Teaching KINDNESS

Curation for MOD#4

Our school's mission statement:

"At Casorso Elementary School – École Élémentaire Casorso we work with parents, guardians, and our community as a whole to provide a positive learning environment facilitating the growth of the whole child to become a confident, collaborative, innovative, life-long learner, thoughtfully contributing to our community as appropriate to his/her age."

The focus of thoughtful contribution has spearheaded a goal to emphasize kindness this year as we implement "family groups" to encourage different student and teacher interactions throughout the school. As a dual-track (French immersion) school, there can often be a divide between the students and staff of the separate programs. Having "family groups", a blend of students from both programs in smaller mixed-age (K-6) clusters, lead by enrolling and non-enrolling teachers, is an attempt to create a closer sense of community within our walls. Children and teachers who otherwise would not interact are given a chance to do so through monthly organized activities. Mentorship can occur between older and younger students and these groups allow students to connect with teachers from other parts of the school. It is our hope to have these clusters carry on throughout the students' years at the school with new kindergarteners replacing the outgoing grade six students each year.

So teaching kindness...
We met with two other schools to discuss this theme in October during our district implementation day. During the presentation, I collected items, thoughts and resources that were mentioned into a Padlet that was shared and added my own resources when I got back to the school. I looked through the library collection to pull some materials that would help teachers continue working on the theme and link it to our monthly group meetings. The result is this Kindness Pearltrees:

Kindness, by ms_percevault

The materials and resources curated here serve several purposes. One is to give participating teachers a starting point of sorts, as this endeavour is a new one, the steering committee wants to ensure that it is low stress. Secondly, as there is no "kindness" section of the library, this grouping allows teachers to see what is offered and available.

I have offered a variety of formats to present the theme of kindness. Videos can be used as introductions to the theme and promote discussion. This could be useful to determine students' prior knowledge of the theme and their experiences with it. Picture books can deliver a powerful punch in a shorter time frame and is accessible to the younger members of the family group. Finally, the Sneaky Cards (used in conjunction to reading Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed), Empathy Toy (with El Deaf and/or The Black Book of Colors), and RAK activities provide hands-on opportunities for students to put their energy into action. Students can approach this theme through discussions, art projects, thoughtful action, videos, play and observation.

Serafini (2012) describes the need for our students to be "reader-viewers", for them to be taught to hone their skills to not only look at the printed words but to be able to delve into visual representations and the design elements of electronic media.

"Teachers need to embrace these changes and find ways to incorporate the multimodal texts readers encounter outside of school into their classrooms and pedagogical repertoires." (Serafini, 2012)

It is my hope that having these resources will allow the teachers at my school to try some new things and present the theme of kindness in their family groups with multi-faceted splendour.

Work cited

Serafini, F. (2012) Reading multimodal texts in the 21st century. Research in Schools. 19(1), 26-32.

"Good Fit Book" and Freedom of Choice

Curation for MOD#3

"Good Fit Books" are big at my school. When I first heard the term from the Cafe System, it made practical sense to me but as more and more classes came in and this credo was repeated over and over sometimes with a militant stance, I questioning and delving further into how it was actually implemented. At its core, "good fit books" stems from wanting to enable students to have more autonomy over their reading choices by giving some guidelines to follow.

A good fit book:

- has a topic that interests you (look at the cover, read the back or front flap)

- should not have more than 3-5 words that give you difficulty when you read a sample from a random page

The idea is that students might become frustrated if the books they try are too difficult or that books that are too easy will not stimulate learning. Multiple lessons that can be found online for lessons to introduce "good fit" books. Several with items of clothing, usually involving varying size/types of shoes. At its core, teaching students skills to help them choose books independently, empowers them and give them solid guidelines to do it effectively. 

However, my frustrations lie in when a teacher or parent locks a child in and will not allow them to take out anything BUT a good fit book. I have had many times when a student approaches the circulation desk only to be waylaid by their teacher who scans their books and declares some or all their books not "good fits" and takes them away. 

"Research says that students should spend most of their time in 'just right' or 'at their level' books, but that research does not say to limit students and what they would like to read." - Pernille Ripp (Parrott, 2017) 

Limiting a student's choice based on reading level can be a huge blow to self-esteem and motivation.

"Those levels, to quote Fountas and Pinnell, are 'a teacher's tool, not a child's label." But that's exactly what levels have become - labels that restrict our readers and tell them that their reading identity needs to be based on an outside influence - the teacher - and not their own intuition." - Pernille Ripp, (Parrott, 2017)

Which brings me to this hypothetical quandary:

A grade two student comes into the library, on his own, to choose books. He is usually an enthusiastic science book fan (insects, tigers, sharks). He looks sad and defeated and says: “My Mom says that from now on I have to have take out chapter books to help my reading and they have to be a 2.4”.
 What do you do/say? How do you help this student? Who do you involve? How do you turn this dilemma into an opportunity?

I am immensely lucky to have an amazing library assistant who runs the circulation desk during my prep coverages or designated library class times so that I am able to move around the library with the students as they choose their books. It really enables me to see what they are looking at and how they go about making their choices. It also gives me time to connect with more students. So, hopefully, in a situation like this whether this student was able to come in on their own or with their class, I would be able to take the time to address their needs and concerns.

First off, I would commiserate with him and empathize with their understandable sadness; feeling like your freedom of choice is taken away is a big thing. Luckily, in my library, All students are able, encouraged (and occasionally prompted) to take out more than one book during their book exchanges. As well, several teachers have implemented student book bins for use in the classroom. These bins contain books at reading levels that students are working on but are comprised as well with at least one "choice" book that is added each week from what is signed-out during their library exchange. I would therefore ensure I speak to this student's teacher to make sure they know of the situation and are lenient in allowing them to have a choice in their box that may not always "fit".

"Billy, I understand that you are feeling sad right now but your mom is coming from a place of caring. She wants to help you build your reading skills. There are many books in this library that would fit her expectations and that I think might be interesting for you too. Do you want to take a look with me to see what we can find?"

At this juncture, I would take him to the junior fiction section of the library where many popular series can be found. He may not have spent much time here and not be aware of the books that are available. We would work together to find a chapter book that is interesting and at the right level. I would also remind him that if he does start the book and changes his mind, he is welcome to come back during open library time for me to help him out again. I may also take the opportunity to slip a note into his book with a revised version of my welcome message to parents that I send out to kindergarten classes every year. The letter is a reminder to parents that the school library is also open to them before and after school if they want to have an account to check-out books to read with their children or to use our parent resource materials. Having his parent come in would also open avenues of communication to see where their concerns are and allow me to show the importance of non-fiction reading materials in literacy development as well.

"As children get excited about a topic, they want to talk about it... conversations provide a way to deepen their reading. Kids will return to a nonfiction book over and over again as new questions arise or as they decide to delve into another aspect of a top. Reading nonfiction collaboratively encourages children to spend more time with a book than they might have done on an individual level." (Scheuer and Beecher, 2017)

Non-fiction may very well be what this parent is looking for if they want to work with their child on his reading skills, especially if he already has an interest in the genre.

Works cited

Parrott, Kiera. (August 28, 2017). Thinking outside the bin: why labeling books by reading level disempowers young readers. Retrieved from: http://www.slj.com/2017/08/feature-articles/thinking-outside-the-bin-why-labeling-books-by-reading-level-disempowers-young-readers/#_

Scheuer, Mary Ann and Alyson Beecher.  (August 28, 2017).  Beyond reading levels: choosing nonfiction for developing readers. Retrieved from: http://www.slj.com/2017/08/literacy/beyond-reading-levels-choosing-nonfiction-for-developing-readers/#_