Schools teach 4-year-olds learning fundamentals
Skills learned at pre-K carry through students’ academic careers
BY LAYLI WHYTE
Staff Writer

RED BANK — The borough Public School District has implemented teaching methods in its prekindergarten classes, which foster literacy, symbolic thinking and self-regulation

Last week, the Red Bank Public School District’s Board of Education brought its meeting to Room 302 of the Red Bank Primary School, to witness a pre-kindergarten class in action.

About a dozen pre-K students and their parents were on hand to give a visual demonstration of the teaching methods the district uses.

Pat Moss, one of the districts pre-K teachers, explained the activities in which the children were participating.

“Over here,” she said, motioning to a small group of students sitting in pairs on the floor, “we have some of our students doing ‘Buddy Reading.’ One student has a pair of lips and one has an ear. The student with the ear listens and the one with the lips reads. Then they switch. It helps with self-regulation.”

One student in the Buddy Reading pair is given a piece of laminated cardboard with a picture of an ear on it, to indicate listening, and one gets a picture of lips, to indicate reading.

Moss explained that each student picks a book to “read” to the other.

The class comprises 4-year-olds, and although students do not read words, they understand the pictures in the books, and tell each other the stories, according to Moss.

Moss said that the self-regulation this activity fosters is one of the overall goals of the program.

“It helps keep the students focused on what they are doing,” she said.

Self-regulation was also being displayed in another group of children sitting around a table in another area of the classroom.

Moss explained that the children were “play planning,” which is when the students decide which of several classroom stations they would like to play in for a period of time.

“Before they go to that center,” Moss said, “they write out a play plan. First, they draw a picture, and as the year goes by the pictures get more and more detailed. They describe in the picture what they want to do when they get to that center.”

The teachers and teaching assistants in the classroom talk to the students about their plans, and write out the words “I am going to ...” on the page with the picture.

Moss said that the teachers check up on the students while they are at the centers and make sure that they are following through with their intended plans.

“It’s all part of self-regulation,” she said. “The curriculum centers around self-regulation, pretend play, which fosters symbolic thinking and literacy.”

Moss said that although the students, for the most part, are not advanced enough to write out entire words, by the end of the school year, many can write out the beginning sounds of words with the help of the “sound chart,” which is attached to the blackboard at the front of the room at the eye level of the students.

“Some of the more advanced students write out entire words,” she said, “and by June most students are writing out more and more of the words.”

Moss said that the students also learn some math and science skills, still focusing on the three points of the curriculum.

Those curriculum points in the pre-K program are the building blocks for the districts kindergarten through sixth-grade Comprehensive Balanced Literacy Framework, which Morana and Director of Curriculum Toni Mullins presented at the board meeting.

The presentation touched on the importance of heterogeneous grouping of students, which would be grouping students, not necessarily by age or grade level, but having children of different skills levels all in the same classroom.

The thought behind that kind of grouping, according to Mullins, is to encourage all of the students to reach their highest potential.

“We’re certainly not speaking about what’s taking place right now,” said Morana. “This is just to help us all as a board to define the regulations and guidelines for how we are defined as a district. We have to be able to speak the same language.”

Morana said that at the district’s middle school level, which is grades four through eight, about 3 to 5 percent of the student population is performing above the expectations of the grade in either math or language arts literacy.

“We need to accelerate learning for all,” she said. “At the seventh-grade level about 15 students are accelerating faster than the others.”

Morana and Mullins presented points from a report titled “A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students,” which was written by education experts from The University of Iowa and the University of South Wales.

The report states that accelerating students into higher grade levels may be the best thing to do for a student, and that the social and emotional toll on the child is not as great as previously claimed.

“This study talks about the benefits of acceleration,” said Morana. “Kids adjust well, particularly because the content is challenging. The study shows that there has not been any negative impact.”

Morana said that the district, if it follows some of the recommendations of the study, between 3 and 5 percent of every grade in the district would be advanced to the next grade, creating a more heterogeneous classroom setting.

Currently, there are some eighth-grade students from the district who attend math classes at Red Bank Regional High School.