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Begin The Year With Best Practices in Joyful Accelerated Literacy on August 2, 2010. See Seminar Announcement

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1. What About Kindergarten Names, Mascots, and Rich Learning Environments?

Emotional engagement is the key to all powerful learning. So why not invite kindergartners into an imaginative five-year-old environment, complete with real animals, a class name, a mascot, puppets who watch out for them, and photos of their lives? 

Playful rituals and traditions help build the learning community, engage the imagination and take advantage of how the brain learns best!

It's a lot easier to build a classroom of independent and responsible learners when children can't wait to come to school each day!

• When Bobbi Fisher was teaching, her children brainstormed and came up with a new name for their kindergarten every year.  They might call themselves “The Reading and Writing Kindergarten” or “The Singing Kindergarten.”  The children collaborated on a large, decorated butcher paper sign draped over the door frame to let everyone know who they were.  Giving children ownership for the learning community builds a sense of belonging.
• Celeste Starr's five-year-olds become “Kinder Stars” the moment they enter her classroom.  They soon internalize her high social and academic expectations. For pictures of how Celeste builds memories around this theme, see the photo essay Kinder Stars End-of-Year Performance. (Celeste is now a stay-at-home mom and may be available for some literacy coaching later on.)
• Diane Bonica's children enter the “Chicka Boom Classroom” with a menagerie of giraffe mascots. To get a glimpse inside this joyful classroom and enjoy Diane's poetic parent newsletters, see “ Diane Bonica’s Kindergarten” website—one of our literacy award sites.  Diane is a strong advocate for celebrating childhood.  See  video clips of her creative, engaging literacy strategies on our site: Silent “E” Man and We Can Write Nonsense Words.
• Laura Flocker's children discover a real bunny named Bugsy happily hopping around their “home-away-from-home” in this all-day kindergarten. A stuffed animal mascot named Rascal is the traveling book buddy who shares adventures with a different family each week. His journal stories help build the home-school community. See: Rascal and His Journal Comes Home for a Visit and Rascal's and Bugsy’s Favorite Bunny Books. See also Laura’s literacy award winning website, with amazing art connections in Salem, Oregon!
• Julie Lay’s kindergartners enter “Hedgie Haven” and discover soft, friendly stuffed hedgehogs throughout the room. They even have a live hedgehog called Hedgie as a class pet.  For a glimpse into “Hedgie Haven” see photo essays “Writing to Read in Kindergarten” Part I and “Writing to Read in Kindergarten” Part II and complimentary e-Books. (Next Writing-to-Read seminar is October 8, 2010 in Portland, Oregon.)
• Becky Leber’s children are “Kindergarten Friends.”  Photos of the children and their changing art adorn the wall and door outside the classroom.  You’ll often hear Becky saying, “How can we help our friends?”  For glimpses into Becky Leber’s Reggio Emelia-inspired classroom, see photo essay: Becky Leber’s Literacy Centers. (Becky is teaching first grade this fall.)
• Kathie Bridges named her classroom “The Kindergarten Super Stars” and also used that phrase as a key point in her management system. When she needs the children’s attention, she stands in her “teacher spot” and slowly and expectantly chants “Kin-der-gar-ten”... at which point the children all stop their activities and raise both hands in an ASL applause gesture while exclaiming “Super Stars!” They have practiced this until it is an automatic response. What a great way to gain attention from active, young learners! See video clips with wonderful Kathie Bridges. With Happy Hearts We Dance and Sing.
• A delightful Colorado kindergarten teacher told us about her classroom of “Busy Bees,” who often moved through the school softly singing “Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are, so we tell them, 'We are the busy bees, mighty, mighty busy bees.’”(Tune: School Fight Song). They sing their kindergarten team song with gusto or, “with no voice at all” (just mimicking the actions while hearing the language internally). How fun is that?
• See Accelerated Literacy Through Joyful Learning Photo Essay.

Thank you to the generous teachers who continue to share their teaching stories and songs with all of us at our literacy seminars. Your stories add layers of delight and depth to our work. 

2. Thoughts and Research on Kindergarten Handwriting

Kindergartners love to write, and daily “kid writing” teaches reading. So what then, is the role of handwriting? Our action research shows it is important to be intentional and have high expectations for efficient handwriting practices—beginning with the child’s name. The “name ticket strategy” is how we systematically teach for fluency, right from the very first day of school.

Kindergarten children are capable of learning to efficiently print their first names (and later, their last) if we create a sense of “urgency” around name writing and provide many authentic uses for the well-written, “name ticket” in the classroom. See our complimentary e-Book: Joyful Writing to Read Kindergartens for examples. We develop “kid writers” who have much more joy and skill by the end of the year if we start building this handwriting fluency right from the start. Again… the most effective handwriting programs start with the child’s name, movement and dancing chants that develop key handwriting motions.

Teachers who focus on handwriting fluency with a multisensory approach using real names and “heart” words and short multisensory “brain exercises”” are seeing amazing results.

Incorrect muscle memories are hard to unlearn later, so our goal must be to expect that the child’s name writing will be a source of pride and handwriting accomplishment. Parents are partners with us for nightly practice and review until fluency is achieved (fluency = accuracy and speed). Our high expectations of DAILY improvement are driven by careful daily assessment. Teachers, children, and parents deserve to know which letters are already mastered. Once each letter in the child’s first name is printed accurately and effortlessly, the last name is practiced. Then, we build fluency daily with the “heart” word “I” and phrases such as “I love you.” We also challenge the child who efficiently prints their first and last name to add a,b,c,d, (first with a model and soon from their visual memory) and later a-g to the back of their name ticket as an ABC “brain exercise”.

• See: Suzie Haas Name Ticket Strategy
• Parents: Teaching your Child to Print their Name Efficiently
• You’ve Got to Do the “O” Dance

Many teachers have requested more details on how we build handwriting fluency without a commercial handwriting program. We will continue documenting the process this year and anticipate developing an e-Book, video clips, and web seminar. Thank you for your interest!

Which handwriting system is best for kindergarten? 

A summary of independent research from the Eric Clearing House concludes, “The vertical alphabet is more developmentally appropriate, easier to read, and easier to write for young children.”

The alphabet system that children use to learn to read and write needs to be visually consistent. If you are using italic (D'Nealian) manuscript for handwriting, you are actually expecting young children to learn two different visual alphabet systems: one for reading and one for writing. This makes learning much harder.

3. Give Young Readers “Just Right: I Can Read!” Books

All young children deserve to experience a collection of books that they can enthusiastically sing and read from cover to cover-books that are a part of our shared cultural heritage. Incorporating song picture books or “Books that Sing and Rhyme” into the early literacy program is simply the most efficient and engaging way to develop English syntax, fluency with oral language, and to teach children concepts about how print works. Using “Books that Sing and Rhyme” allows us to teach essential reading skills while simultaneously fostering a love of reading!

See Artilces:

• Give Young Readers “Books That Sing and Rhyme”
• Magical Memory Reading Precedes Guided Reading
• Favorite “Books That Sing and Rhyme”
• Seminar Invitation: Begin the Year with Joyful Accelerated Literacy
• To order Nellie Edge Read and Sing Big Books™ visit our Online Bookstore

4. New Resources for Online Learning Community!

We are pleased to announce that we are expanding the resources for our online learning community, and the best part of all? They will continue to be available with NO SUBSCRIPTION FEE!

5. Enjoy Multisensory ABC and Phonics Immersion

We love hearing about the delightful stories teachers have shared about using our ABC Phonics: Sign, Sign and Read! book and program. This is simply the most engaging and accelerated learning strategy we know of to develop letter fluency with sounds.

To learn more, see the video clips:

• Kindergarten Performing ABC Phonics
• ABC Phonics Sing, Sign, and Read! ASL Tutorial generously provided by Sign2Me Publishers

For additional resources see:

• Optimal Learning with ABC Books
• Favorite ABC Books
• Click for more information and to purchase ABC Phonics: Sing, Sign, and Read!
• ABC Family Wall Chart (with permission to make copies when used with the ABC Phonics: Sing, Sign, and Read! program.)

6. Welcome Letter to New Kindergarten Children

August 2010

Dear Josh,

Soon it will be time for school to start. We will laugh and play and talk and dance together...

So begins a letter that you are invited to use as a springboard in creating your own “Welcome to Kindergarten” letter or postcard. 

Our kindergarten colleague, Cathy Albrecht, shared this great idea after our Magic of Signing Songs seminar.  She was delighted to see how many of her new kinders came in the first day of kindergarten already proudly knowing how to fingerspell their name as a result of her welcome letter.

See full-size letter. (pdf)

(Just in case you were wondering, I purchased this colorful paper at Office Depot and the font is Fingerletters.)

7. Salem Kindergarten Cadre Workshop

Join us for Explore Excellence in Kindergarten Literacy: Joyful and Rigorous Learning Honors Childhood!

A practical back-to-school workshop with Katie Nelson and Nellie Edge
Thursday, August 26, 2010 (FULL)
Friday, August 27, 2010 (Registration Open)
9am - 3pm
McKinley Elementary in Salem, Oregon

(Where Katie will be teaching the all-day kindergarten.)

Salem-Keizer Public School Kindergarten teachers are invited to attend free!
$229 registration fee for non-Salem teachers; a few spaces are available.

Limited to the first 20 teachers to email info@nellieedge and register on the Salem “Academy” website. Please include your name, phone number, and summer e-mail to reserve a space.  (Provided by Salem Keizer School District and Nellie Edge Seminars for the Kindergarten Cadre! Must be registered by August 5, 2010)

Smiles for satisfying summer days!

Nellie Edge

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