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Rochester City School District 131 W. Broad St. Rochester, NY 14614
Teacher’s Forum The Early Childhood
Department is offering a monthly gathering for
Pre-K teaching staff, designed to discuss best teaching practices and
ideas to improve instruction. Our next session will be held on
Tuesday, March 28, at the Congress Facility,
353 Congress Avenue, (formerly school # 37). Session offered from
1:00 to 2:30
Focus will be on
Math Please email your inten-
tion to attend: [email protected]
or [email protected] or call 262-8170 or 8169
Rochester Prekindergarten
March 2006 Issue 5
Prekindergarten Newsletter
Kindergarten Registration Look for more
information and public announcements on
television and radio
From the Director’s Desk: Shirley Jung
From the Teacher’s Corner: Florence Brown Pre-K teacher, Cindy Meagher Throughout the school year, Mrs. Meagher’s Prekinder-garteners have enjoyed a treat - the wonderful oppor-tunity to listen to many com-munity members read books to them. Research has shown that storybook reading by par-ents, caregivers, community members, and teachers builds positive attitudes to-wards books and reading. Some of the reading strate-gies that are vital to a young child’s early literacy foundation are developing oral language, vocabulary, phonological awareness, listening skills, and con-
cepts about print. Each time a guest reader comes to read, the guest reader brings his or her fa-vorite childhood book to read aloud. The children learn who the person is,
why they are important, and get to hear many wonderful children’s books. Often, guest readers will talk about themselves and why they love reading. The children love to hear each guest reader read their story with their own storytelling skills. As of now, guest readers have included Central Of-fice staff such as Dr. Marie Cianca, Mr. David Silver and Dr. Ed Yansen, com-munity leaders such as Fire Chief Floyd Madison, foun-der of Camp Good Days Mr. Gary Mervis, local TV personalities such as …..continued on page 2
Mary Temple, a believer in the po-tential of every young child, died peacefully at her home on February 19, 2006. As Mary Louise Musler noted in a tribute at the RAEYC Fall Confer-ence, "Mary's work is like dropping a pebble into the river that creates a rip-
ple." Mary's "ripple" has spread widely. There is hardly an early childhood teacher or child care provider in Rochester that has not been touched in some way by Mary and her work. Like many others, Mary began her career in preschool as the parent of a pre-schooler. She became a member of the Rochester Association for the Education of
young children. She learned everything she could about child development and began to train others. For a while she operated her own nursery school. Eventually she became a teacher, trainer and project supervisor for Rochester Preschool-Parent Program.
Along with the focus on training and coach-ing (mentoring) of staff, Mary illustrated through photographs how preschool activi-ties relate to Portfolio descriptors and to the New York State Standards in English Lan-guage Arts and Math. Her work provides the basis for much of the work we continue to do today. Our sympathies go to her husband, Alan, and her family. Services will be held in a few weeks. Condolences may be sent to the family at 10 Harrison Circle, Pittsford, NY 14534. Contributions in Mary's memory may be made to the "Mary Temple Professional Development Scholarship" and should be sent to RAEYC, 249 Highland Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620.
Page 2 Rochester Prekindergarten
Teacher’s Corner, cont’d from p. 1 WROC TV Anchor/Reporter Kevin Doran, administrators from #33 (Mr. Larry Ellison, Ms. Robin Hooper, Mr. Rick Grissanti and Ms. Joan Arthur) and many, many more. As the school year continues, Mrs. Meagher’s class will continue to be enriched by the shared experiences of the guest readers who come to read. These special guests are help-ing the students become life long readers.
There are many professional develop-ment opportunities in Rochester in the coming months. Some of these are free workshops with talented local presenters. Others are full day con-ferences with nationally known speak-ers.
The Rochester Association for the Education of Young Children (RAEYC) will be offering several workshops, open to the community and free of charge. Certificates are granted for 1.5 training hours toward NYS licensing requirements:
• Thursday, March 9, 4:00-5:30 at RMSC, Inquiry Room - “Ask and Explore: Science for Young Chil-dren,” with Eric Levine, RMSC
• Tuesday, April 11, 4:00-5:30 at RMSC, Gannet School. “Musical
Bridges,” with Carrie Haymond-Hesketh, Music Teacher, Gene-see Community School.
• Wednesday, May 24, 6:45-8:30 at Cornell Cooperative Extension. Potluck Dinner with music, move-ment and puppetry experiences.
Details are available on the RAEYC website, www.raeyc.org or by calling 244-3380.
Cornell Cooperative Extension pre-sents “Parenting the Explosive Child” - a “Faculty Conversation” with Dr. Ross Greene on Friday, March 3, from 2:00-5:00. Free registration and refreshments provided. Session will be held at the NYS Agricultural Sta-tion in Geneva, To register, contact W e n d y W i l c o x b y e m a i l : [email protected] or (607)255-3115.
Rochester Wolf Trap will present “Getting to the Magic! Literacy and Early Learning Through the Arts,” a regional conference for early child-hood educators and caregivers on Saturday, March 25 at Nazareth Col-lege. Interactive workshops will be presented by Rochester Wolf Trap Artists and Early Childhood Educa-tors. For more information, call 389-2949. Registration for the 5 training hours will range from $50-$70.
The Child Care Council, Inc. will pre-sent Bev Bos and Michael Leeman on Saturday, April 29 at St. John Fisher College. Bev and Michael are nationally know presenters, teachers and recording artists. Registration costs for the 5 training hours will range from $50-$75. Info: 654-4720 or http://www.childcarecouncil.com/
Professional Development Opportunities—Mark your calendar
Calling all Pre-K Teachers This newsletter is for you. We want feedback from you and we also want to provide a forum for you to share your suc-cessful ideas with your colleagues. Send your comments as well as your arti-cles, photos and chil-dren’s art for the Teacher’s Corner to: [email protected].
Congratulations Sandra! The RCSD Department of Early Childhood welcomes Sandra Chevalier-Blackman to her new position as the Assistant Director of Early Childhood. One of her main responsi-bilities will be overseeing the Quality Assur-ance of the Community Based Organiza-tions. Sandra joined us this past fall as a Technical Assistant working with agency sites. She brings with her many qualities gained from her years of experience as an early childhood teacher and agency direc-tor. Sandra is a 2005 graduate of St. John Fisher College’s Master of Educational Ad-ministration program.
As a recruitment tool, the Pre-K website is becoming the third source for inquir-ies about our programs, after word of mouth and the phone book. Accurate information on this web site is critical to quality service to parents as they search for the program that would best suit their needs.
Please review the website and send any suggestions for improvement of this site, as well as updates of your profile to: [email protected]
We’re on the Web
www.rcsdk12.org/
Prekindergarten Newsletter Page 3
Earlier this winter, while listening to the RECAP (Rochester Early Child-hood Assessment Partnership) 2004-2005 Eighth Annual Report to the Community, my attention was drawn to the information being shared about boys. As the mother of two boys and a teacher of innumerable boys over the last thirty years, what I was hear-ing was disturbing. While hearing about all of the very positive ways that the Early Child-hood Community was supporting and extending the educational experi-ences of the children and families in Rochester, we are not doing as well with boys. The RECAP report states that boys do less well than girls in making gains in Pre-K. Charts show that white girls make more gains than white boys. African American girls make more gains than African Ameri-can boys. Hispanic girls make more gains than Hispanic boys. And most alarming is the finding, “nearly 75% of Pre-K students with disabilities are
boys.” This information leads me to the book, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. This book was written by two school psycholo-gists who work mainly with boys and their families. They use many stories from their practices. They explore simple changes that can help boys feel more connected in family and school situations. In the chapter on the struggle of young boys in early education, the first point the authors make is that the average boy is much less mature than the average girl of the same age. The boys need a higher level of activ-ity and have a lower level of impulse control. The energy level of boys is contagious among boys. If one is being very active, many will follow. Boys are often in the middle of an action before they think about the consequences. Development of language skills is also discussed in this book. The au-
thors acknowledge that boys usually develop their language skills more slowly than girls. Due to this delay, boys are often blunt and direct in the language they use. They would often do, rather than say. They might grab the marker rather than ask for it. This is one area where we the Early Childhood educators can make a dif-ference. As we model and scaffold children in “using their words” and working through socio-emotional problem solving situations, we are giving the support boys need as they develop impulse control and maturity. The rituals and routines within our classrooms give the boys a safe place to grow the skills they need to be “I Care.” The authors have a list of seven points of what boys need to grow up strong and healthy. This list is in the last chapter of the book. Check it out! Submitted by Patricia Dangler, Project Supervisor, Rochester Preschool-Parent Program
Book Talk: Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon, Ph.D. and Michael Thompson, Ph.D.
A gratifying aspect of working with the RECAP team is witnessing how our community is really grasping these data from the most recent re-port, and using it to help shape policy for our youngest students. Indeed, this is how our Pre-K system got to be the envy of the U.S. and even else-where. Rochester continues to garner much recognition for the collabora-tions which have helped make our Pre-K system so strong. Every year, the RECAP “A” Team (the core group that does the basic work) takes on three or four of the most pressing and vital issues before us. Priorities are generally set with the assistance of the RECAP Policy Board and the Early Childhood Devel-opment Initiative (ECDI). Among the areas of our current top priorities: The “summer dip” – a drop in stu-dents’ developmental level, as seen from the end of Pre-K to the begin-ning of Kindergarten, is an area we
will explore in greater depth. We in-tend to provide teachers and others with what we learn. The persistent and non-trivial achievement gap (in all areas) be-tween boys and girls (although we do not observe any performance gaps between racial and ethnic groups in Pre-K) will be explored and reported on in greater depth. The results of the Parent Questionnaire are most inter-esting. Parents’ top educational priori-ties for their Pre-K children are: 1. For their child to learn to be suc- cessful in school 2. For their child to learn to get along with other children 3. That their child learns to work with his or her teacher 4. For their child to share and take turns 5. For their child to think for them-selves. It is notable that most of these priori-
ties involve social-emotional intelli-gence, and that one involves develop-ing critical thinking skills. We intend to “tease” these data out further, to look at how we can support parents – and how they can support their chil-dren beyond Pre-K. It is gratifying to see that not only do parents remain extremely satisfied with our Pre-K system (repeatedly, 94% of parents assign a grade of “A,” “A-,” “B+” or B), the proportion of those assigning us a grade of “A” has now risen to 67%, a new high for us. In the coming months, we will report on the progress we are making in these vital areas. To view the RECAP Eighth Annual Re-port, go to the Children’s Institute web site, specifically: www.childrensinstitute.net/images/RECAP2004_05EighthAnnual.pdf
Submitted by Andrew MacGowan, Depart-ment of Research, Evaluation and Test-ing, RCSD.
Latest News on RECAP – and Where We Are Going
Department of Early Childhood 131 W. Broad St.
Rochester, NY 14614
Phone: 585-262-8140 Fax: 585-262-8273
Rochester Prekindergarten “A Smart Way to Start”
Rochester City
School District
We’re on the Web
www.rcsdk12.org/PreK/
Use Family Photo Night to draw families into your school.*
A Family Photo Night/Day can be a great way to bring families into your school/classroom for a fun event. All you need is an instant camera with plenty of film or a digital camera and a color printer.
1. Select a theme. 2. Send invitations home with stu-dents two weeks before the event and a reminder four days before the event.
Reading Together 3. Give families some choices of fun activities they can do while their picture is being taken: set up a few board games and some decks of cards. Lay out some high interest books that families might read to-
gether. Open the gym for family bas-ketball. You can also invite families to bring in activities they like to do to-gether.
Board Games 4. Take photos of the families in their chosen activities during the early part of the evening.
5. Give each family their photo and paper during refreshment time. Pa-per may be shaped inform consistent with your theme e.g. heart, flower, geometric shapes etc. Ask families to help their child paste the photo on the paper and write a caption for the photo.
6. Post these pictures around your classroom so the presence of family is always visible. Can you imagine the impact if these pictures are poster size?
7. Recruit a Parent/Family -teacher team. This step was actually the first step in the original article. It is such a powerful step that I did not want to link it exclusively to an activity. I want to emphasize this as a step beneficial for establishing family partnerships. This step could already be in place for this activity and others.
*Adapted for preschool with permission from “Ideas Staff can Use to promote par-ent involvement.” The Parent Institute, a division of NIS, Inc.
Check this space in your monthly Prekindergarten Newsletter for infor-mation on Family Partnership and Recruitment. Please submit your ideas for successful family and re-c r u i t m e n t a c t i v i t i e s t o : [email protected]
