This morning began with Ashley's demo encompassing a variety of questions toward the ubiquitous nature of technology in our society. For your sanity, and, selfishly, mine, I will spare you my position on the balance of technology in our lives.
This afternoon, Jenny, our resident early childhood montessori guru, presented her demo on creative story telling. Wow! I am embarrassed to admit that my ignorance toward early childhood education led me to believe that there is more "babysitting" and less "educating". Jenny, I'm sorry. I write corrected. My eyes were completely opened even through just a glimpse into the your world. Children as young as 3 have creative minds a desire for expression.
One particular strategy Jenny shared was that of dictation. Essentially, her students (ages 3-6) receive a picture (which she pulls from National Geographic). As Jenny positions herself, on the child's dominant side, with paper and a highlighter, she asks the child what story he/she wants to tell based off of that picture. The child provides a sentence. Jenny repeats it back to the child before writing, and simultaneously sounding out, the sentence. When finished, Jenny repeats the sentence back to the child before prompting the child for more of the story.
So, how does dictation fit in with high school seniors? Well, I think it has its own deserved place. Kendra so wisely pointed out that writing is a social endeavor. (Take this blog, for example.) What if my students, perhaps after brainstorming on a particular prompt/topic/idea, dictate a paragraph or two to another student? In doing so, the student collaboratively creates a written piece. The scribe serves as a sounding board, and revision assistant, in helping the dictator to negotiate organization, clarity, content, grammar, conventions, and so much more. Additionally, the practice may help students overcome their fear of sharing their work, fear that it's "not good enough"; an idea that I cannot quite grasp its origins.
Perhaps we did, in fact, everything we need to know in (and before) kindergarten.
Jenny Formon teaches 3-6 year olds at Charlotte Montessori School in Dilworth.
Kim,
ReplyDeleteI love your ideas about bringing dictation to the high school level. I was trying to figure out how to do that too. So, what do you think: would it "work better" to have them working on individual pieces and swap the dictation role or should they be working on a collaborative piece where they take turns dictating. I was just trying to think that through myself and would love to know what you think!
Kim, I concur with your sentiments. Even though I teach 5th graders and I am still at the elementary level, I still take for granted all that the lower grades do with their students each day. Imagine trying to complete writing conferences with 20+ kids and still maintain a positive attitude complete with sweet, compassionate voice and patience to boot? We would be pulling our hair out by the third one! However, I love the ideas you had about using dictation with your students as well. I also think that the collaborative nature of this activity will cut out some of the isolation that writing can have with students who feel just plain stuck or uninspired. Thanks for your thoughts! I also loved your Bacon post. No, you are not a nerd! I tried to comment, but lost it all this morning. I love learning new, complex texts as well, but I found it much less threatening with the group.
ReplyDeleteI love learning from early childhood teachers. Lacy also is an early childhood teacher and I have learned so much from her. First of all is their patience. I have used Jenny and Lacy as mentor texts to learn the art of patience. Then there's the careful explaining of the project. I needed help there too. All in all, I think IA learn better from them than from anyone.
ReplyDeleteKim I really like your idea of having your students dictate for each other (even if it is only a paragraph or two out of an entire paper!). I think that our students, even mine by sixth grade, have not done something like that in years! I don't know if they even remember any experience like that? I think it would be interesting to try it in my classroom too and see how it worked out! Look at that...taking Jenny's demo and your idea :)
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