While leading an exhibit on frogs, second grader Alex Meyer focused on the facts: They eat bugs. They have teeth on their upper jaws (but toads are toothless). Poisonous ones are colorful.
Kalen Lee shares information about snakes. (School News Network)
Alex indicated how he found interesting information within several nonfiction books during his time spent as a researcher. “My teacher had me put sticky notes in books,” he said.
Alex and his classmates at Oriole Park Elementary School spent a recent morning as mini-experts, presenting information in the multi-purpose room turned nonfiction museum. The event was attended by parents, teachers and district administrators. The museum served as a celebration to cap off a month-long study by students on topics like hurricanes, tigers, butterflies, horses and birds.
“There are billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy,” said second grader Jace Bloomer as he talked about the sky and space.
Said student Amy Hernandez during her presentation: “Hurricanes are bad but cool, and are amazing but dangerous.”
Jace Bloom researched and presented on the sky and space. (School News Network)
Students of second grade teachers Danielle Terpstra, Kristen Accorsi and Sarah Buys-McKenney created their own nonfiction books, complete with ideas condensed into sections and lingo as well as illustrations and diagrams. Each student used several books for research and to develop their materials.
“Because they had to look over multiple books, they couldn’t just focus on one page, they had to think about their ideas across all of their texts,” Terprsta said.
The teachers use a curriculum called Lucy Calkins Units of Study, which involves a nonfiction unit. Students learn early research skills, like how to access and read nonfiction. The class focused on becoming “tour guides of their knowledge,” McKenney said.
“Our real focus is that they learn to retell and talk about what they know as a topic, not just retell and talk about what happened in a book. It so they can pull in lots of books about the same topic and be able to talk in that expert way about what they wanted to talk about.”
Jake Cabada had a mighty start to kindergarten. While visiting his Gladiola Elementary classroom for the first time, he stood up tall, a serious look on his face, flexed his arm muscles and proclaimed, “I’m strong!”
Around him, his new classmates looked around curiously, chatted with new friends and some even fought back a few tears. It was a practice run for their first day of school, and the beginning of their K-12 journey.
The Wyoming Public Schools’ four elementary schools — Gladiola, West, Oriole Park and Parkview — hosted the two-hour Kindergarten Smart Start on the Friday before school started Tuesday, Aug. 20 to help the little ones feel comfortable with their new school.
Students Josiah Kink and Christian Aleman play together
After arriving by bus, they met their teachers, toured the building, sat “criss-cross applesauce” on the classroom rug, ate breakfast and visited the cafeteria.
They also received words of encouragement from their parents. “Can you go look for your name?” dad Victor Cabrera asked a shy Jaden Cabrera. Moments later, Jaden located the owl-shaped name tag on his new cubby and stood by it smiling.
Longtime kindergarten teacher Rebecca Schaffer said Smart Start serves as a great warm-up for beginning full-day school.
Teacher Karen Ward meets her new kindergartners
“The first day is chaos, so it’s a little more calming,” she said. “It acclimates them to their new environment. They meet their teacher, so it’s a familiar face on the first day.”
Schaffer is ready to start a new year with her pint-sized pupils. “The kids are so fun,” she said. “They are funny and they are so smart. You might think they are just kindergartners, but they are geniuses.”
Several fourth-graders worked as crossing guards and helped their younger peers. Fourth-grader Kaleah Lacy had some sage words for kindergartners: “It’s going to be OK. I went to kindergarten at this school too and it was good.”
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Teacher Amber Middlemiss reads the book, “My New School,” to her new class.
First-grader Guadalupe Guillen’s go-to is snake books.
“He’s obsessed with snakes, so he sticks with my reptiles box,” said teacher Kristin Accorsi, referring to books in her classroom categorized by genre. Sure enough, minutes later the little boy in a dinosaur shirt paged through pictures of emerald tree boas and bright yellow corn snakes.
“There are different colored snakes,” he explained, flipping to a picture of an orange serpent with long fangs.
Mia Madrigal-Rivas finds her perfect spot to read
Accorsi makes sure her Oriole Park Elementary first-graders have their favorite books and new ones to discover.
Her classroom is freshly stocked with more than 500 new titles. She gives them time to “book shop” for choices they can already read, are learning to read and aspire to read. They have ample time in class to read on their own, and can check out books to bring home and read with their parents. In notebooks, they keep track of their reading goals.
Accorsi is using focused strategies for Guadalupe and his 23 classmates to get the most out of every book they read, be it about snakes or anything else.
The district also invested in materials – hundreds of books for every classroom –– to support it. Main components of the curriculum’s reading workshop model include mini-lessons (short bursts of teacher-led instruction followed by student-led participation), independent reading time and sharing time, when classmates partner to work on a strategy. Teachers are implementing the curriculum in all district elementary schools including Oriole Park, Gladiola, West and Parkview.
“The biggest benefit is developing real readers,” Accorsi said. “Also, it’s a highly engaging structure because kids have a significant amount of choice in what they read.” She’s able to work with students at their level during independent reading time, reaching students who are below grade level and allowing those who are ahead to keep progressing.
“Students are becoming much more motivated and engaged to read.”
Creating Consistent Curriculum
The curriculum brings consistency to literacy instruction district-wide through research-backed strategies. Students will know expectations and lingo used in all grades and with every teacher, said Oriole Park Principal Jennifer Slanger. After 28 elementary teachers used the curriculum as a pre-adoption last school year, over the summer, all elementary teachers received four full days of training led by three staff developers from Teacher’s College Columbia University. Oriole Park and Gladiola staff members will continue training throughout the school year.
This school year, several fifth-graders are pre-adopting the curriculum, with plans for full fifth- and sixth-grade implementation next school year.
“There were a lot of different things happening at our four elementary buildings, and if you take a peek at our M-STEP scores and even our district data, we really weren’t growing our students as readers as much as we should be,” said Oriole Park Elementary School Principal Jennifer Slanger. “What the reading workshop framework allows us to do is become consistent at the K-4 elementary.”
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Superintendent Craig Hoekstra said the curriculum and its alignment districtwide allows staff to meet the needs of all students in every classroom. Individualized goal-setting and conferring with teachers one-on-one while learning what students like to read meets them where they are and allows them to grow.
“Any time you can get students’ voice in the process –if there’s interest– there will be greater level of commitment,” he said.
District literacy coach Brenna Fraser has worked to support the implementation. “One of the things we are most excited about is the opportunity for students to get a lot more reading time in the day,” she said. “We are also very excited about the alignment piece and how that will support higher levels of collaboration.”
Pushing Toward Greater Proficiency
According to mischooldata.org, on the 2017-2018 M-STEP, 30 percent of Wyoming students district-wide scored proficient in English Language Arts at the end of third-grade.
Statewide, it’s a pivotal time for young readers. Beginning in the 2019-20 school year, according to third-grade reading legislation (Public Act 306), all third-graders need to be within one year of grade level in reading or face being held back. The law requires extra support for K-3 students who are not at grade level in reading, including individual reading improvement plans, which are customized plans for students reading at below grade level to improve.
Slanger said they are moving in the right direction. “We can say with confidence that this is an approach to teaching literacy that will drastically change or students’ ability to read, which in turn, then will support students on individual reading plans,” Slanger said. “I am anticipating three years down the road to really celebrate the growth of students and have fewer students on IRIPs.”
Part of the work toward growth is ensuring access to lots of books.
“The biggest takeaway I had (from training) was how important it is that we have books in front of students as much as possible,” Slanger said. The district provided each teacher with a “level library set,” books and resources for categorizing by level and genre, and a bookshelf.
At Oriole Park, four teachers piloted the reading workshop model last school year.
“I noticed a drastic change in students’ approach to reading,” Slanger said. They were highly engaged in the mini-lesson, they were participating and starting to take more ownership in their learning, they were excited to book shop. I think that is the coolest thing.”
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