Search results matching tags 'vocabulary' and 'education'

more about Hart & Risley

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:33:33 GMT

NPR did a report on the Meaningful Differences work that Hart and Risley did. It’s fascinating, and well worth reading. The article talks about their experiences as educators, trying to teach four year olds vocabulary to put them on par with rich kids — and here’s the depressing part — no matter what they tried, they couldn’t succeed.

(Pause for a minute as Kiri goes off into the other room to do a primal scream.)

I’m back. Oh, that’s frustrating. But that was what led them to research the first three years of a child’s life, and the verbal interactions they have with their parents. The results of that study I have already shared with you.

The good news is that people are using this information to make a difference in the lives of poor children, from birth to three, by helping teach their parents how to have richer — and more — interactions with them.

Now my question is, what can those of us who work with kids who are four do to help?!

meaningful differences

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:40:29 GMT

Wow, yesterday’s post certainly touched a nerve. That was the most hits I ever got on my blog, and the most comments. So thank you, everyone, for being part of the conversation.

So the question is, how do preschool teachers strike a balance between helping their disadvantaged students get a great education and a leg up, and remaining true to early childhood principles without pushing an inappropriate curriculum on them? At least, I think that is the question. It’s a little hard to put into one brief sentence. Or maybe that’s the glass of wine I had with dinner…

The whole thing brings me back to my favorite book on education, Meaningful Differences, by Hart and Risley. I’ve written about it before, here (referring to an article about the book), here (talking to my 1 year old niece and nephew), and here (talking with my nephew at age 2). Here’s what the publisher has to say:

Their painstaking study began by recording each month — for 2-1/2 years — one full hour of every word spoken at home between parent and child in 42 families, categorized as professional, working class, or welfare families. Years of coding and analyzing every utterance in 1,318 transcripts followed. Rare is a database of this quality. “Remarkable,” says Assistant Secretary of Education Grover (Russ) Whitehurst, of the findings: By age 3, the recorded spoken vocabularies of the children from the professional families were larger than those of the parents in the welfare families. Between professional and welfare parents, there was a difference of almost 300 words spoken per hour. Extrapolating this verbal interaction to a year, a child in a professional family would hear 11 million words while a child in a welfare family would hear just 3 million.

Did you get that one amazing sentence, about how the vocabularies of the three year olds in the professional families were larger than those of the parents in the welfare families? When the kids then get to kindergarten, the poor kids have vocabularies of about 2,000 words. Pretty good, huh? Well, not when you compare that to the vocabularies of the professionals’ kids — they go to kindergarten with 20,000 words at their disposal.

That makes me sick to my stomach. Then it makes my blood boil. And after that, I roll up my sleeves and determine that MY students will have as many rich experiences and conversations as possible. I do all I can to talk to them and listen to them and teach them about conversations, questions, answers, and discussion. The inequality they face as a result of their families’ economic circumstances just gives me more reason to do everything I can to get them ready for kindergarten on an even ground with the more advantaged kids they will meet there.

So please keep in mind that I do not teach in the suburbs. I don’t teach rich kids. My view of preschool is shaped by my experiences in my urban district. If I were to teach the kids of college-educated parents, I might have a different view entirely.

Although, knowing how opinionated and stubborn I am, maybe not!

Games For Education - It works!

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:20:00 GMT

I set this game up for it to be used to demonstrate that games such as these are useful methods for teaching something you have no idea of. In this case, it's a point-and-click game on parts of the face, and the language I have chosen is Indonesian. Try it! If you're looking for parts of the face/body in English look here: http://acliltoclimb.blogspot.com/2010/04/

Physical Education (PE) and CLIL

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:12:00 GMT

My heart's still beating fast and I'm sweating like a pig. Strange, that, isn't it? Sweating like a pig? But, pigs don't sweat, do they? Well, maybe it's more to do with smelling after sweating since pigs supposedly smell bad. There are other animal idioms, such as 'eating like a horse' and 'drinking like a fish', which do make you wonder if they make much sense. Anyway, I digress. Why is my

執業理念的對話（教師）

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:40:00 GMT

I'm trying my darnest to crack into the Chinese market, hehe. This has been done by Google translator, so I have no idea what it says! If you read Chinese, let me know if it makes sense at all!

你有一個對話的腳本，也許您希望自己編寫它，或許你想獲得它從另一來源，也許在這個博客，也許你的學生自己編寫了-因此，您做什麼之後，？你告訴你的學生和實踐形式對，你去附近的一類配對，監測其產出，對不對？嗯，這裡有一些變化可以用香料行動。

*更改夥伴：他們執行的對話，以不同的合作夥伴或合作夥伴。

*更改環境：相反的坐姿，他們站立或走動，他們的階級。讓他們進院子，或播放音樂，好像他們是在黨。問他們這樣的活動而發言，例如通過一個對象，如一個球，來回。是靈活的，具有創造性。愛你的學生將打破他們的日常學校單調。

*泵的數量：他們必須更響亮（如其他人聽力困難或他們講了一個壞的電話線），或者他們自己的聲音降低到耳語，因為如果他們溝通secretively 。

*修改內容：修改了幾句話或表現形式，有時通過改變幾個關鍵詞，你可以改變一個對話，也就是說，邀請一家電影院一至一家餐館。

*新增內容：新增行前及/或之後的對話，或要求學生自己想像可能出現的情況後，或腳本可以增加對第三人。

*他們提出挑戰：問問他們實行不看自己的筆記，或擦拭對話董事會。如果有必要，你可以逐步增加的挑戰，消除字或行，有幾個人。您還可以準備圖片或文字提示，以幫助他們記住了對話。

除了不同的對話活動，您也可以變更的方式，對正在形成。

*傳統的對：在這裡，您要求他們選擇的合作夥伴，或者您分配一個。他們通常留在座位上的椅子。

*法出來：傳統對上述有時工作之後，讓他們的對話，對執行的對，通常是在前面的教室。

*背靠背：他們站立或坐在背對背不是面對面。這是特別有用的電話交談，或當你想鼓勵學生進行溝通，通過他們的聲音本身，而援助的身體語言。

*在線生成：他們的立場（或坐）在兩排，面對對方。他們信奉其對話。然後，您可以要求學生在年底一列移動到另一端的同一行。其餘下移一個席位，以便每個現在有不同的合作夥伴。接著，他們從事相同的對話，或不同的，如果你希望。

如果你有幾個學生，你可以讓他們在一列，談論他們的鄰居。然後，您只要將學生從一端到另一端，他們現在都將有不同的合作夥伴。

*同心圓：他們站在兩個圈子，一個在其他。面臨的內圓外，除非他們正致力於背靠背形成。當他們完成他們的對話，其中一個圓圈移動輪一個地方，讓大家現在面臨著一個不同的人。他們信奉的對話了。

您也可以變更這一移動多個地方，或者您也可以發揮一種形式的音樂椅子，即循環移動，直到你停止音樂。嘗試要求讓他們視而不見，而移動！這種方法也可以受聘於黨的活動（見上面的環境各不相同），您可以讓他們四處走動的房間，來自合作夥伴，合作夥伴，挖掘了對話，直到音樂停止。然後，他們開始實行的對話與他們新發現的合作夥伴。

*間隙形成：這是非常適合的抽水量（見上文）。他們開始彼此接近的中心會議室。他們開始講。雖然他們說，他們後退，直到最終他們是在兩端的房間。

當然，你可以做相反，他們開始在兩端的房間，並逐步靠攏。

這也是一個偉大的戶外活動！

另一個變化是，您可以指定一對作為'大'對，和他們站相當距離對方。雖然他們說話（或更象在大聲）對方，其他學生也參與對話，儘管在一個較低的水平，他們自由移動圍繞著這些'大'一雙。

印象最深的對話很短，所以他們將不得不開始當你給他們的信號。如果您有任何進一步的想法加入到這些，請他們在這裡分享。

Education Games 2: Classify these musical instruments!

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:27:00 GMT

This one is good for all ages! Note in this game, the lower your score, the better you are!

Click here for full screen version

successes and failures

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:56:59 GMT

At the end of the year I returned to the children’s assessment portfolios, and once again asked them questions about letters, sounds, numbers, colors, shapes, etc. Miss Slinger did her final assessment measuring vocabulary, rhyming, and alliteration. And then I looked at all the results and thought about them.

You know, when it’s the end of the year, you realize it’s too late to have done anything differently!

On the bright side, I rock at teaching letters and sounds. Everyone did really well with recognizing capital and lowercase letters, and in identifying letter sounds. I think most of my class knows at least 18 capitals, 18 lowercase, and 15 sounds. Many of them know all 26 in each category, and even my special education students did really well. So I feel good about sending them off to kindergarten, ready to go with learning how to read.

On the not-as-bright side, while my kids did okay with rhyming and alliteration, several of them did not meet the benchmark. I do teach rhyming and alliteration, but not as a daily routine, the way I do with the letters. And I have to admit, I’m kind of haphazard about fitting in my phonemic awareness stuff.

When I look back on the year, and look ahead to the new year, I definitely know what I want to improve. I did a great job with my read-alouds and book discussions two years ago, but not as well this past year. I’d like to teach phonemic awareness skills in a systematic, logical progression. I’d like to teach more content with each theme — maybe even do something on the first day (what do we know about zoos? what do we WANT to know?) and the last day (what did we learn about zoos?). And I’m still struggling to teach science, so I’m thinking about doing it sort of indirectly, with more nature and outdoor time.

Word wizards, continued

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:59:06 GMT

The children are starting to understand what I’m trying to do with the Word Wizard poster. I wrote on it the three words for this week — disappointed, excited, and lonely — and then we made tally marks every time we used (or heard someone use) any of the words.

Ruby got it first. Almost every day in Morning Meeting she has raised her hand to say something like, “I’m excited to go to a meeting with my daddy,” or “I’m excited to go to my Grandma’s house.” Miss Slinger and I have, unfortunately, had several opportunities to say, “I’m very disappointed in your behavior.”

But the best of all is a little boy we’ll call Russell (for Russell the Sheep, who can’t get to sleep), whose mother sent me an email to let me know that Russell said “I’m disappointed that Daddy didn’t give my little brother enough salad” at dinner the other night. She didn’t know where he got that word until she saw the letter in his backpack about our Word Wizard words of the week.

word wizards

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:22:26 GMT

Yesterday flew by in a rush, and I never got to story time. So today we read On Monday When It Rained, and I put three words on our new Word Wizard poster:

disappointed
excited
lonely

First, though I did a vocabulary pretest. I gave the children trays to use as lapboards, and papers numbered 1-6. By each number there was a happy sun picture, and a sad cloud picture. I said, “If this sentence makes sense, circle the sun. If it doesn’t make sense, circle the cloud.” Then I said six sentences, like “When my mom said we were going to the cool new playground, I was excited.”

The whole thing was crazy. I felt like the assessment itself wasn’t very developmentally appropriate. These guys are FOUR and they’ve never taken tests before. Understanding if a sentence made sense was hard enough, but figuring out how to fill out the sheet was really hard. Miss Slinger was trying not to laugh, and I was trying not to cry.

However, I’m still glad I did it. When we read the book, we talked about what those three words mean, and how we’re going to keep track of every time we hear someone using those words. We’ve already got four tally marks on the poster (Miss Slinger: “I’m so disappointed that you are making so much noise in the hallway. Oh, thank you for being quiet. I’m so excited that you were doing such a good job listening to me.”) And at the end of the week, we’ll do the post-test, and I can see if we’ve made any growth.

I need to figure out a good way to measure if children have learned a particular vocabulary word. Any ideas?

Talking to toddlers

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:49:01 GMT

At a science museum today with my two year old nephew (and various and sundry other relatives), I held his hand and showed him the antelope exhibit.

“See, that’s an antelope. Can you say that?”

“Annalope!” We walked to the next exhibit.

“Oh, this is a different kind of antelope.”

“Anonner one! And anonner one!” He pointed. Then he asked, “What’s he eating?”

“He’s eating the grass.”

“Annalope eating da grass.”

I got bored of all the antelope displays, and looked ahead. “Ooh, would you like to see a lion?”

“Wion!” So we moved on to the lion display. “Wion! Anonner one!”

“Yes, there are more lions. Shall we count them? One, two, three, four. There are four lions.”

“Four wions.” He paused, and looked at the lions with interest. “Toes.”

“Yes,” I said, “lions do have toes. In their paws.”

“Toes in dere paws.”

And so on. Later, walking back to the car with my brother-in-law, I told him how wonderful it was to talk to his son and teach him things, and how it made my kind of angry at the same time, to think of all the other two year olds who are not being talked to.

“No one is talking to them, or listening to them. Their parents think of toddlers as sort of overgrown babies who can’t really learn or do anything. They yell at them, tell them No! or Stop that! or Be Quiet!, they feed them, dress them, and they love them, but they don’t talk to them. And so they don’t really learn how to talk all that well…..And then they end up in my class.”

I told my brother-in-law about the most important study/book about education and poverty, Meaningful Differences, by Hart and Risley. Children from families in poverty are talked to so much less than children in families with professional parents that they arrive in kindergarten with a word deficit in the thousands, having heard millions of fewer words in their little life times.

“So, some kids are already screwed when they’re three?” my brother-in-law asked.

And unfortunately, some of them are. Those of us who are their teachers need to do as much as we can to provide them with rich experiences and lots of vocabulary to try to address the word gap.

And it sure would be nice if teachers and policy-makers and people who care about the achievement gap could figure out a way to encourage more parents to talk to their toddlers.