A New Classroom

A new classroom where there are no tables and chairs
Children feel free to move around
"How fun it is" they yell
No more tests
No more lessons
Children conduct projects they like
Everyday is a new day for them to explore
In the new classroom where there are no tables and chairs

How to Make Reading More Fun to Children

     Based on Karplus and Thier's Learning Cycle theory, it includes three key points, which are Exploration, Concept Introduction, and Concept application.

• ·  Exploration. Provides students with hands-on activity, give them space to explore and investigate.
• ·  Concept introduction. Students learn scientific idea through the interaction with their peers and teachers. They can get more knowledge about the activities they have conducted based on the information they get from their interactions with others and texts.
• ·  Concept application. After students conducting activities, interacting with their peers, and teachers, It's time for them to use the knowledge they learn through the whole concept, and to work on more projects in order to enhance their knowledge.

      Abraham and Renner said "Concept introduction followed exploration, students learned better."(1989) Students can connect the information they gain from the class to their prior knowledge, and have a better understanding of the concept based on what they have experienced and what they have learned in class. Bybee's 5-E model learning cycle is very popular right now as well, and the 5-E includes Engage, Explore, Explain, elaborate, and Evaluate. (Bybee 1977) It adds two more elements than the previous 3 main concepts Learning Cycle. The 5-E model has Engage and Evaluate. Engage is to find students' interests and get everyone involved. Evaluate is more for teachers to see if students are fully understand the concept, and if there are more things that students need to work on.

        The Learning Cycle concept reminds me of one of my previous experiences, and as teachers how to make learning more fun to children. One morning I was reading a book about magnet to my preschoolers in class. The little boy in the book used a magnet, a sting and a stick make a “fishing pole”, and he use it to fish things in his box which has nails, branches, class, toy cars and so on. When I was reading it, it was hard for me to tell which one can be fished and which one cannot. So instead of just reading the lines from the book, I asked the kids to use the magnet bars we have in the class to “fish” the nails on the working table, the plants, and anything we can think of. The kids were so involved, they ran around in the classroom and tested out everything they see with the magnet bars they have. This was belong to children’s Exploration, but what I should do after their free exploration is that I should held a short group time, and talk about the things that can be magnified, also things can not be “fished”. By doing this, I can help enhance children’s understanding about magnetism, and improve their knowledge of what can be magnified and what cannot be. After the concept introduction, I can also have a concept application activity, which helps children to use what they learn in more ways.   

Collaborate With Children While They Are Learning

         

             Children learn better when they are working with someone else, especially when they are working with more competent partners. By the competent partner here which means someone just a little bit ahead, not too far ahead.  Vygotsky(1978) described it "zone of proximal development(P.87), which means that a child can still try to reach this new level, but at the same time it's not that easy for him to get that step without putting efforts. This type of collaboration can truly improve children's learning ability, and enhance their skills that they want to work on, like writing and reading. I used to work with two brothers, and the older one Zachy was five who was two-year older than his little brother Zayanny. By the time Zachy was five, he could read picture books, and knew how to write simple words. He was a very competent learner in both reading and writing. Zayanny learned from Zach, he followed him everywhere, read the same book as zach did, even he had no idea what the book was about. But after four or five months, I just realized that it was very easy for Zayan to pick up with new words, and sometimes he could even remember the texts out of a picture book that we had read in the circle time. Zanyan always sat next to Zach when his brother was reading, or sometimes, Zach read to Zayan. Besides that, Zayan always point to words on pictures books and asked Zach to explain them. I am sure that the collaborations between these them help Zanyan a lot in his literature learning journey.
          Collaboration is not just among young children, but also the collaboration between adults and young children as well. It's very important for adults to acknowledge young children's improvement with what they are trying to say or write. Give children a sense of recognition and encouragement. "Figuring out what the child is trying to do at a given moment is not easy. often we get it wrong. But our chances of getting it right are never better than in one-on-one collaborative writing events. This child, this moment, this literate act: This supportive partnership." (Lindfors, 2008, P.59)

Children Learn From Where They Are Not Where We Are

               Learning to speak is easier than learning to write and read. Cause we talk everyday, and children hear us, they imitate us and learn to use oral language to express themselves. Some people think children learn how to write after they are familiar with the 26 letters. This is just an misconception. Children can write way early than we think they do. They may don't know how to write the correct letters or words, but they know that written "words" can carry messages that they want to express.
              This morning, when I was working at Hoosier Court, one of the boys in my classroom was writing a letter to his mom. He picked out a piece of blue paper, and said that it was his mom's favorite color, then he scrambled some "words" on it.(some lines and dots) "Mommy will get this letter when she come get me." Even he doesn't know how to write words, but he does know that written language is purposeful and it can convey meanings.

(This is just an image downloaded on line)

        "Children learn from where they are, not from where we are." (Judith Wells Lindfors) Children learn the best when they have the ownership, they can pick their own topics and express in their own ways. Find children's interests and encourage them to write by following the things they like. 

       This was the letter that I got from one of my students when I was working at Montessori. He likes me a lot, and every day during recess time, he would ran out, found me and give me a letter he wrote for me that day. Children use letters to express themselves and they learn how to write when they are interested and they want to express what they want to say. Writing has to be purposeful, it has to be meaningful for children and to help themselves express things. 

Play For Second Language Learners

        The preschool that I am working at, there are a lot of foreign children, and their first language is not English. Communication for them is hard in the class. However, their language in play seems more advanced than it does in real life. They don't afraid to make mistakes, and they are much more confident to speak what they have learned or heard in the class. Sometimes, I have no idea what they are talking about, or what they want, but their friends who are English speakers can just easily help them translate to me by looking at their friends' facial expressions or gestures. For second language learners, the rich visual and contextual cues that are characteristic of play are helpful in expressing and understanding language meanings. Play provides a rich context for second language learners to make sense of and through language.

       "Not surprisingly, many students who do not speak English fall behind in their studies early, because they are not taught content in their native language."(ASCD 1995,16)

       As a teacher, if you don't speak your students' first language, you could recruit other children in you class, older children, family members, or volunteers to act as first language play partners. 

Kinderchat: Fine Arts In The Curriculum

       On Kinderchat, I checked out the discussion about Fine Arts In The Curriculum. There were so many great teachers sharing their teaching experiences, and the fun activities that they had set up in their classrooms. They talked about the music, book, dance, and art projects that they had used. And the students' reactions to the projects that they had set up. I love one of the teachers' collaborative art project that she has beeing using in her class.

         Putting out materials and a large surface so that the children can all work on it throughout the day.Children can work together through one big project, they interact with their peers, help each other solve problems, and provide each other new ideas.

        Some teachers talked about other ways of doing the collaborative art projects. It doesn't need to be paint and paper. Teachers can also use other materials, like buttons, cloths, and other objects that are availble in the classroom. Try to be creative, and give children different materials to explpore.

Couragement Makes A Big Difference In Young Children's Lives

        The daycare I am working at, young children always ask me to read books to them. Sometimes, after reading the books, I would ask them to write letters to their favorite characters in the book. Some kids would say "I cannot, I don't know how to write!". I would encouraged them, and told them "yes, you can do it! you can draw pictures, I saw you draw beautiful pictures the other day!" Then they would pick their papers and stated drawing and writing! Some of them did know how to write, and they would ask teachers how to spell certain words when they didn't know to to write the words they want to use. As teachers, it is very imortant for us to find the right oppotunites and use thoes moments to encourage young children write.

       For instance, when it's Mother's day, we can ask young children to write letters to their moms. We can also ask them to write letters to their friends who don't come to school that day.

        There are so many situations we can encourage our students to write, and with a context behind it, not just simply ask them to write a certain word for ten or twenty times a day. But find children's interests, and use their interests to encourage them read and write.

Take-Home Literature Packs

      As teachers, there are so many ways that we can help improve children's reading skills, and help them have interests in literature. And one of the most effective ways is to get children's families involved. Caregivers are the people that know their children the best, and they can develop new ideas for helping their children explore books.

  "Support children's home culture and language while also developing all children's ability to participate in the shared culture of the program and community."(Bredekamp and Copple 1997,  20)

         Also, in chapter 5, there are a lot of tips that teachers and parents can use to help children read.

1. Take a picture walk before you read. Encourage children to describe what is on each page, and predict what the story is about.
2. After finish reading the book, ask the child what is his favorite part of the book. Ask questions about characters, the problems and the issues they encountered, and how they were solved.
3. Discuss interesting words. For instance, if your child notice bear, show him where the word bear is, and point our B. Also, you can ask children whose name starts with B. 

Families' Role in Children's Literacy

       Families play an important role in children's literacy developement. Families provide the first literacy environment for their children. The newspapers that family members talk about, the advertisements they read, and the TV shows that they watch can influence on how and what children come to know about written language. Also, children's unique interests influence on what kind of literacy events, and knowledge they come to know first.

     For example, this summer I babysat a family who has three little boys age 6, 5, and 4. Their dad is a huge IU basketball fan, and he watches IU games whenever he can. The older son and the seconed son like IU basketball too. They know a lot of basketball game words, and they know the rules of the game. However, the youngest boy is not interested in the IU basketball at all. He likes watching Power Ranger TV shows, and he knows all the terms of those Ranger languages. 

     This example shows that families' literacy practices, interests, resources, and time have a great influence on children's literacy knowledge. Also, children's interests play an important role in building their knowledge as well.

Literacy is Social

     By reading books, writing words, and learning how to pronounce new words, children are engaged in collaborative activities within their specific social environments. They change ideas with their peers, they learn new methods from teachers, and they observe things from their surroundings. Literacy helps children engage in all kinds of social situations.

         Children connect new ideas to their personal knowledge of the world. Also, drawings of a book are likely to contain more information than their writing texts, and are more attractive to children.

       Literacy can also help children express their imaginations. They draw pictures and show their friends airplanes that they have drawn, or  places that they had been to in the summer. Literacy is a good tool for young children to express themselves and to interact with their peers.