"I encountered a similar situation in a preschool -- a three-year-old boy who spoke very little. Much like the girl described by Pat in her post, below, Xavier would respond with body language and facial expressions, but he would't talk."
This is such a great topic. For a few years (fifteen years ago), here in Kamloops, BC, some of us did "multi-age on purpose" -- three of us taught K-1-2s; occasionally sharing kids but not mostly. We had great buy-in from parents (but that's a different story -- how we achieved this with a 'captive audience' method ;-) ). Anyway, because of that setting I was able to observe this. Running a play-oriented morning (with the K's), one year super shy Alex arrived, and would only hunker down under one of the desks near to the morning circle, etc. He joined in the play okay, but didn't really talk to anyone. From his mom (and the home visit, yes we used to do these, those of us with ECE training), I knew he *did* talk, could, etc., but was the classic "shy" kid. I let him continue in this way, but would just some of the time turn to make sure he could also see the picture in the story, or just sometimes add his name in my conversation etc. All mild, all fun (enough). Because of having the K-1-2 setting, I was able to not only watch this boy slowly integrate, but by grade two he was definitely a class leader and so on. I was fortunate too -- his mom wrote me a letter when he was in grade 12 to thank me on what a great early start he had. ;-) Of course, we know we have 'made a difference' for many -- but don't so often get any pats on the shoulder, this way. ;-) Re the Common Core -- the relevance of your discussion to our programs in BC is this -- I observe that suddenly now that we've gone to full day K, there are worksheets -- and sometimes worksheets galore. Also, few of the K teachers have had ECE, though that's changing bit. Us oldtimers are horrified at the insistence that these clumsy little hands (boys often) are made to work at printing (incorrect form, often, too), just so we can press on with learning of the alphabet etc. Marilyn Chapman of University of British Columbia headed up the new full day curriculum -- and I *know* that she is 'of my way of thinking' as to all this (and the worksheets). But teachers here have a lot of autonomy in our classrooms -- it's great. And not so great, too. ;/ Been a bit of a fight re this. We carry on. Thanks for any feedback on all this! Linda Rightmire SD # 73 Kamloops, BC _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
