pocket.

On Thursday I could hear them "playing" from across the room "Clean up, Max!" Rock Star said in her bossiest voice as she bounced Ruby up and down on the floor. Through watching them play I can see that they do have an understanding of what's happening in the story. They can build the narrative themselves, from beginning to end, in the correct order, even if they couldn't use words to tell me about it.

I'm loving teaching this way. I'm enjoying adapting the texts and finding ways to make the books meaningful to children who may have difficulty attending to a traditional story. I love bringing the books to them and making them come alive, and in turn handing the story over to them with characters from the story so that they can retell the story themselves.

Play and Working Memory:
I really find the retelling center, or honestly, the play piece, to be one of the most powerful. The fact that they get to play with the objects- allows them to use their working memory in a preferred  comfortable way that they may not use it when they were in class. They are using what they've just learned and freely applying it to a play situation, mentally massaging facts, remembering them in their head so that they can use them to say what happens next. It forces them to hold information in their working memory and use it, taking it in and out in the way most kids do easily. It also teaches symbolic representation- something that is essential to learn in order to read, write, or just navigate through the world following signs and maps.

In Practice: 
The day before Thanksgiving I dumped a series of little men, women, and animals onto the floor for the retelling center. It was actually a set of James Town settlers and Powhatan Indians but I figured they would also work as the pilgrims and Indians we'd been studying, especially since my main focus was for them to understand the difference between past and present.

As I listened to them "play" I could hear them acting out the story- and interacting with it in a new way. They were embellishing details and adding different subplots, but none of those subplots involved going to the store, watching tv, or driving in a car- everything the characters did would have been something the pilgrims and Indians did- it was all in the past.

As I'd dumped out the "toys" one of my friends asked, "Can we play?" It was the day before Thanksgiving. I was tired. "Yes" I said, not bothering to say something like, "Retell the pilgrim story".

Right as she asked, "Can we play?" my principal walked in.

He wandered over to them and bent down, "What are you playing?" he asked.

I looked up from my reading group, cringing and expecting to hear "toys", or "house". Instead my friend looked up at him and said, "We are playing the pilgrim story when they came to America."

Sigh of relief. It's working.


*In order to adapt texts and create a better retelling center I have a donors choose project up. I only have $75 to go and then I'll be sent a barn for retelling all of those great farm stories, a house for retelling stories that take place in a house, a set of community workers, a doll family, and art supplies to help with our text adapting.*

Importance of the narrative (and help us play!)

Earlier this year I wrote about how I've added real objects to my retelling center. It has gone fabulously well. I've seen children use language unprompted to retell our familiar stories- language I did not think they had in them.

It has gone so well that I want to continue doing it with all of our stories but I'm running into problems finding the materials for all of them.  I've set up a donors choose page to help fund some of the materials- toy animals that we can use for many different stories and a dragon and a castle to help retell fairy tales.
Check it out here:
http://www.donorschoose.org/alipsett

The speech language pathologist, the librarian and I plan to take this project even further by using voice threads and photo stories to continue to encourage their use of language in telling narratives. Research I read recently discussed how the ability to tell a narrative is essential in all aspects of language development. Our hope is that this project will scaffold our students into telling narratives and give them a firm base of language development. Stay tuned- more on this later!

Hopes and Dreams for our kindergarteners: Working with parents

Last spring our awesome parent center coordinator came up with a brilliant idea- hold parent coffees just for kindergarten parents, addressing the unique needs of parents and children just starting the elementary school process. The minute I heard about it I told her I had to be a part of it.

Let me  back up for a minute- my school has a parent center, a room relatively near the front of the school where parents can go for English classes, spend time socializing, participate in volunteer activities for the school, use the computers, get information on how to navigate the maze that is public school, and attend our weekly parent coffees. Each Friday morning our parents come together for a presentation on some aspect of school-whether it is explaining how to help their children with their homework, understanding the importance of sleep, or learning about how to prepare for parent teacher conferences. The center is staffed by a parent center coordinator and a Spanish Liaison. Our parent center is one of the elements that makes the Think Tank absolutely rock.

So, when our parent coordinator came up with the idea of hosting programming specifically for parents of kindergarten students I was thrilled. The idea of capturing parents just beginning the school process and being able to help them early on set up routines that will stay with their children for the rest of their academic lives was too powerful to pass up. I knew I had to be a part of this. We plan to hold 4 of these meetings a year, one a quarter, and focus on essential aspects children need to be successful in elementary school.

This morning we hosted our first meeting. Each of the 8 kindergarten teachers submitted 6-8 names of parents in their classrooms who might benefit from this sort of programming. The parents were personally invited by a phone call from the school. We had no idea how many parents to expect- what if our parents just thought kindergarten was another form of baby sitting and were not concerned with hearing what we had to say?

How to help your child learn to read

Our turn out was incredible. I think we had about 30 families packed into our room for almost 2 hours, participating in our songs, activities and discussions. The turn out sent the message to us that parents are full of questions about kindergarten and are ready to work with us to help their children.

Our parent center coordinator began by having the parents fill out sticky notes to answer 5 questions:
-What are your hopes and dreams for your kindergartner?
-What routines do you have in place at home?
-What can you do to help your child learn to read?
-Why is kindergarten important?
-General questions about kindergarten

The parents were soon up and moving, scribbling their thoughtful reflections and sticking them onto our boards. I wasn't sure the parents would feel comfortable sharing but they soon conquered any hesitancy they had and were proud to add their own sticky note to the collection.

I think we learned so much from just reading their answers to our questions. Walking around the room I found myself with chills from their thoughtful responses and their sincere desires for their children to be wonderful members of society. 

Parents Hopes and Dreams 

  
Some other hopes and dreams: "go to college & finish his education successfully"

"I hope my child’d go to the good college. He wants to be a doctor."

"I want my child to be a better person that she can be. And I believe education is one of the key things that makes that happen."

-el sueno para mi hijo en un future seria que el llege a obtener una carrera universitaria

-que sea un doctor o un abogado pero sob rer todo quesea una persona horada y humanitario

-quiero que tenga una carrera universitaria y que este bien preparada

-mis suenos son que mi hijo tenga carrera universitayia y que se un ejemplo para los demas

Why is kindergarten important?

When we shared out their notes I watched the parents smile- trying not to give away that it was their addition to the board, but clearly happy to share their thoughts and ideas with the group. They nodded affirmations throughout, sharing their passion for their children's future and their firm beliefs in the importance of kindergarten.





Later in the program we had the parents get into groups and develop bedtime routines and then share out what they'd written. I have to admit when I first heard my parent-coordinator suggest this idea I was skeptical- make them come up with a bedtime routine? Wont they be insulted?
It turned out to be an amazing exercise, mostly because the parents were not learning from us, but instead they were listening to one another's ideas. Their 'aha' moments did not come from being lectured to, but from honest and open conversations with peers.

I loved listening in on their conversations and seeing them whisper ideas or affirmations to one another as they plotted the best way to get a five year old to sleep.

We typed up what our parents shared on their sticky notes to share with the rest of the teachers on the kindergarten team. The insights we gained from the notes will help us prepare for our parent conferences and help us understand what sort of literacy background our children have.

  

Nothing I say here can begin to capture the excitement and energy in the room this morning. I can't wait for our December meeting. Hopefully I'll be able to use my newly-discovered stats knowledge to find meaningful ways to collect and measure the data. 

"teaching is a cognitively challenging process"

i'm spending sunday working on grad school work (after becoming motivated by listening to educon this morning). in my (last!!) class we are assigned to do a research project. i'm not allowed to use my teacher research on the impact of a sound system on esol students' language development because i'd already started it (grrr...) that aside, i've settled on a topic i'm excited to be working on. i'm looking at the impact special education teachers have on providing support to classroom teachers in terms of helping them manage the behavior of the included students. as a previous classroom teacher i know what it is like to listen to people give advice on how to make everything run perfectly, and want to throw up my hands in frustration that i can't make their perfect advice work in reality.

i just finished reading a article from educational psychologist on classroom management (emmer, t. & stough, l, 2001). i was struck by quite a few of their arguments.

1- research has found that the teachers' instructional goals for their students and the characteristics of the students have to be congruent with teachers' management styles. too often they are not, which leads teachers telling students they encourage open-ended discussion but then punishing students when their voices are too loud during that discussion. or giving the students manipulatives and then yelling at them when they touch them. this struck a cord because i think this is where i struggled as a classroom teacher. everything i did was in learning groups- i was always putting kids together with a fairl open-ended task and then letting them go and solving a puzzle that would then prove the science/social studies/ or math topic we were learning. but i hated knowing that my room looked like chaos if someone walked in during the height of the creativity. so i'd let the excited voices or the chaotic environment drive me crazy and punish the kids for it, because i felt like i would be judged as a teacher for not having a quiet classroom instead of having a conversational, inquisitive classroom. my blog title actually came from one of these days when i knew i was in total control of the disastrous looking project that was going on in my classroom. every kid was engaged in discussion and was experimenting with art supplies to reflect a book character. one girl was wrapped up in netting because she was trying to measure it (i was making them use their math skills too) and had somehow ended up with it wrapped around her. she was, at that moment, totally in the world of measuring the netting for her book character, the netting being used to show some aspect of the character revealed in the book (can't remember what it is now), but, i realized how out of control she looked at that moment. she was applying skills, but it sure was messy. sadly i feel like i never really managed to feel comfortable with that being ok, and in turn drove myself out of the classroom.

2- research has also found that teacher perception of classroom management and behavior is key to good classroom management (which seems like a duh, but is kind of the idea behind my research- part of my job is helping the classroom teachers perceive my kids in a way that will help both my kid's behavior and the teacher's sanity). one research paper (from 1981, so very old) found that the best classroom management comes from teachers who are able to adapt and change to meet the context of their students, lessons, and can respond to events in the classroom immediately and appropriately (why your first years of teaching are so very hard). the quote that i love the most from this (which i feel should justify why we should stopped being looked at as a lesser-profession but equal to drs and lawyers) is that "teaching is a cognitively challenging process in which teachers are continuously required to make decisions" what it doesn't say is that these decisions are made under stress with 20 crazy children staring at you (or not when they should be) while you're trying to remember what's important to teach, when the field trip money has to be in, and how to best calm down a class.

alright, back to work...

we are awesome

they say a good co-teaching relationship is like a good marriage. sometimes i think my co-teacher and i are more like brilliant business partners destined to earn millions- our brains together sometimes come up with fantastic ideas.

one of our little ones occasionally never wants to leave the classroom when the class goes to specials. we've tried everything- ignoring her, forcing her (this doesn't go well), carrying her, getting an administrator, etc. everything is a battle. once she gets to the special she's fine, it's just getting her out of the classroom to actually get there.

so, last monday when she refused to go i felt like pulling my hair out. i was stuck- what to do- this habit has got to stop. i stood outside of the classroom where i could see her but she couldn't see me. when my co-teacher got back from dropping the rest of the class off we stood outside the door- trapped between not wanting to give her the attention she wanted and not being able to go into the classroom to get work done.

and then, we had an idea. we're using an fm sound system for our teacher research project. because it's an old school fm system and not the new, fancy infra-red system it will transmit when you are outside of the room as long as you are close enough to the transmitter. which means you have to remember to turn it off when you go to the bathroom or the class may hear everything. or, it means that you can talk to someone from outside the room and they can't see you, or talk back.

we got a teacher whose voice would not be recognizable and asked her to talk into the mike, telling this little one that staying in the classroom was not ok, she had to go to music. and that she had to leave the classroom by the time she counted to five.

the little one, laying on the carpet in the room sat up when the speaker called her name but she couldn't see who was talking to her. then, when it seemed some god was telling her to leave the classroom she slowly got up. by '5' her little nose poked out of the door frame. we immediately grabbed her and said, "good choice!" and pulled her off to music as though some mysterious voice had not just asked her to leave the room.

it may never work again, but i have to say it was incredible to see her little face come out of the room, wondering if god had been directing her to go to music. because so much of her actions are for attention this took away the human interaction part. she earned time with an adult once she left the room, but from inside the room she could only hear a voice.

sometimes i find teaching special ed is all about the creativity. you find something that works, do it until it doesn't work, and then find something else, even more creative.

moving on over

i decided i didn't want to take up room on organized chaos by taking notes on my mini-teacher research project on house keeping. so instead i'm moving over to: http://literacyinhousekeeping.blogspot.com/ to keep my notes and reflect on how it's going. this way if you're not interested in my project at all you don't have to read about it. however, if you are i'd love your comments! part of my project is to hear about what works for others out there and get ideas from you all. Please comment and give me your ideas!
Thanks!

adventures in housekeeping 2

*i am going to be reflecting on my mini-teacher-research project on my blog over the next couple months. the posts 'adventures in housekeeping' may not prove to be exciting or interesting, but writing it out here will help me organize my thoughts as i explore how we can add literacy in house keeping.*

today i scrambled to get my writing paper and markers ready for the 4 children in the housekeeping center. i had no idea what would happen when i suggested, "wow, is this a restaurant, we need a sign!" frankly i expected them to ignore me. "yeah!" one girl said. "we'll call it the 'grown-ups only cafe'"

and so we did.

so we got the markers and paper and i introduced the small group to interactive writing as we made our sign. then it was back to playing restaurant, until one little boy announced, "now we're closed!!"

"really?" i asked. "maybe we need another sign..." (would they fall for it again?)

"yeah!" the boy exclaimed. "i need paper, scissors, and a string please". we got supplies we could find, and problem solved around the ones we couldn't. we completed a fast interactive writing sign (open on one side, closed on the other) and the kids proudly taped it up.

one little girl was interested in the paper but really wasn't ready for letters and signs. she made her own with print-like symbols and proudly taped it up as well. since it is play i went ahead and let her.

right as the bell to end free-choice rang i had one little girl started on making her own menu. we'll see if we can continue the excitement later.

lessons from today: tomorrow i need to bring the alphabet chart to help them remember what certain letters look like!

beginning my adventures in house keeping

i've decided that this year i'm going to do a mini-teacher research project on using the house keeping center in kindergarten as a teaching tool. one of our headstart teachers has the most incredible house keeping center i've ever seen, with literacy opportunities hidden inside their play area. i'm obsessed and excited to try it on my own.

the last few days i have just sat beside the house keeping center, accepting the meals cooked for me by the students (yum, yum, yum, a sandwich made of plastic pizza, hamburger bun, and banana) and chatted with them on the play phones. i've brought in take-out menus they give me that i can select my meals from, and a pad of paper they scribble on to take my order. i've also brought in a phone book but this doesn't seem to be catching their interest at all, so it may soon go to give more valuable space elsewhere.

even though these 20 minutes of house keeping have been uneventful i've been excited about the possibilities that are presenting themselves. my kiddos who tend not to talk much in the classroom, and who have signifigant speech impediments talk wildly on the "phone" to me. when i ask them to clarify something or use their words they don't put their head down and mumble as they may on the carpet. into the phone they repeat themselves with more clarity, making themselves heard so that i know that they want me to cook them a fake pizza.

a few of them love to set up a restaurant and one boy continues to "leave to go to cooking school". next time i want to have paper and markers near by so we can make signs for cooking school and make a sign for the name of the restaurant. we'll see if he lets me interrupt the play for a writing activity...

it has also given me the opportunity to bond with a few children i feel i have done nothing but re-direct since they entered our classroom. sitting on the carpet at story time the little ones impulses do nothing but distract others, but during house keeping they play nicely, sharing and chatting, giving me the opportunity to interact with them without constantly reminding them how we act in kindergarten.

i'm not sure this project will take off, or if it will prove to be much more than 20 minutes of me "eating" fake food 3 times a week, but so far i'm hoping it will give me the opportunity to:

1. create meaningful literacy activities in play
2. coach my children with special needs on their social skills in a meaningful, natural way
3. create play opportunities we can later take back and write about during writing workshop.

we'll see how it goes!

sick day

its a beautiful spring day and i'm stuck at home, again, with strep. the dr originally told me i didn't have strep, so i went back to work wed., thinking i wasn't going to spend another day at home being a baby about some tiny sore throat. (i also tried to go to work tuesday but quickly realized i wasn't going to function so i drove home.)

then the dr called to tell me they had my lab results and yes, they were wrong, i have strep, and was still contagious. so, now i'm home again, not getting my coworkers sick (although i may have done that yesterday~ sorry). home, tired, and bored.

i also have to miss tonight's teacher research conference, which i am really disappointed to miss. my coworkers have been working all year on some interesting research projects, and i was looking forward to hearing them present. i love that i work at a place where everyone is investigating their teaching, and i hope i'll get another chance to hear their findings sometime soon.

house keeping and the power of play

yesterday i attended the morning sessions of a conference on early childhood. i went last year and continue to be impressed at the speakers and resources this organization brings together. it gives me so much hope for my community that there is an organization like this working out there.

the opening speaker gave us numbers. he told us the number of words a 3 year old hears in a middle class household, compared to the number of words a 3 year old hears in a low-income household. then he broke down those words into the percent of positive words a 3 year old hears in a middle class household vs the amount of negative words, and he did the same for the low-income households. (i of course wrote these down and then left my notes in my car, which on this early Sunday morning seems like a lot of work to go get. So I'll post the numbers/facts/figures tomorrow. today is just anecdotal.)

it was stunning to see how many more negative words are said in a low-income household than positive words. yet truthfully the numbers didn't surprise anyone in the room. when i am in kindergarten for free choice time i am always awed by the house keeping center. there are days i'd like to sit and just listen to the drama in house keeping because it gives me such insight into the worlds of my kiddos.

on wednesday i was in a classroom for housekeeping when i witnessed a 'domestic dispute'. one little girl called the cops on the play phone and then reported to the pretend father and son, "they said just get 'em", at which point the father and son grabbed plastic knives from the play dough center and began to have a knife-fight in the kitchen. when the knives were taken away and the boys were redirected they first tried to argue "the police told us to!" and then "if we're good can we get the knives back?"

when they'd finally forgotten about the knives the pretend father told everyone in the house hold to "GET IN THE CAR! YOU'RE GOING TO COLLEGE" he pointed at one girl, "I'M TAKING YOU TO HIGH SCHOOL AND YOU'RE GOIN' SHOPPING BECAUSE THAT'S ALL YOU DO!! SIT DOWN AND PUT YOUR SEAT BELTS ON. I SAID PUT YOUR SEAT BELTS ON OR I'M NOT GETTING ANYONE MCDONALDS. PUT 'EM ON NOW."

i guess its good to know that his family is pretty firm about the seat belt rule.

the next session i attended was on play. i've always been fascinated on the power of play in school and am now thinking that next year i may do my teacher research on play in the housekeeping center in kindergarten. (more on this later).

the speaker presented her fascinating research from her phd project. for one part of her study she read a story to different groups of children. some of the groups were told at the end of the story, "wow! wouldn't it be fun to build a house for the kids in the story! you could put up walls and doors and give the kids a place to play..." and lots more detailed suggestions about what the kids could do. she then video taped the children working together on building elaborate structures for the story.

the other groups were told, "now you have to go build a house for the kids in the story. you have to put in tall walls and doors and give the kids a place to play..." the exact same "suggestions" the first groups were given, except instead of suggestions they were direct instructions. she video taped those groups as well.

the difference in the groups was stunning. the play groups created elaborate, creative structures and pleasantly debated and shared their ideas for the house. the structured groups ended up in fights as the kids argued over what they were suppose to do and whose idea was best. the structured groups structure were not nearly as creative, but then again she had to stop most of those groups early because fights broke out.

she gave them a post-assessment to see if there was carry-over from the original lesson. the creative groups showed powerful carry-over in skills of working together and building with blocks, and created more elaborate structures than before. the structured groups showed little to no carry-over from their first task.

i was riveted by this research.

when i taught first grade i devoted the last 20 minutes of my day (or how ever many minutes the children earned in our behavior management plan) to a free choice period where they could access any learning materials we use during the school day. the fun indoor recess games were off limits, but they were welcome to play in the science center, explore with the math manipulatives, read books, write letters, or create structures from card board boxes in the art center. i took notes on what they did, and through their choices led them to 'guided learning' on their current interests. it was my absolute favorite part of the day, but a time when i shut the door and never really told anyone what we did during those 20 minutes. free choice is kindergarten stuff, isn't it? i thought, though i knew full well that the measurement skills my kiddos learned during free choice stuck with them longer than what i taught them in math.

now that i have this research i feel a little more secure in my 20 minute free choice time. if i ever go back into the classroom at least i'll be able to back up my plan with research.

i learned so much more on the power of play and am still mulling ideas over in my mind for next year's research project. more to come on that, i'm sure.

sadly i needed to leave the conference early, but i believe my principal won an award from the organization. i'm so excited she received this honor.

i work at such an incredible place.

teacher research

I've come to believe that teacher research is what can save public education.
My school participates in the teacher research program, which gives us half a day a month to come together, discuss one idea or question we have, and dive deeply into investigation the idea. The school lines up substitutes for us and even hosts the event at the nearby school board building where we get to go and pretend we are busy professionals for a day.
Not only do we get to explore a problem of our choice, but this sends a message that, as a teacher:

1. You are an important professional.
2. Your ideas, questions, and observations matter.
3. Your critical thinking can help children succeed.
4. You have ownership of your classroom. Your ideas, thoughts, and actions can change your kids.

Google gives is employees time to investigate a new creative idea. They support an 80/20 rule, where employees are expected to spend 20% of their time exploring their own creativity that may, or may not benefit the company. Though most of these projects don't turn out, the 20% time is credited for giving us Gmail and other handy google practices.
Unlike programs like NCLB that limit a teacher's creativity, ownership, and professional judgement in the classroom, teacher research allows teachers to see themselves as an integral part of education. And we all know from working with kids, if a child sees himself as an important, valued part of a project he's a lot more likely to work harder and take ownership in the results.

Success!

My research partner and I breathed a sigh of relief as the last person walked away from our poster presentation. Success! We were finished, and not only finished but we felt so good about how it went. The day before I'd been looking at the background of the other poster-presentations and realized that most of the presenters were associated with universities, were presenting their PHD research, or a project they worked on with their research assistants. It started to look like we were WAY out of our league.

Thanks to the fabulous help we got from the TMPC to put together our posters, we at least looked professional. We were happy with our posters, but at the 1st session of poster presentations we realized most of the presenters had business cards to hand out. A trip to Office Depot fixed that and though we ended up staying up until 11pm fixing our brochures and making last minute changes, we were ready with our posters, brochures, and business cards at 7:30 the next day.

Waiting for the white-out to dry at 11pm

Though I may have been the only person at the conference without my masters, the poster session was certainly a rush. I loved discussing our research with others and getting their feedback. Bring on this year's teacher research!!