At the Heart of Teaching - From the front lines of early childhood and elementary teaching.

Conceptual Understandings For Kindergarten Writers

The video that I am sharing in this post was filmed about two months into the school year. I wasn’t even in the classroom at the time but I am so glad that our assistant teacher sensed that the moment was one to document. It has been my inspiration as I work to facilitate the development of Kindergarten writers ever since.

Background:

Jude worked on this story over the course of at least six writer’s workshop sessions. At the time, my overall goal for the class was to move from static pictures (this is my family) to pictures that tell a story (this is the time my family was picnicking at the river and a bunch of birds got into our food). The conceptual understanding that stories move through characters and events was one that this group was ready for. As they developed their understanding, we worked on drawing skills, such as focusing on the shapes and colors of the characters, to help them effectively communicate their ideas to their readers.

Jude came to Kindergarten already understanding that stories include characters and a series of events. Research has told us time and again that literacy is best supported at home by reading aloud to our children and enjoying and consuming a variety of texts together. I never felt the need to ask because I’m pretty sure that Jude’s home life is infused with rich experiences delving into stories with his family. The story in the video exhibited way more than he could have picked up in his short school career. Not only did he demonstrate an understanding of the role of characters and events, but Jude also demonstrated an understanding of problem/solution, one of the most common story structures. He knew that he had to create an appropriate setting. He knew that his story needed a satisfying ending. He had an idea of how he wanted his story to affect his reader. He was committed to the task with absolutely no mandates from the adults in the room.

Researching the writer:

I came in on this story in the planning stages. Jude was drawing pictures of the wolf, which could have easily been mistaken for static pictures. However, on this day, I sat down beside Jude for a conference and learned that there was so much more to the wolf. Jude told me that the wolf was in the forest and that he, the main character, was scared when he saw the wolf. I could sense that Jude was still considering how far he would take this drawing and I thought carefully about how to move this writer further. I asked, “so what did the character do?” Jude told me he wasn’t sure yet. I stayed silent. A few breaths later and as he continued to work on his drawing, “no, wait, he’s gonna trap the wolf.”

“Ohhh!” I asked Jude to tell me how the story went again, checking if he would hold on to the series of events. In a way that only a writer who truly owns his idea can do, Jude told me his story, in the third person, as if he was reading it straight out of a book. I don’t need to type it here as it was not much different from the story you hear him reading in the video.

Deciding on a teaching point:

I considered my options for leveraging Jude’s enthusiasm and momentum. I could introduce code, suggesting that he label some of the pictures, “Jude” and “the wolf”, perhaps. But I hadn’t seen Jude make a move towards print yet and knew that it would come when he was ready. Instead, I opted to go a different route, one which I hoped would support his efforts to tell stories which included a series of events. One which I hoped would equip him to continue telling stories just like this one, whenever he wanted. I chose to help him explicitly recognize his events by telling his story back to him over the fingers of my hand, tapping one finger for each event. He caught on right away so I kept going. I introduced him to the idea of making a booklet when he noticed that his stories had more than one event. We talked about how each finger meant that we needed to turn the page. The result can be seen in the video, alongside all of the amazing thinking Jude did all on his own. He continues to turn the pages with events in his stories and is also experimenting with turning the page when writing information.

Where is this writer now?

Jude continues to love reading and writing stories. He also engages in the creating and sharing of stories in other ways. Our class is at least three puppet shows richer due to his imagination and his play often results in a story unfolding, be it in the building area or role-play center, the art corner or at recess.

Jude’s ability to encode his ideas has developed steadily as well. He knows where to find the words he needs if they are familiar to our class and he has an age-appropriate understanding and use of letter-sound relationships. However, I have noticed that these are most evident when he has an idea that he is passionate about sharing. An idea that came from him. When asked, he will dutifully produce words on the page but at this point, asking him to do so often brings an obvious and unnecessary frustration which impedes his creativity and stifles his enthusiasm. In a field where it has become clear that literacy is so much more than encoding and decoding, where it has been proven that jumping to code and valuing the use of code as an indicator of literacy development is inappropriate and often even detrimental to our youngest learners, Jude is a powerful reminder that there is so much more.

As I already said, I am so grateful that this writer was captured on video but he is not alone. He represents the countless young learners who are investigating their world through and with language. It is a powerful reminder of how much there really is to language and literacy development and how, in the early years, it is vital that we don’t let the rush to learn letter names and sounds impede the rich experiences that will serve to support and motivate a move towards print as and when students are ready.

Writing Development In Kindergarten: Case Study HG

Just as I am now, every year, I take some time to look back on the development of my Kindergarten writers over the course of the year. While the instructional decisions I make are based on weekly formative assessments and reflection on individual and group needs, it has been really interesting to go back and look at how far they’ve come and how they got there. I find that there is nothing more powerful than looking at student work as a way to develop even more as a writing teacher so I thought I would start to share some of these on my blog. Here are some samples from the writing life of one of my Kindergarteners last year, in chronological order.

HG’s development as a writer from September to April

At the start of the year, as was the case with most of my Kindergarteners, HG used pictures to put his ideas on paper. We looked back at the first writing samples together and he noticed immediately how much he has grown in his ability to add details to his drawings.

"It makes sense that this was from the beginning of the year because I used hardly any details." — “It makes sense that this was from the beginning of the year because I used hardly any details.”

"This is my tooth fairy. She is a maple fairy. I used more detail." — “This is my tooth fairy. She is a maple fairy. I used more detail.”

By mid-year, HG had started choosing his character or subject before putting marks on the page. He was able to discuss his color choices and point out details like parts of the body and shapes that he had purposefully added. He was beginning to experiment with strings of letters to represent words.

"I used lots more details like colors and shapes." — “I used lots more details like colors and shapes.”

It wasn’t long before HG was using words that he knew, such as proper names of family, friends and familiar toys, and starting to use letters to represent initial and dominant sounds.

During our unit on all-about books, HG demonstrated an understanding that there are spaces between words and started crafting sentences to match his pictures.

HG recognizes that he sometimes forgets to do some of the things he already knows to do to make sure his reader understands what he’s written.

"I need to add more details, like hair, color and feet." — “I need to add more details, like hair, color and feet.”

Looking At Student Writing: Tips and a Case Study

Looking at student work is one of the most powerful sources of professional development available. Collaboratively looking at student work increases that value beyond measure. Whether on our own or with colleagues, the time we take to look deeply at student’s writing helps us to develop a plan for how to support individual writers in their stage of development at a given moment. It also helps us develop our own understanding and recognition of the stages of development, as well as the many bends in the road for a developing writer.

It is so important to consider all aspects of the developing writer in the early years. Teachers can quickly become distracted by the amount of print that may or may not be on the page, or by the control the writer might exhibit over his or her drawings.

Here are two tips for looking at student writing samples:

Know the background: if it is your student, you probably already do. If it is a student you don’t work with, it is crucial to know more about the process the student has gone through, what he or she has said during conferences or at other times regarding the writing. So much of the “work” our youngest writers do is not detectable on the page alone. That which is detectable often needs the curation of an adult who was along for the journey. If collaboratively looking at work samples, I recommend using a modified version of a protocol such as LAST or ATLAS. Protocols such as these provide the opportunity to get a more inclusive picture of the “work” that has been done.
Resist the urge to compare writers: Unless you are looking to better understand what different stages of writing look like in the context of a group of students, I see very little value in comparing different writers. More often, the comparison of writers leads to a “ranking.” Such ranking often neglects the many facets of a writer’s development which are not immediately apparent when comparing one student’s writing to that of another writer. Alternatively, looking at several samples of the same writer’s work over time, brings his or her individual development to the surface and can be very powerful in helping us to make decisions about how best to support that writer. For me, this is also a very encouraging practice as I often see so much more growth when I see a collection of a student’s writing over time. The samples below are a collection of one Kindergartener’s writing over time.

What do you notice about the development of this writer over the course of eight months?

Me, My Mommy and My Sister-November 2018

When My Mommy Took Me Out Of My Crib-January 2019

When the teacher wore pj's to school-March 2019 — When the teacher wore pj’s to school-March 2019

Parent-Led Lesson Surfaces Conceptual Transfer

Last week I was having one of those days where I was doubting a lot of what I believe that Kindergarten students can do. In hindsight, I realize that there were probably three things creating that doubt. It probably started with my own state, which was exhausted. Then, I was impatient. We were in week four of our #ibpyp unit of inquiry and I wanted to see more evidence of conceptual transfer. Finally, when I voiced my doubts, the response from some people was that I was probably aiming too high. I was ready to go hide in the book corner and surround myself Mo Willems’ pigeon when our guest artist, a parent of one of our students, arrived for her big lesson.

Conceptual Understanding Is Transferable

If you’ve read my recent posts, you know that our students are inquiring into how artists use their art to express emotions and ideas. You’ll also know that our key concepts are form and perspective. In hindsight, the unit has been going pretty well. Students have been exploring and discussing different forms within and outside of the discipline of art. They have been talking about the emotions and moods that they feel are represented in a piece of art. They have been acknowledging and appreciating each other’s differing perspectives. I realize now that I was looking for an opportunity for them to transfer all of this to a new and novel situation. The opportunity was still to come.

Bring In the Parent-Led Lesson

Our guest artist/Mom had been planning to share her expertise with us for a few weeks. She is a passionate artist who specializes in calligraphy. We were excited that our students would have the opportunity to be exposed to another art form, as well as to interact with an artist from our learning community. Our guest mom was understandably a bit nervous to share with a group of five-year-olds but felt confident that she had an idea that would keep our Kindergarteners engaged. From the perspective of a concept-based, PYP teacher, she had so much more than that.

The Perfect Provocations

Our guest artist set up the room with Kindergarten-friendly calligraphy tools. She had clearly put a lot of thought into providing authentic tools which were still developmentally appropriate for five-year-olds. There was a watercolor station with special “calligraphy” paint markers and there were stations set up with sets of color pencils, taped together to make multicolor calligraphy pens that had a wide grip. All stations had large sheets of plain paper, waiting for our students to transform them.

When the students entered the room, they saw their “atelier” set up and ready for them. They also saw that there would be a meeting on the carpet first. Our guest was waiting next to our screen, where she had a short slideshow to share with them.

The slideshow was powerful. The students were shown some images of calligraphy being used in environmental print around the neighborhood. They saw restaurant boards and signs on stores. Our guest asked our students to share their thoughts about the different signs. Students noticed that some of them looked happy or sad. They connected these feelings to the colors of the signs at first. One student pointed out that if you use red (see the photo below), it will make people angry. Our guest artist acknowledged this and then invited them to look deeper. “Have a look at the actual letters and how they seem to feel. Do they play a role?”

My teacher heart was bubbling over. Our guest was inviting our students to do precisely the type of slow and purposeful looking that we had been practicing for weeks. Sure enough, the students began focusing their attention on the form of the letters, the fonts if you will. A conversation ensued about how letters can feel happy or sad, silly or serious.

Our guest artist built on this by asking students which colors and styles they thought might express different emotions when creating art with letters. She demonstrated their ideas as they shared-silly would be yellow and swirly, for example.

Once a few examples were shared, the students were invited to visit the stations where they could express emotions by creating art with letters. One last thing before they went off as my teaching partner, with her lightening-quick instincts interjected. She asked the students to help us all remember which letters we had been learning and led them through a lightning-quick review, where they wrote some of those letters in the air or on the carpet.

Opportunity For Transfer

After our guest mom had packed up and gone in search of coffee, I realized how much our students had transferred. By sharing the environmental print with the students, our guest had given them the opportunity to transfer what they understood about the role of color, line, shape, and movement in fine art, to the role they play in advertising and other forms of print. Students were able to deepen their understanding of form and how the choices an artist makes creates what their art expresses. They also had yet another opportunity to explore their different perspectives on how they viewed a piece of art.

How lucky our students are to be a part of such a caring and sharing learning community. How lucky I was to have this opportunity to witness a fantastic example of how authentic parent involvement can enhance the learning in our classrooms. Even more, I am grateful for the reminder that even our youngest learners are capable of so much and how important it is that we continue to aim high for them. #yestheycan

Exploring Concepts In Our Kindergarten Unit

Over the past few weeks, our Kindergarten students have been exploring the key concepts, form and perspective during our “How We Express Ourselves” unit, “Communicating Through Art.” Related concepts, including emotions, communication, self-expression, line, shape, movement and color, have driven the inquiries within, and often across the disciplines.

Using Related Understandings

The #ibpyp has reaffirmed the related concepts as integral to the teaching and learning in a PYP classroom. I find that an increased focus on the related concepts makes the learning much clearer and more accessible to students. Taking them further and creating additional, “related understandings,” provides learners with an opportunity to work towards learning goals that are directly linked to Scope and Sequence requirements. While doing so, they are building an understanding of conceptual relationships that support understanding of the key concepts and central idea. Here are some of the related understandings I have been using to drive the learning in our current unit:

We can express our ideas and emotions through art.
Artists make choices when creating their art, which may make their audience feel or think a certain way.
People can have different ideas about a piece of art.
Having, sharing and respecting different ideas, helps us to see things in new ways and increase our understanding.
We must be listeners as well as speakers in order to have effective communication.

Understanding Concepts

A few weeks ago I introduced the Visible Thinking routine, Looking 10 x 2 to my students. We have since used the routine several times as the students develop their understanding of form and how we can describe what we see. This was described in my post on transdisciplinary learning. As students became more adept at the routine, we started sorting their responses into two groups: attributes that we could point out for everyone to see, and ideas that they had about the art. This brought us to the key concept, perspective, which became a conceptual focus for the ensuing learning.

Above Media: Three students worked together to share what they saw and what they thought of this van Gogh painting. They attempted to sort the recordings by putting the things they saw that they wanted to point out right on the painting and by putting their ideas to the side of the painting.

After a discussion to establish a common definition of perspective, “when people have different ideas about something,” we continued our inquiries with that concept in mind. As we explored and discussed art, stories, and even recess preferences, the concept of perspective kept coming up. Here are some of the ideas that the kindergarten students were overheard expressing last week: #yestheycan

It’s ok if we don’t agree.
I have a different idea about the painting than my group!
Just because I have a different idea, doesn’t mean I don’t like you.
I’m glad that you shared your thinking because now I am changing mine.
It’s good to be different.
I like it when you say you agree or disagree with me. (this was in the context of “it shows you were thinking about what I said and not just your own ideas)
We can’t just say it, we should have reasons for our ideas!

Looking Ahead

The last idea mentioned is where we will pick up. During our next morning meeting, we will go back to this student’s idea about needing to have reasons for our ideas. From there, we will plan together to see how we might explore that idea further in the context of our unit, “Communication Through Art.”

Eight Ways To Use the Understanding Map Right Now

The Understanding Map is one of the products of the work being done at the Visible Thinking and Cultures of Thinking projects at Harvard’s Project Zero. It has been an integral part of the teaching and learning in my classroom since I first learned about it years ago. Its universal applicability and relevance make me consider it as perhaps the one tool I would choose as a teacher if I could have only one. Regardless of age group, context, style of teaching and learning or discipline, the Understanding Map provides a guide to deeper understanding.

I recently introduced the Understanding Map to a group of educators at a workshop on concept-based teaching and learning, which I facilitated with the amazing and deeply knowledgable @gioia_morasch. Working with these educators reminded me of how lucky I am to have received training from Project Zero and how important it is to share the wealth.

This year, I have had the challenge of figuring out the best way of using the Understanding Map to support my Kindergarten students on their learning journey. I find that it is not so very different from how I use it with fourth or fifth graders. Here are some quick tips that work across the grades:

Eight Ways to Use the Understanding Map Right Now

Explicitly let students know that the moves on the Understanding Map are steps our brain takes to help it as it works to build understanding. Depending on the group, I may do this right away, or I may wait until they’ve heard me naming their thinking moves for a while. In either case, I remind them often why these moves are important. This continues until they start reminding each other…and they do!

Name the types of thinking the students are doing when you witness them doing it. “I notice that you backed up your idea with something you can refer back to in the text. Reasoning with evidence is one of the moves we use to help us make sure our understanding makes sense.”

Make connections between the map and what they know they already often do. In many cases, we start with wondering. This is often the easiest move for them to recognize in themselves. Further, by highlighting it as an all-important thinking move on the road to understanding, we encourage them to continue valuing that sense of wonder and curiosity.

I occasionally teach a minilesson to help the students understand what we mean exactly by a particular thinking move. It’s important to note that whenever possible, this is pulled from the thinking or actions of a shared context or the thinking of a peer.

Use Visible Thinking routines. Scaffold students in making connections between the thinking they are doing in the routine and the types of thinking on the Understanding Map.

Perseverance is key! Regardless of age, it can take months of consistently using the language and promoting the importance of a thinking culture in the classroom.

Parents are part of the learning community too! Share the Understanding Map with them and encourage them to use it when discussing their students’ learning at home. We use it at Student-Led Conferences as well.

Post the Understanding Map prominently in your room. With younger students, consider how you can incorporate visuals. At the start, it will serve as a prompt and a reminder for you. Eventually, you will find yourself referring to it alongside the students. Soon enough, your students will start referring to it independently!

Transdisciplinary Learning in Kindergarten

I’ve been thoroughly immersed in exploring the #IBPYP enhancements since the first previews have been available. I have studied and discussed them to the point of geek-like status, excited about the implications they bring for teaching and learning. There is a cushion for teachers and schools to transition gradually as they learn the new version of the program. However, the idea is that the IB has made improvements based on current research. Why not be proactive and start learning and implementing where I can? I’m grateful to my regional colleagues, who have participated in the #pypchat IBAEM recently. This chat has recently served as a forum to collaboratively unpack the enhancements and discuss implementation. I was particularly inspired by a discussion on transdisciplinary learning. This blog post, and the day in my Kindergarten class which it describes, is inspired by that discussion.

Transdisciplinary or Disciplinary?

I have been thinking about transdisciplinary learning for a long time. What should it look like? How can we support it? Do individual disciplines even have a place? I’ve heard many arguments for that one, by the way, and I am still not ready to take a stance. However, I am ready to explore making my program more transdisciplinary and I am willing to take some risks and see where they take my students.

Key Concept Drives the Day

Form is one of the key concepts for our current Kindergarten unit, “Communicating Through Art.” I decided to weave our focus on that key concept much more explicitly throughout our time together in homeroom and linked it to each part of our day. We started by discussing form in our morning meeting. Students then spent the day exploring form, and the idea that we can describe things by looking closely and that we can also make decisions to determine what our own creations are like. This is how the day focusing on form unfolded:

Art Exploration to Get Us Started

Our mornings always start out with open or guided play. For this morning, we set out a variety of art materials to serve as provocations for our Kindergarten students as they entered the room. They had access to fingerpaints, oil pastels, color pencils and markers, playdough and a variety of paper. They were not disappointed. Almost an hour of art exploration ensued, sparking ideas, generating vocabulary and inspiring creativity. Several students collaborated on a piece of art with fingerpaints, discovering how their technique could change the way their project looked and felt with each change they made.

Collaborative creating with fingerpaints

Those artists were quite excited about their creation and were keen to share. We took a photo and posted it on the big screen in our meeting area. Then the whole class had a go at describing what they saw, using the Visible Thinking Routine, “Looking 2 x 10.” Of course, we discussed how their descriptions connected to the key concept of form.

A Little Math

Later in the day, students investigated their names. Again, we revisited the idea that we were focusing on form. They noticed and described how many letters they had, which letters were first, which happened more often or which didn’t happen at all. Next, they compared their names to other names in our community, noticing which names were longer or shorter. Some students started counting the differences as well. One Kindergartener pointed out that some names could be made long or short, using mine as an example. “You could be short (Jen) or long (Jennifer)! An investigation into which names could be shortened or lengthened ensued.

Graphing some of our friends’ names to help us compare.

Form in Writer’s Workshop

Later in the day, we worked on this piece together at the start of our writer’s workshop. We selected the topic (when they buried a friend in the sand at recess) and shared the pen to create the text. As we continued writing, one excited writer exclaimed, “Wait! I noticed something! There’s a pattern, just like in Tabby Cat ” (the pattern book they had read the day before). I love those moments. You know, the ones where you feel sure that someone must have paid the kid to say what they did? In any case, this exclamation led to a discussion reviewing patterns, a concept that has been explored in maths and reading earlier this month and now was extended by connecting it to the key concept of the day. When it was time for the students to go off to their independent writing, many worked on using details in pictures, letters and words to make their stories follow a pattern, just like the ones they are noticing in their reading books and in our shared story from the minilesson.

Reflecting on the Day

Probably the best evidence for how explicitly weaving the key concept through the day and the disciplines worked, is in what the students said and did after. The next day, during the same morning play time, most students chose to continue to play through art. The effects were already showing. Our young artists were clearly playing around with form, manipulating and combining materials in new ways. The casual discussions with fellow artists were rich with newly acquired vocabulary as the students commented on each other’s use of color, the “scraping” technique and different materials to make their art look a certain way. Comparisons were being made between common elements in each others’ creations.

I will definitely keep finding ways to focus our learning through the key and related concepts as I can already see transfer across days, ideas and disciplines. Most importantly, I can see evidence of transfer beyond the context of our art unit! Next week I have a mini-case study of Mondrian planned, linked first to form and then to perspective. The inquiry is planned to integrate maths, visual arts, and literacy to start but let’s see where the students take it!

In the meantime, I would love to hear your feedback! I would also love to hear how other teachers are supporting transdisciplinary learning in their classrooms.

Kindergarteners Lead the Unit Of Inquiry

Our second unit of inquiry in Kindergarten is “You’ve Got Messages.” We investigate it under the PYP theme, “How We Express Ourselves.” The central idea is “There are different systems to communicate and connect with other people.” The key concepts are form, function, and causation and the related concepts are communication, interactions and messages.

This unit is a well-oiled machine and has run in our Kindergarten for as long as I’ve been at the school (at least 13 years). As a part of the unit, Kindergarteners open a postal service in the lower school, which is always a much-anticipated event by the workers (our Kindergarteners), as well as the users (everyone else in the lower school). I was super excited to be on the “working” end of the service this year. I was also super excited to see how much I could get the students to drive their learning and how I could best facilitate conceptual understanding. Because, of course, #yestheycan

Invitations and Provocations

The Kindergarten team spent a lot of time making a plan and setting the stage for play and exploration related to our unit in our common area. Complete credit goes to my amazing colleagues, as I was not even there the day they set it up. They put out displays and artifacts as invitations to the new unit. This included a message-writing center and the transition of the role-play area into a post office.

I planned to use my student’s first experiences in the common area as an opportunity to hand control of the unit over to them right from the start. Experience has taught me that this would be much more successful if I did two things:

have clear questions articulated in my mind to guide exploration and discussion.
capture as many of the students’ actions and conversations as possible while they were playing.

Capturing the Moments

I have learned that capturing the actions and interactions of students, both with their learning environment and each other, is crucial to giving them genuine ownership. Over the course of an hour’s play, Kindergarteners are not always able to realize, let alone hold onto their noticings and wonderings. By recording as much of what I hear and see them doing, I can provide them with a record of their thinking from throughout that session. Students love it when we “catch” them purposefully playing and they love it even more when we quote them. This certainly supports their developing self-efficacy, which, of course, supports the learner agency we strive for.

In addition to building self-efficacy and agency, capturing the students’ actions and conversations ensures that I am building on what they are valuing as interesting and important to learn.

In this instance, I used padlet to record as much as I could of what I saw and heard as my students interacted with our unit invitations.

Teacher Questions

As the first experience playing in the common area was to provide the invitations to the unit, the questions had to be considered carefully. I planned a number of questions to help me be as prepared as possible to follow the students’ thinking, as well as to guide them to focus in on the unit itself. In practice, only two of my questions were necessary as the students had much to share. They noticed the connections to messages and eagerly contributed their ideas and wonderings related to the different types of messages and how they work.

The conversation was guided using the following:

What did you notice in as you explored the common area?
We are going to spend all the way until the winter break on a unit connected to what you explored. What do you think might be interesting or important to investigate, connected to what you explored in the common area?

The Kindergarteners Take Over

As we processed our initial explorations in the common area, prior knowledge and experiences were surfaced, learning goals were established, and ideas were shared for ways to reach them. All of this coming from the students.

There were so many responses generated that we decided to sort them into groups and plan from there:

If you were to zoom in on the individual and groups of post-its, you’d see that there were many wonderings about how a post office system works (top, left). You’d also see quite a few wonderings about how to create and send messages, including an expressed desire to learn how to write the names of the people that the students wanted to communicate with (far-right). The third group of wonderings consisted of questions related to how people send and receive messages digitally, many of which were born from seeing their parents and older siblings on devices each day.

Ready To Learn

Once the students generated their initial wonderings and sorted them into groups, we let the kids know that they would have to help us plan for the learning. We asked for burning “Need to Knows” and for suggestions for how we could begin to investigate some of the wonderings on our board. Suggestions ranged from delivering messages in the school to learning how to write a greeting in writer’s workshop and quite a few things in between. Those are another blog post for another day but rest assured, every week we check in together, to see which wonderings have been addressed, which still need to be and of course, to see if any new ones have cropped up.

Back To Work and…Yes They Can!

Change, change, and more change

My blog has been suspiciously dormant for over a year. Since my last post, there have been many changes. My husband and I welcomed a daughter almost exactly a year ago. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home with her full-time for the first six months and then worked part-time up until our summer holiday.

This school year, I am also working part-time so that I can be with our daughter as much as possible. I am incredibly grateful to be living and working in a country that recognizes and supports the importance of family life. Naively, staying home part-time, I thought that I would be able to spend tons of time reading and researching, honing my craft and blogging tons. I’m sure every parent out there is laughing their heads off as they read this. Lesson learned. A year later, I am trying to get back in the swing of things.

Working part-time meant a grade-level change for me. This year I am teaching Kindergarten for the first time in almost two decades! When I found out last Spring, I must admit I was intimidated. What does Kindergarten even look like in 2018? What are five-year-olds into these days? Would I even remember how to talk to five-year-olds? How will I figure all of this out in three months, with a miniature dictator at home? How will it feel to go from the confident feeling that years of consecutive experience in upper elementary provided to the novice feeling of starting all over again? One thing was clear. If I was going to thrive, or even survive, I had to get to work.

Research!

I spent my summer reaching out to early childhood educators that I admire and reading tons of books, largely recommended by those people.

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As I read and discussed, I realized that much of what I knew twenty years ago still stands. I also learned that I have much to learn. My questions include but are not limited to:

How best can we support Kindergarteners so that they can drive their own inquiries? We know that the littlest learners are the best inquirers but how will I get them to focus on the units in our curriculum?
What are the best strategies with play-based learning?
How do Kindergarteners respond to a three-dimensional curriculum?
How can I support conceptual development with students who are just learning to read and write?

Sadly, I’ve run into quite a few nay-sayers who think I’m crazy. Of course five-year olds need to acquire skills before they can start to engage in the understanding of concepts, I was told by one. Silly, Jen, it’s not like your fourth-graders, Kindergarteners can’t do that kind of thinking have said some others. While it may no longer be my area of expertise, I’ve known in my heart of hearts that this isn’t the case. Since the moment I knew I was headed back to Kindergarten I knew that my hashtag moving forward would be #yestheycan. Yes, Kindergarteners can drive their own inquiries. Yes, they can develop reading and writing lives. Yes, they are capable of conceptual thought and respectful communication. My job is to figure out how best to support them to do this.

If you’re interested in these questions to, then come back and visit, comment and contribute often. I’ll post quick snapshots and longer reflections as much as I can as the year progresses. I’d love to hear what you have to say as well. As always, you can also follow me on twitter @jrisolo.

My Journey As A Literacy Teacher

In January, we had an in-service day at school. During the morning staff meeting, teachers were tasked with creating an exhibit that would communicate “Who We Are,” as literacy teachers. I decided that my theme would be my ongoing journey as a literacy teacher.

As I sorted through possible artifacts on hand in my classroom, I considered what has shaped and continues to shape my journey as a literacy teacher. I quickly realized that it is the questions that are always at the wheel, driving my interest and development.

I mapped my questions on the white paper you see in my final exhibit. Next I linked them to concepts and resources that drove my inquiries into each question.

I noticed that my questions evolve as I progress through my career. The first question was posed 20 years ago when I first began working with young readers and writers.

My Questions:

How best can I teach reading and writing?
What does the research tell me about language and literacy development?
How am I providing access to students for whom English is not their mother tongue?
How am I providing access for students with different abilities?
What is the role of language in my student’s identities? How does language instruction in my classroom affect this?
How do the frameworks, philosophy, and practices that have worked for me (and countless others) fit in with the philosophy and framework of the PYP?
What am I doing to ensure that my students have equitable access to the learning at our school? In our grade?
How best can our school support a consistent and coherent experience for our students given their transient nature as well as that of the faculty?

My Exhibit:

My artifacts included student work, some favorite mentor texts, recent professional reads and some old standards that I always have on hand. The exhibit is certainly not complete. Many of my professional texts and mentor texts are personal property and stored at home. The absence of some of my own mentors is conspicuous and had they been on hand, Lucy Caulkins, H. Lynn Erickson, Ralph Fletcher, Carl Anderson, and countless students who have taught me so much, would also have been represented.

What are the questions that have shaped your journey so far? Who are your gurus?