As a Kindergarten teacher I have had the experience of teaching children like Jake. First of all, I would like to mention that if Jake were in my class he and I could discuss all of the NASCAR drivers and the interest that we both have in the sport! Many of my current students have family who work for NASCAR teams. I have tried to make a conscious effort to find a personal connection with each child and their parents. It could be a shared interest, a common friend, etc. This is important to me. I understand that it becomes a problem when teachers want to be "good buddies" with their students and not the role of teacher more seriously.
Jake came from an honest hard-working family. In the eyes of his parents and grandparents he was reading well because the context that was set for reading at home was agreeable for Jake. As an example, Jake was able to read the decals and words on his racecar models, just as some children can read restaurant signs or other familiar types of environmental print.
When Jake began to feel somewhat frustrated by first grade, it was of no surprise to me. I have tried many times to explain to parents of first graders (I taught first grade for six years) that reading can have several purposes and the classroom reading practices are most often very different from reading casually at home. Both are very important in a child's literacy development. Children should encounter parents reading at home and should also understand that there is more to reading than just decoding. That is only the beginning!
Parents should begin to understand that teachers in K-2 have a responsibility to teach concepts of print, phonemic awareness, decoding skills, comprehension strategies, literary genres and much much more. So when a parent describes their child as a competent reader at home, or shares that their child is reading at a certain grade level, or that their child is most definetly "gifted" I have tried to tactfully explain that reading instruction is not just reading a story and answering a few questions.
Children like Jake may resist some activities in first or second grade when the stakes are higher and expectations are different than Kindergarten where there is often more freedom of choice and a sense of independent learning. Reading which was once view as an enjoyable low risk, non-stressful task when adult help and guidance is nearby, may evolve into an activity where the child feels anxiety and confusion about the reading experience. In the case of Jake, he must be carefully nurtured and taught to understand that reading and language practices at home are most certainly different than reading and writing at school. Direct instruction should reflect the differences among our students. Again, we must keep in mind that we teach children using the SCOS as our guide.
Comments (3)
Renee,
It sounds like you are a fantastic teacher. I think it is wonderful that you make a personal effort to find connections between your students and their parents. I don't find that you are being "a good buddy", but instead an awesome teacher who knows what it takes to help their students to be successful in their classroom.
You are right that reading is more than just decoding. Reading is comprehending as well. I tell my parents that in our classroom that their child needs a balance of many factors to read. Decoding skills begin with phonological awareness skills as well as phonics. Students also need some sight word knowledge so that they are not decoding every word. If they decode every word then they are not comprehending what they are reading. Fluency is again another skill that determines how smooth they are reading. Finally students have to understand and be able to explain and identify with story elements in a story.
I like the way you tackfully talk to you parents about all of the aspects involved in the reading process. So often parents see their child doing something and think they have mastered a skill. A parent of mine explained to me during Kindergarten open house that their child already knew the alaphabet and wondered what more they could learn. I explained to the parent that there is more to just learning how to say the alphabet. We were going to learn to write it, learn the sounds letters make, and identify with upper and lower class letters. From there we were going to learn how to blend those letter sounds to read and write words. We would learn reading strategies such as beginning and ending sounds that helped us to decode unknown words. After my conversation with her I could tell that the parent now realized that her child did indeed have things to learn in her Kindergarten program.
Kudos to you Renee! Your students are very lucky to have you.
Linda Younts
Posted by Linda Younts | June 16, 2007 9:44 PM
Posted on June 16, 2007 21:44
Renee, I absolutely agree with you that we, as teachers, must find personal connections with our students' lives outside of school. This makes a tremendous impact on their learning experience inside the classroom. Students feel that they can relate more readily to what you are teaching if they see that they have commonalities in other aspects of life. I also agree that reading is much more than the environmental print that students are often very familiar with when they come from home. Unfortunately, it is difficult to expect parents to understand the differences in all the types of print and literature. Many parents, especially in my school, are merely trying to make their families survive. A parent who is living from day to day and who always struggles with where their children's next meal will come from do not place these reading "technicalities" as a top priority. Many did not complete higher education and struggle to understand our education "lingo" and why their child has so many difficulties. I also think that many of these parents have difficulty accepting that their children struggle with the same things they did when they were students, especially when they do not understand how to "fix" the problems. As teachers, we need to understand that sensitivity is required when discussing these issues with parents. I'm not saying we should candy coat the truth, but many teachers can be very harsh when explaining a child's struggles and how to best address them. ~Allison Reese
Posted by Allison Reese | June 19, 2007 9:19 PM
Posted on June 19, 2007 21:19
Renee,
It sounds as if you have found a nice balance between home literacies and school literacies. It is important that each of these is valued and that children learn to be proficient in all literacies. Good for you!
Alecia
Posted by Alecia | June 19, 2007 10:28 PM
Posted on June 19, 2007 22:28