Acquiring Knowledge in Kindergarten through Read Alouds Handbook

Multi modal book curated by Blueprints for Learning.

A new professional text I recently published using iBookAuthor.


Professional Text for Primary Educators: Acquiring Knowledge in Kindergarten through Read Alouds Handbook

High-quality literature read aloud offers children access to important ideas, rich vocabulary, and the opportunity to actively problem solve and discuss emerging understandings with peers and their teacher. Teacher-conducted read-alouds can be important sources of world knowledge for children. In this text, I designed two read aloud units of study for use with kindergarten children. For each text there are comprehension engagements, vocabulary instruction, and text-dependent questions that are aligned to the CCSS.  

Unit 1: Traditional Stories and Wheat

Galdone, Paul . (1985 ). The Little Red Hen. New York: Sandpiper. (550L)
Gershator, David and Phillis Gershator. (1998). Bread is for Eating. Illustrated by Emma Shaw-Smith. New York: Henry Holt. (450L)
Hairston, Meredith. (2011). Little Red Hen. Illustrated by Jes Golden. Digital Story/Video. Retrieved 12.31.12 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPrhPiOiNEY 
Paulsen, Gary. (1998). The Tortilla Factory. Illustrated by Ruth W. Paulsen. New York: Sandpiper. (550L)
Sturges, Philemon. (2002). The Little Red Hen Makes Pizza. Illustrated by Amy Walrod. New York: Puffin. (320L)

Unit II. Libraries and Reading

Gonzalez, Lucia. (2008). The Storyteller’s Candle: La velita de los cuentos. Illustrated by Lulu Delacre, San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press. (730 L)
Hest, Amy. (2007). Mr. George Baker. Illustrated by John J. Muth. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Books. (520L)
Mora, Pat. (2000). Tomas and the Library Lady. Illustrated by Raul Colon. New York: Dragonfly Books. (440L)
Ruurs, Margaret. (2005). My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought Around the World. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press. (980L)
Winter, Jeanette. (2005/ 2012). The Librarian of Basra (Digital Version). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Retrieved 12.31,12 from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5xp-KOVbmw

Schooling and Learning and Tech, Oh My!

Gathering Landscape (M.A. Reilly, 2011)

I.

It begins this way: I'm at a coffee shop and I overhear two teachers talking about a shift to a 1-to-1 environment at their school next September.  I learn that each student will be issued a Macbook Air. The teachers' voices sound excited and more than the words, their tone catches my ear and I lean a bit closer just as one says to the other:

"It will make note taking so easy."
"Absolutely. We can email our PowerPoints to the kids."

II.

A few days later I am perusing the table of contents for the March issue of ASCD's Ed Leadership, Technology-Rich Learning.  As I read I think, there's an absence here, especially an absence of young voices, of counter narratives.

III.

Maybe we need a new language. One that affords us ways of (un)seeing education--of recasting
this familiarity in new cloth--
      [seeing what is before us
                          in ways we have trouble naming--in utterances that feel
   unfamiliar to the mouth, that

(hopefully)
   give us

                   pause].

IV.

I have long been fascinated by a passage from Martin Heidegger's Building Dwelling Thinking.  It is one I have kept nearby, read and reread, and misunderstood for years.

An odd friend at that.

In explaining the function of the bridge, Heidegger writes:

The bridge swings over the stream "with case and power. It does not just connect banks that are already there. The banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream. The bridge designedly causes them to lie across from each other. One side is set off against the other by the bridge. Nor do the banks stretch along the stream as indifferent border strips of the dry land. With the banks, the bridge brings to the stream the one and the other expanse of the landscape lying behind them. It brings stream and bank and land into each other's neighborhood. The bridge gathers the earth as landscape around the stream.

It is this mind that sees the bridge as that which gathers earth as landscape around the stream that we most need now.

V.

Much of what we talk about when we talk about technology (note the singularity of the term) remain still lifes that fit inside an old frame--a dressed up transmission model with consumption as its main aim and stability as its rudder.

Here there is always a teacher and always a student, regardless of the presence or absence of a school building.

Yet, when I listen to teenagers talk about learning, I think we have run aground.

VI.

I live with a teenager and so it's not too unusual then that I was listening for him and his friends in the Ed Leadership issue. Would we talk less about teaching and more about learning?  Would we understand that dwelling is a requisite of building and thinking comes from dwelling?  I appreciated the questions Will Richardson raised in the first article in the issue, "Students First, Not Stuff" and especially cheered when he quoted Seymour Sarason (2004) who told us, “productive learning is the learning process which engenders and reinforces wanting to learn more” (p. x).

Where is more?

VII.

When I ask my son what he might say about learning and technologies, he tells me:  It's about not knowing where you are or perhaps headed. There is no (pre)made map you can consult. And maybe that's why you can't wait to be in it, even when you don't know where in is.

My son would tell you that programming is a key literacy in his life. Java and Apple Script are giving way to an emerging interest in C++ and PHP.  As I listen to him easily list these interests, I understand that it isn't just the languages that matter,  but also the idea and practice of emergence and agency that permit desire to become dimensional.

After Will's article, I find less and less dimension and more prescription.


VIII.

We, who are so practiced at fixing, need to become unmoored, unsettled, ungrounded. We must remind each other that "the banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream."

We keep getting that backwards, thinking we can outrun the very logic that undoes us.

IX.

"Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build," says Heidegger and I wondered who among us dwells and how such dwelling resituates our talk about schooling as learning.

X.

The real plight of dwelling, Heidegger concludes is that in our search "for the nature of dwelling" we "must ever learn to dwell."

That's what is most absent in conversations about schooling and technologes and learning--the raw admission that we too must dwell.

XI.

When I think about the changes upon us that I sometimes can name, I understand that

It's less about readiness and more about doing.
It's less about discovering and more about being.
It's less about journeying and more about nomadism.
It's less about expert and novice distinctions and more about participation.
It's less about the dichotomy of right and wrong and more about context.
It's less about the prescribed curriculum and more about the made curriculum.
It's less about the fixed organization of student, teacher, and content be them flipped or not and more about middle spaces where (un)forming has infinite gesture.

XII.

Perhaps most startling is that it is less about them, and more about us.
They have already left and we are still unseeing.

XIII.

We have so much to jettison if we are to see the banks emerge.

Intentional Play-Based Learning: Inquiry in Kindergarten

Intentional Play-Based Learning is a series of videos focusing on kindergarten learning.  A key premise of tis work is illustrated in this quote:

Play nourishes every aspect of children’s development – it forms the foundation of
intellectual, social, physical, and emotional skills for success in school and in life. It paves the way for learning. - Canadian Council of Learning

In this video, there is an exploration of three kinds of inquiry:

• free explorations
• focused explorations
• guided activities

In this video the teacher's tole in play-based inquiry is examined.

In this video the how teachers plan for intentional play-based inquiry is explored, highlighting the key differences between theme-based planning and inquiry-based planning.

Recommended article about inquiry and emergent curriculum:

from Lewin-Benham, Ann. (2006).  One Teacher, 20 Preschoolers, and a Goldfish. Beyond the Journal • Young Children on the Web.


"Rather than sets of lesson plans and objectives, emergent curriculum is a process that roughly follows
these steps:

1. Select a topic that reflects interests expressed by children in their conversations or that you as their teacher suspect may be of high interest. Ms. Putnam brought a goldfish to school with the idea that the children’s care of the fish might interest them in exploring environment-related subjects.
2. Brainstorm, alone or with colleagues, the many ways the experience could develop to ensure that the topic has rich “generative” (Perkins 1992, 92–95) potential. As it evolves, the project may or may not follow what you brainstormed.
3. Use something concrete—from the children, their families, or the teacher—to pique initial interest and to maintain it. The concrete “thing” may be children’s own words as recorded by the teacher. Ms. Putnam used children’s questions about the goldfish as the starter for many pursuits. Throughout the year she recorded, saved, and studied the children’s conversations and kept using their words to arouse further interest.
4. Tape or take notes of the children’s words as they react. Study their words to determine what really grabs their attention. You may let a day or more pass to heighten the children’s anticipation and to allow yourself time to study their words.
5. Continue to bring the children’s own words back to them: “On Monday you said the fish’s water was really dirty. Joey said, ‘It’s full of poop.’ Would you like to help me clean the fishbowl?”
6. Brainstorm what might happen before any new activity. Knowing she wanted to build environmental awareness, Ms. Putnam had a container available to save the dirty water. When the children asked why she was saving it, she asked, “What do you think we could do with this water?” Again she recorded and studied the children’s answers, and brought back those that she had selected for their potential to spark environmental awareness.
7.  Use children’s words, some particular things they have made, or photo(s) taken during the process as the stimulus for the next steps.
8. Document the experience as each step happens. Record the story of the emerging project as it emerges, using children’s words, photos of them, their drawings or other work, and a photojournalistic-type retelling. "

Snapshots of Learning at School

The images below represent some of the work consultants from my company, Blueprints for Learning, and I are doing with primary grade teachers in Newark, NJ.  In order to support kindergarten, first and second grade teachers reading aloud to their children, I created three e-books (available for free via iTunes) that contain units of study and provided these books to teachers in our projects.  Each unit has several texts (print and non-print) and lesson ideas for each title are included.  The lessons are thorough and contain specific comprehension and vocabulary strategies, as well as text dependent questions that are aligned to the ELA-CCSS.

These examples of learning are from Hawkins Street School in Newark. Annette Nekoukar and Louise Tracey are the consultants working at this site. Sandra Marques is the principal of Hawkins Street School.

Second grader quickly sketching the setting while he listens
to the opening of The Chiru of High Tibet. 

While listening to his teacher read aloud, The Chiru of High Tibet: A True Story, this second grader sketches what he hears and imagines. Children then turned and talked, sharing their quick sketches. The teacher then showed the students the images from the text and led the children in a brief discussion about visualizing while listening.

Close up of Vocabulary Knowledge Rating Chart. Children write their names on post-its and then
place the post it in the column that best represents their knowledge of each word.

First graders from Hawkins Street School
completing a vocabulary knowledge rating chart.

First graders at Hawkins Street School in Newark, NJ rate their vocabulary knowledge prior to listening to their teacher read aloud North: The Amazing Story of Arctic Migration. The completed chart allows teachers to better gauge students' vocabulary knowledge prior to reading.

Artists' Sketchbooks: A Few Recommendations

from 

The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World.

Behan, Teju. (2012). Drawing from the City. Tara Books.

Campanario, Gabriel. (2012). The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World. Beverly, MA: Quarry Books.

from 

An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration From the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers

Gregory, Danny. (2013). An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration From the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers. Cincinnati, OH: HOW Books.

Gregory, Danny. (2008). An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers. Cincinnati, OH: HOW Books.

Hearld, Mark and Simon Martin. (2013). Mark Hearld's Workbook. London: Merrell Publishers.

Heller,Steven and Lita Talarico. (2010). Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World's Great Graphic Designers.The Monacelli Press.

from David Hockney's A Yorkshire Sketchbook

Hockney, David. (2012). A Yorkshire Sketchbook. Royal Academy Publications.

Kalman, Maira.(2007). The Principles of Uncertainty. New York: Penguin Press.

from Angie Lewin: Plants and Places

Lewin, Angie. (2010). Angie Lewin: Plants and Places. London: Merrell Publishers.

Rothman, Julia. (2011). Drawn In: A Peek into the Inspiring Sketchbooks of 44 Fine Artists, Illustrators, Graphic Designers, and Cartoonists. Beverly, MA: Quarry Books.

Rothman, Julia, Jenny Volvoski, Matt Lamothe and Dave Eggers (2010). The Exquisite Book:100 Artists Play a Collaborative Game. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Sokol, Dawn DeVries. (2008). 1,000 Artist Journal Pages: Personal Pages and Inspirations. Beverly, MA: Quarry Books.

When March is Scarcely Here

When March is Scarcely Here (M.A. Reilly, 2013)

          A Light exists in Spring

          Not present on the Year

          At any other period —

          When March is scarcely here

              - Emily Dickinson

Creating Conversations Worth Having at School: Leading with the Heart

Community is Infinite (M.A Reilly, 2012)

I am engaged with primary grade teachers in a workshop when one says, "If I run over the scheduled time I will be written up. Teachers cannot deviate from the posted schedule." 

Another adds, "I was told by my principal that I had to time students when they read and that a running record without it being timed is wrong." 

A third chimes in: "I realized my students were struggling and instead of continuing in the small group as a guided situation, I read the story to the children and we discussed it. I was told  that I had done the lesson wrong and not to do it again."

As I think about these comments and the potential conversations that are needed, I consider that the first important act in this work we are doing with inner city primary grade teachers and school administrators is to bear witness and listen.  The second is to remember that what I write here is more for my benefit than anyone else.  These are lessons I need to remember because it is  often easier to slip into evaluative discourse when confronted with the complexity of teaching and learning. At such time, I know it is hard to lead from the heart.

My response to the group today was a request that they begin to contemplate how they might initiate a change in the discourse at school so that richer and more complicated conversations can happen between and among faculty.  There are compelling reasons for everyone--students, teachers,  administrators, and coaches--to work and situate ourselves as learners.  In order to prevent reading and writing difficulties with children, we will need to problematize the work of teaching and learning through critical and caring conversations.  To do this well requires that we exercise our imagination and become (other)wise.

Listen to Maxine Greene (2007) who in a lecture on the imagination writes this:

For John Dewey, facts are mean and repellent things until imagination opens intellectual possibility...It is often said that imagination is the capacity to look at things as if they could be otherwise; and, surely, if we ourselves might come to a point of being yet otherwise than we have become, our altered perspective might well enable us to break with a fixed and one-dimensional view and look at things as if they too could be otherwise. 

Our capacity to become (other)wise is connected to imagining--to pausing and wondering why the administrator or the teacher did or said X.  Imagining and inquiring opens us to the possibility of richer conversations than those that are gotten when commands and counter-commands are uttered.

We have so much to learn about, from, and with one another--especially when we are trying on new or revised ways of teaching and leading.  Again, turning to Maxine Greene and listening carefully can be helpful. She closes the speech by saying:

To be enabled to activate the imagination is to discover not only possibility, but to find the gaps, the empty spaces that require filling as we move from the is to the might be, to the should be. To release the imagination too is to release the power of empathy, to become more present to those around, perhaps to care.

And so tonight as I think about the complex work at hand--how deeply the administrators and teachers and those of us working as coaches care about the children and the work, I am wondering how to nudge the discourse from one that is overly steeped in evaluative language--to one where the heart leads and our capacity to become (other)wise is strong and unwavering.