Over the last nine and a half years, one thing that I have really found myself interested in is the building of background knowledge and oral language. When I first began teaching, right out of college, letter knowledge and letter sound association were a major focus. Over the years, the focus has shifted some to sight words and fluency. The ultimate goal for any child related to literacy is to comprehend the story which in all those other things are components of comprehension. However, I might be going out on a limb when I say this but I really believe that background knowledge and oral language are two keys to developing children who not only can read but enjoy it so much they will choose it over other preferred activities.
I have always known how important background knowledge has been but the transition of a teacher who is simply teaching phonemic awareness and phonics to the teacher who now also focuses on comprehension began somewhere in the middle of this nine and a half year career. Even as adults, we have mechanisms for filing away new knowledge or finding where to place that knowledge where it can be easily accessed. The journey through the last few years is how to help five and six year olds do that. Would I tell you it begins with a child's background knowledge and oral language? I do believe that children remember those things we teach but the content is much more powerful when it is connected to a file that already exists. While my journey has been partially about that, the bigger issue for the population that I teach is what to do to help them organize information they have into files and how to give them information for the empty files. All while meeting the different needs of the variety of learners in the classroom.
The beginning of the journey began with the age old way of teaching a letter a week and focusing content around that specific letter. Around year 4, began to realize this approach did not work for the advanced part of kindergarten classes and it most certainly did not work for the strugglers. As my state was forcing time quality analysis of our teaching time, my biggest epiphany was that spending 26 weeks to introduce all the letters was a waste of time. Even average children did not benefit from this. Why was I devoting 26 weeks and the focus on instruction on the alphabet? I knew that some letters children pick up quickly and others like that dreaded letter u can take multiple antics or instructional periods. All letters of the alphabet were not created equal. I wish I could go back to those first two kindergarten classes and change the instruction that I gave those groups of children.
For the last few years, alphabet knowledge has not been the "focus" of literacy instruction. That is not to say that I do not teach letters of the alphabet, letter sound correspondence, phonemic awareness, or phonics because I absolutely do. It just happens that I do not focus on one letter a week and do not wait until that magic moment to teach those letters that are so difficult for some children to grasp while others have already mastered them. I have had several conversations with colleagues in my building and colleagues across my district about this. I am not saying that for those teachers who still use a letter a week approach that they are bad teachers. I just feel as though my own practice outgrew it years ago. It does not mean that I am not continually reflecting on the choices I make because I am, all the time.
I am a member of the International Reading Association and receive The Reading Teacher regularly. There are some months where I simply glance at the articles and other months where I am drawn into the content. The most recent publication has an article titled New Insights About Letter Learning. I flipped to it almost immediately. Before reading it, I pondered about what the content would say - would it support my decisions over the last few years or contradict it. Teaching is hard - decisions are made and sometimes you make them with to the best of your ability but you have no idea if they are the right ones. I constantly wonder about instructional decisions and practices that I make. Am I making the right calls? It is easy to get in the habit of doing something just because you have always done it but that is not what is best for children or for your growth as an educator either.
The article confirmed my knowledge about letter of the week which also supports the time I spend developing children's filing systems in their brains. When I was at NAEYC, many of the conversations or research is discussing about how different children are today. They are coming to us without the resources to do things that as "schools" we expect them to do. For example, my kindergarteners struggle with perspective taking and self control. Those are both functions of the brain that are not being supported in the early years which is causing those children to in turn struggle when they come to school.
I am teaching in a world where the expectations have grown and the children that I am teaching are not coming as equipped to meet those expectations. Where does the responsibility fall? I will take on as much of it as I can while being true to the children that are in my classroom each year. I still believe in pushing children to meet those expectations but also in giving myself some room that I cannot be responsible when children do not always meet those expectations. If my responsibility is to the children and the relationship that I have with them, then I believe that too goes back to background knowledge.
All children come to kindergarten eager to learn even if the tools they are carrying in their tool box are not all the same. The struggle continues to be how to equip them as necessary not to just be successful in room 29 but in first grade and in life.
I really love the learning and development that goes on during December. It is all about finding ways to embrace their excitement and translate into learning and things they will remember. In our classroom, we story map various versions of The Gingerbread Man using our whiteboard. My favorite part of mapping out the versions is the conversations that it promotes.
For the last few years, alphabet knowledge has not been the "focus" of literacy instruction. That is not to say that I do not teach letters of the alphabet, letter sound correspondence, phonemic awareness, or phonics because I absolutely do. It just happens that I do not focus on one letter a week and do not wait until that magic moment to teach those letters that are so difficult for some children to grasp while others have already mastered them. I have had several conversations with colleagues in my building and colleagues across my district about this. I am not saying that for those teachers who still use a letter a week approach that they are bad teachers. I just feel as though my own practice outgrew it years ago. It does not mean that I am not continually reflecting on the choices I make because I am, all the time.
I am a member of the International Reading Association and receive The Reading Teacher regularly. There are some months where I simply glance at the articles and other months where I am drawn into the content. The most recent publication has an article titled New Insights About Letter Learning. I flipped to it almost immediately. Before reading it, I pondered about what the content would say - would it support my decisions over the last few years or contradict it. Teaching is hard - decisions are made and sometimes you make them with to the best of your ability but you have no idea if they are the right ones. I constantly wonder about instructional decisions and practices that I make. Am I making the right calls? It is easy to get in the habit of doing something just because you have always done it but that is not what is best for children or for your growth as an educator either.
The article confirmed my knowledge about letter of the week which also supports the time I spend developing children's filing systems in their brains. When I was at NAEYC, many of the conversations or research is discussing about how different children are today. They are coming to us without the resources to do things that as "schools" we expect them to do. For example, my kindergarteners struggle with perspective taking and self control. Those are both functions of the brain that are not being supported in the early years which is causing those children to in turn struggle when they come to school.
I am teaching in a world where the expectations have grown and the children that I am teaching are not coming as equipped to meet those expectations. Where does the responsibility fall? I will take on as much of it as I can while being true to the children that are in my classroom each year. I still believe in pushing children to meet those expectations but also in giving myself some room that I cannot be responsible when children do not always meet those expectations. If my responsibility is to the children and the relationship that I have with them, then I believe that too goes back to background knowledge.
All children come to kindergarten eager to learn even if the tools they are carrying in their tool box are not all the same. The struggle continues to be how to equip them as necessary not to just be successful in room 29 but in first grade and in life.
I really love the learning and development that goes on during December. It is all about finding ways to embrace their excitement and translate into learning and things they will remember. In our classroom, we story map various versions of The Gingerbread Man using our whiteboard. My favorite part of mapping out the versions is the conversations that it promotes.
We used a Venn Diagram to compare The Gingerbread Girl. The work is all theirs but the writing is a mix of shared and interactive writing. We had already stretched out the word fox in our other story maps so it was fun listening to them realize we did not have to stretch it out again and again because we had resources. When we talked about the setting being the country, we talked about the ending try and used a little boy's name in our class to help figure out the tr. The y having an /e/ sound or sometimes an /i/ is something we have been discussing lately and that they brought up when we wrote the word.
We also used a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast The Gingerbread Boy.
We labeled the gingerbread man using interactive writing.
We looked at story sequence including the beginning, middle, and end with The Polar Express. It always amazes me how excited children get over a 25 cent bell with a tag and ribbon that has been in the freezer. Wouldn't life be so much better if we all approached it with that simplicity?
My favorite holiday story is How The Grinch Stole Christmas. I really enjoy working on understanding how Seuss developed the character of the Grinch through the story. We used one of my favorite graphic organizers to do this, a Venn Diagram. My Winter party was themed around the story!
I began reading Mosaics of Thought and Teaching With Intention by Debbie Miller, author of Reading With Meaning. I have read the second book before but sometimes the reread comes at the perfect time. There are so many things on this career that are beyond my control (and my district's) but I believe if I focus on developing children who love books through the extension of building background knowledge then everything else will fall in place. If I make intentional decisions where my students learning styles and backgrounds are accounted for then this will happen. My resolution fr the second half of this year and 2015 is to focus on the things I can control and my children. Someone else can worry about all the rest.
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