InTASC Standard #8: The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to
develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.
Oral Language Strategies
One of the main purposes of early childhood education is to create a foundation for strong oral language development. Children at this age develop their social and language skills from the models around them, both at home and at school, and acquire the critical language skills one needs in order to appropriately read cues and respond to others. Early childhood curriculum covers both receptive and expressive language skills, including social rules of language, grammatical conventions, engaging in conversations, following directions, using an expanding vocabulary, and fluency and clarity of speech.
Language, however, cannot be studied or mastered in isolation. Students, therefore, must be emerged in developmentally appropriate activities where they express their thoughts and needs, as well as demonstrate their understanding of academic content. My responsibility, therefore, is to design and implement strategies that engage students orally, as well as help them build connections between letter-sound relationships, and print awareness.
Fostering oral language development is particular crucial in order to reach my students with exceptionalities and developmental delays. Exposure to strong models of oral language, as well as frequent and consistent interaction with environmental print helps mediate expressive language deficits, mis-articulation, and builds student efficacy in the area of social and academic language.
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Code Out-the-Door
This strategy is a quick, informal method to reinforce concepts that I have previously taught, and students are very familiar with. By the time my students leave Pre-Kindergarten, they are expected to recognize and orally identify numerals 1-10, as well as a combination of at least twenty-six upper or lower case letters.
Prior to leaving the classroom during our daily transitions, for example, leaving the classroom to walk to breakfast, students must “crack the code”. The code consists of an every-changing combination of numerals, color blocks, upper/lowercase letters, and dot configurations. Students must whisper the code to me when it is their turn to walk out of the room.
Code Out-the-Door allows me to target specific student needs or class needs, as I see fit. If a numeral or color presents a challenge for a particular student, I strategically add it to the weekly Code, so that child receives extensive practice and repetition, but in a quick and casual way. Conversely, this method is an efficient strategy to assess a new concept. Prior to teaching a new letter or letter sound, for instance, I include that letter in the Code and gauge how many students already can recognize and identify it independently.
This Code Out-the-Door is displayed on the interior door of my classroom. It targets students' knowledge of shapes, numerals, letter recognition, color naming, and subitizing skills. Each card has been conscientiously selected for a specific student who struggles with one or more of these entities, though this strategy could be customized to address a wide array of content.
Code Out-The-Door is a strategy that can also be student-initiated or directed. Students quiz each other during learning centers, or take turns rearranging the Code to challenge themselves. As the academic year progresses, I relinquish responsibility of being the "Door Keeper" and delegate the role as a student job. The student Door Keeper listens to his or her peers and determines if they have successfully cracked the Code. This reinforces receptive language and increases their practice with giving peer feedback, while the rest of the students further develop their oral language.
Reading Manipulatives
Developing language skills during whole group lessons can be challenging, especially when differentiating for students’ unique needs, and balancing personalities. However, dialogic reading is intended to be an interactive reading block, where instruction prompts students’ use of text related language. My dialogic reading instruction includes lessons around predicting, using new vocabulary, asking and answering questions, and retelling the story.
In order to ensure that all my students have time to process and respond to language, either teacher language, or that of their peers, I utilize reading manipulatives, or “reading sticks”. Each day’s lesson has a corresponding stick. For instance, during our first day reading a new anchor text, students use “thinking sticks” while they form their predictions.
This is a "vocab stick" used during a dialogic reading lesson geared towards using new words from the story. Students hold up their stick when they hear the target word used.
This "thinking stick" corresponds to student predictions during picture walks of a new text. Students look at the pictures, and "think" about what is happening before forming a guess.
These sticks serve several purposes. First, they provide a tactile and kinesthetic outlet that meets the needs of my sensory learners. Having something tangible in their hands that they can manipulate helps ground students who struggle to maintain focus. It also serves as a motivational tool for all my students, as they are incentivized to utilize these instructional aids independently in order to demonstrate what they know.
Additionally, reading manipulatives ensure that all students have multiple opportunities to respond, thus increasing their use of oral language. In a whole group setting, discerning who said what can be a cumbersome task, and a management issue, if not addressed appropriately. By giving all students extended time to think after a question or prompt, and then setting the expectation of independent response to their manipulative, students are allowed the space to process at their own speed and comfort level. As a teacher, this helps me manage student call-outs, and gives me time to listen to specific students without singling them out. After students have “whispered to their thinking stick”, I follow this strategy with a peer interaction tool, such as PB&J partners or “think-pair-share”. Students then have a chance to share responses with their peer, which establishes a strong model for students with language deficits, and affords them an additional opportunity to practice.
Story Mats
For core dialogic reading, I select an anchor text that corresponds to the power standards and the chosen unit theme. Each anchor text lends itself to 5-6 days of instruction. For each anchor text selected, I design a supplementary story mat that accompanies the text during whole group instruction. The mat is a compilation of images and scenes from the text, though not all parts of the story are always included, nor are the pictures arranged in chronological order.
The mats serve as a visual aid, as not all anchor texts have enough copies for every student. I design these mats with my students with language deficits in mind, so that they can use the pictures as prompts to develop oral responses. However, I find that all students benefit from the use of the story mats, as the visuals help them process teacher questioning and anchor their responses in the text. In addition, the mats are differentiated to serve an individual student’s needs. The number of images is increased or decreased to correspond with one’s expressive abilities, and the arrangement of the text pictures can be altered. In order to provide for multiple response methods, my non-verbal students are asked to identify or answer a question by selecting a picture on the story mat through pointing. Story mats ensure that all students are able to actively participate in instruction in a manner that is meaningful and inclusive.
The document to the right is the story mat that accompanies the text, Mooncake by Frank Asch. This story is the anchor text for the second week of our Space Unit. When asking or answering questions, or recounting the events in the story, students use the story mat as a reference and a prompt for their verbal or nonverbal responses.
Story mats help students scaffold the skills they need to reach mastery of the literacy objectives, including retelling the main characters and events in a familiar story, and answering text related questions. Students, especially those with language and processing deficits, build from indicating by point, to naming pictures, and to eventually using phrases to describe an event.
The image to the left shows students utilizing the story mats during whole group literacy instruction while reading Papa Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle during the Space unit of study. One student works independently to point to a specific image on the story mat in order to indicate her response, while another student is aided by a paraprofessional.
*All families have given permission for students to be seen and heard in this photo.
Environmental Print
Language acquisition and print awareness are two major grade level objectives during Pre-Kindergarten. Strong early childhood programs incorporate environmental exposure to print in the physical aspects of the classroom. Print is also incorporated into learning centers in order to strengthen students' understanding of the letter-sound relationship. Environmental print often uses pictures and images as accompaniments to letters and text to represent a given word or action. Using the combination of pictures and text helps students connect a familiar image with the given letter or word, building their association of the two for future encounters. Environmental print serves an important building block in students' reading foundational skills.
Above, a student engages in dramatic play in the Kitchen/Housekeeping center. She uses the mock Snack Menu and other signs as a guide for her own writing, and imaginative play. The print connects to the content from a particular thematic unit or season, and allows students to practice real-life application skills, such as business transactions, and monetary awareness. While student writing may still be at an emergent level, opportunities to practice fine motor skills in every center help further develop hand-eye coordination and print awareness.
This image shows an action menu for dramatic play. Each menu option consists of an image as well as the action in print. The images represent experiences that are familiar for students, and serve as a way for students to brainstorm their intended actions and goals for their time in that learning center. Students name the given experience that they choose, for instance "write a list", and then begin to associate the accompanying description and text with that particular action.
Similar menus are also posted in the Block Center and Art Center in order to catalyze students' thinking and decision making processes.
Environmental print often overlaps with student centered strategies as well as encourages peer interaction. Click below to read on about other strategies that target student-to-student interaction.