A Visit from Kate Feiffer

For a children's book author the true test of success (or failure) of your 'baby' is to read it to a group of children. Young children will let you know right off the bat and in no uncertain terms if they are interested in what you have to offer. If they are bored there is no stern look, reprimand or promise that will make them pay attention. They are a tough crowd but very honest. I can confidently compare this to amateur night at The Apollo, only without the hook.

Kate Feiffer took on this challenge today as she braved an audience of preschool and first grade students for a reading of Double Pink. And before I keep you in suspense any longer, yes, she pulled it off.

I am always aware of how adults speak with children. Not only the words they choose, but their tone and body language as well. Do they get a kick out of the small ones or do they lose patience easily? Kate Feiffer clearly enjoys interacting with young children and it only seems natural that she would use her talents to pen a book for them. To begin, she asked if they had heard the phrase "write what you know". She said that she never really understood this phrase until she wrote Double Pink. Previously she always assumed that if she knew something, then everyone must know it. However, this is not true is it? (I am finding this out for myself more and more.) Her words mirrored perfectly our current class investigations in poetry writing and gave me an authentic tie-in for student conferences.

Double pink was inspired by Kate Feiffer's daughter who took a shine to the color pink early on and never looked back. While Kate read the children laughed, commented (loudly, as only children can do), asked questions and LISTENED. That is a great complement. Judging from audience reaction, a favorite part seemed to be when the main character, Madison, became lost in her pink surroundings and her mother's efforts to find her proved fruitless.

Overall, this is an engaging story with mesmerizing illustrations by Bruce Ingman. The ending promotes discussion amongst the students because there is a neat hint towards a possible sequel or at least a new obsession for Madison.

Student reaction was so positive and Kate was enjoying herself so much that she shared with us her soon to be published book Henry the Dog with No Tail. This book is a collaboration with her father Jules Feiffer who is an illustrator and author. He has created numerous children's books including the adorable Bark, George in addition to authoring plays. (My BFF Joy recently did a production of Grown Ups in which she played Kate's grandmother. How's that for six degrees of separation?)

Henry is a fantastic book. As a dog lover I was immediately taken with the story. This book can be enjoyed on several levels. Children enjoy it for the tale that unfolds while "big people" will appreciate the play on words and clever use of language. This will certainly be on my wish list (well, it is on my Amazon wish list as of today).

After the readings and questions Sara (our industrious librarian) brought out pink fruit salad as Kate engaged the children in one last activity. She selected a crayon at random and began a story based on the color (peach). Each child then added bits and pieces to the story until it found a natural resolution. Children certainly take a story on some seemingly odd tangents but find a way to bring it all together in the end.

If you are looking for a book about pink, and let's face it, who isn't, then Double Pink is for you.

Tips From My Mom #1

Every morning before school for as far back as I can remember my mom would quietly enter my bedroom in the morning and bring me a cup of hot tea. She would gently place it on my nightstand, then sit on the edge of my bed. In a soothing voice she would whisper "Gary, it's time to get up. Drink your tea before it gets cold." While she said this she would sweetly touch my hair and I would look up at her through blurry eyes. I'd mutter something to acknowledge that I heard her and then she would leave to go and wake up my two brothers.

Because I didn't want my tea to get cold and out of respect for the fact that she went through the trouble to bring me hot tea in the first place I would force myself through a sleepy haze to sit up in bed. With my feet planted firmly on the floor I'd reach for the tea, cupping it in both hands, then take a sip. Most of the time I would sit there for a while staring off into nothing, devoid of any thought other than perhaps catching a few more winks.

But the tea felt warm in my hands and I didn't want to spill any of it. So slowly, oh so very slowly I entered the land of lucid thought and left behind my comfortable bed filled with a vivid array of dreams and magical adventures. In a few minutes mom would come back to check on me, ever kind, never rushed or frazzled (I am sure she was but never seemed to be) and she'd take a moment to chat with me before heading off again to check on the rest of the family. She'd ask if the tea was okay - it always was, sugar, no milk - and I'd begin to stir and get ready for school.

It's an art raising children. You find ways of getting what you want and doing the things that need to get done in ways that never let on your true plan. My mom had three boys to get ready for school and a baby daughter but she never showed us that it was too much. Mom found a way to wake us up without shouting and threats. It's so simple, bring a mug of hot tea and tell your child to wake up before it gets cold. Genius.

Thanks mom for your gentle touch, your amazing love and the belief you have in all of us. Not a day goes by that I am not grateful that you are my mom and my friend.

Metacognition and Reading

Tenured teachers in New York City can choose one of two options when it comes to evaluating their skills and performance each year. Option A is a straight forward formal observation of a lesson including a pre and post interview. Option B is to conduct a year long action research study of their choosing that highlights one aspect of teaching and connects with current research in the field. Although Option A is the easier of the two, Lauren and I always opt for the second choice.

This year we chose to address the role of metacognition (thinking about thinking) in the reading process. Below is a snippet from our initial proposal...

Researchers consistently posit that metacognition plays an important role in reading. Metacognition has been defined as “having knowledge (cognition) and having understanding, control over and appropriate use of that knowledge” (Tei & Stewart, 1985). A study by Michael Pressley detailed the active comprehension strategies employed by good readers as they make sense of written text (Metacognition and Self-Regulated Comprehension, 2002). Successful readers are described as active learners who engage in metacognitive activities such as planning before reading, monitoring understanding during reading and checking outcomes after reading. This interaction with the text determines one’s level of comprehension. It is concluded that metacognitively sophisticated reading teachers can teach children to become metacognitively skilled, self regulated readers through modeling strategies and scaffolding student practice of comprehension strategies during reading.

We were very interested in getting to know our students views not only on the reading process but also in gaining insight into how they felt about themselves as readers. Did they consider themselves to be part of the 'literacy club' or outsiders? It sounds like heady stuff for five-and six-year-olds but I find children to be surprisingly articulate when it comes to speaking about themselves. It starts young folks.

To begin we used a modified version of The Burke Reading Interview. We included questions about favorite books or types of books in addition to rewording some of the existing questions. All of the interviews were videotaped in our school library with Lauren and I taking turns in front of and behind the camera. We used these initial interviews as a baseline with a two-fold purpose; to monitor growth or change in perception over the school year and to view alongside videotaped running records to see if the strategies the children said they used while reading matched the strategies they actually employed as they read.

The second stage of our research was to videotape individual children as they read and conduct a Running Record of the reading. Running records track everything a child does as they read. The teacher notes if the child omits a word, goes back to the beginning of the sentence, self corrects, inserts another word, says a word other than what is written, etc. This is followed by an in-depth analysis that can be broken into three categories; semantic, syntactic and grapho-phonic. From this, one can determine which strategies a child is using while they read. Are they are reading for meaning, focusing on how the word looks (and which part of the word), using the structure of the sentence or a combination of the three? Many educators use running records without following through on the analysis. This makes me nuts. Many also engage in selective notation, usually not marking when the child goes back to self correct, which also makes me crazy.

Running records present a challenge when assessing Deaf readers because of the differences between manual and oral/written forms of communication. American Sign Language does not have a written component and cannot be measured according to one to one correspondence between text and spoken word. This is an area that I am interested in addressing for my doctoral research. However, in various pilot studies I have seen advantages that signing the text affords assessment that are not available while speaking a text out loud. This fascinates me.

The reason for addressing metacognition in the first place is so that students are aware of what they do as they read and to help promote the engagement of other strategies when they get stuck. The theory behind our research is that once a child knows this explicitly they are better equipped to meet the challenges of more difficult texts.

As the school year draws to a close Lauren and I are busy gathering our findings and creating a presentation to share with our colleagues. We are finishing up the final round of videos, asking the children the same questions we asked at the beginning of the year to see if perspectives have changed. Our students have grown and changed so much this year and that is clearly documented on the videotapes.

It has been a fantastic, exhausting school year. I am very sad to see another year, my 11th, fade away. I don't know how parents do it. I just want to hold on to the kids and protect them from everything, including second grade and any teacher they have who may not treasure them as I have. I go through this every year. Crazy.

Blue's Clues

Congratulations! A student of ours was asked to join Blue and his friends for an episode of 'Blue's Clues' which will air some time in 2008. He filmed his part on Wednesday and came back to school full of stories about the events of the day. I had always thought that Blue was an animated dog but he insists that he was there. He may be pulling my leg, but as of today has yet to change his story.

He performed his role in American Sign Language (ASL) and helps Blue catch some bad guys, followed by a satisfied wink. We are looking forward to seeing this on TV.

Run That By Me Again

Teaching first grade can be a lot of fun especially if you have a good sense of humor and get a kick out of interacting with children. I've got that in spades. Every day I am in awe of the fresh perspective my students hold regarding the simplest things. They have not yet learned to box themselves into 'standardized' ways of thinking so anything goes as far as creating unique utterances and ways of expressing themselves. This means that I am constantly supplied with fresh stories to share with my nearest and dearest. However this week there were three things that made me laugh (in varying degrees) and I feel compelled to share them in this forum.

Yesterday Lauren and I explored symmetry with the class. In order to clearly demonstrate this we modeled taking a piece of paper, folding it in half and cutting a curved line along the folded edge. When the paper was opened it revealed a heart. Thus: symmetrical. The kids gave it a go by cutting their own papers into various designs and afterwards we all examined the shapes. During this time Lauren started to cut out letters for our students whose first names began with letters that could be cut out in this way and remain symmetrical. One girl brought her letter "A" home and decorated it with shiny red circle stickers. She showed it to me early this morning and I was duly impressed. Me likes the shiny!

While the students put away their book bags and went about performing their morning jobs she taped the giant A to her shirt. It was about this time that I heard:

"Super A-hole to the rescue!"

She was 'flying' around the room like a super hero repeating over and over...

"Super A-hole to the rescue!".

As you can imagine I stopped in my tracks and gave a closer listen. Yep, that's what she was saying. Only by now some of the other children were joining in the chorus by saying that this child was a "Super A-hole" and they were calling out her super hero name so she could save them from some terrible danger. Huh? I slowly walked over and asked her where she had heard that. She told me she made it up because 'A' has a big hole in it and her pink shirt was showing through.

I quietly informed her that she might want to rethink her super hero name, perhaps adopting George O'Connor's KAPOW! character "American Eagle" since they both start with the letter A. One can only try to steer them in the right direction. The choice is theirs. Super A-hole spent the day saving others and spreading good will to all.

Another amusing bit came earlier this week and like the "I Spilled Myself" story it also involves a bit of bathroom humor. Anyway...I was walking a boy to the bathroom yesterday and he was explaining to me that he had to go to the bathroom the night before but 'saved' it until the morning. He also 'saved' it that morning on the bus. Of course he meant that he held it but really is there such a difference? They both mean the same thing after all, and how did 'holding it' take off?

Finally on Monday the class was involved in our morning meeting, sharing news and discussing various upcoming events. One topic was an upcoming birthday on Friday. One boy stood up, walked to the calendar and said the birthday was tomorrow - again, again, again. He was saying that the birthday was four days from now but chose to express himself in a novel way. I like it. It reminds me of how children count when they are first learning. Instead of counting 38, 39, 40, many children will say 38. 39, 30 10. It makes sense. I was told that that is how the Chinese learn to count - not in arbitrary numbers but in concepts and grouping. Interesting no?

I have two days left of the week. I wonder what fresh perspectives await.