Notes
We discussed Michelle’s recent teaching video where she used Whisper phones with 3-year-olds to teach fluency and expression. Michelle did a great job of explicitly teaching the students how to use whisper phones and establishing a routine to use them. Michelle related that it is challenging to get 3-year-olds to participate in discussions. The lesson focused on fluency and expression in reading, where students used whisper phones to practice different vocal expressions while reading stories. The lesson successfully covered various emotions including mad, excited, scared, sleepy, laughing, playing, fun, sad, and crawling. Michelle mentioned that the students, particularly the boys, enjoyed using the whisper phones, though two girls were too shy to participate.
We discussed the difficulty of teaching comprehension skills to 3-year-olds and explored ways to assess and incorporate these skills into early childhood education. I have permission to share the comprehension rubric that Holly and I made using the early childhood standards and using play based activities to do the assessment. Michelle also has end of the year testing coming up.
Michelle and Kristin discussed feedback on a professional development program involving video recording of teaching sessions. Michelle expressed gratitude for the program’s supportive approach and found the self-reflection valuable, though challenging to watch.
Michelle estimated that about 60-70% of her students are currently scoring 3 or 4 on the assessments.