Facilitating comprehension with Loose Parts: Supporting emerging multilingual and verbal students

by Aditi Sharma | May 10, 2024

Grade : Preschool – 3rd grade

Facilitating comprehension with loose parts

The Change Idea

The change idea is building comprehension through loose parts. While educators can test this change idea with all students, we are mainly focusing on emerging multilingual or emerging verbal students.
In this change idea, students will have opportunities to explain their thinking and display their comprehension using loose parts. Students will have additional time to process and create through loose parts. Students will have the opportunity to share by displaying loose parts/creations to their peers and or teacher to check for understanding.

Status of Change Idea : To be tested!

What are loose parts?

Loose parts refer to materials that can be moved, manipulated, and combined in various ways during play or learning activities. They are open-ended and allow for creativity and exploration, often used in educational settings to enhance problem-solving and imaginative thinking.

Process

The teacher preps and has loose parts stations set up around the classroom. (A teacher might choose in advance particular loose parts/manipulatives to support content area focus, i.e. math, science, literacy)
The teacher teaches lessons/standards for the content area.
- Example: 2.PS1.1 – Plan and investigate to describe and classify different kinds of materials by their observable properties (Physical Science-2nd Grade)
Student action:
- A pre-activity lesson: Students explore loose parts independently before the lesson begins.
- Post-teacher direction: Students are encouraged to sort them based on color, texture, hardness, and flexibility.
- Students note observations by sharing them with peers and or teachers.

Predicted Outcomes

Emerging verbal students and emerging multilingual students will use loose parts to demonstrate their learning/understanding.
The change idea might make the task more accessible for students than traditional learning styles.
Students might spend more time trying to develop essential language concepts instead of spending time understanding the task.
Questions might arise based on students’ observations of how they sorted loose parts.

Guiding Questions

What might be additional scaffolds that help students access content and language components of the lesson through loose parts?
How might you capture key learnings of students and continue to build on them in future lessons? (paying attention to successes)
If loose parts exploration is done in small groups or partners- how might you consider intentionally grouping students based on language ability?

Interactive Literacy: Enhancing engagement with Loose Parts during read-alouds

by Aditi Sharma | May 10, 2024

Grade : Preschool – 5th grade

The Change Idea

Students will use loose parts during a read-aloud experience to support literacy and improve student engagement.
Examples of loose parts for this change idea: microphone, keys, family portrait, and a city map (consider your local context)

Book: The Key to the City | La Llave de la Ciudad

Status of Change Idea : To be tested!

What are loose parts?

Loose parts refer to materials that can be moved, manipulated, and combined in various ways during play or learning activities. They are open-ended and allow for creativity and exploration, often used in educational settings to enhance problem-solving and imaginative thinking.

Process

To start the change idea, students—as a whole class, in small groups, or individually—preview a set of loose parts before beginning the read-aloud, and then they guess how they will use each loose part in the story. This can be done by a teacher individually bringing out a set of loose parts and guiding the preview, or students are allowed some time to preview loose parts individually. During the actual read-aloud, the teacher pauses for students to make connections between the story and students’ predictions. Teachers can use a classroom note catcher(whole group) or prompt students to record their notes individually to document students’ observations and connections to the story. Follow this read-aloud, connections, and documentation routine until you have completed the book or time dedicated to this section.

Predicted Outcomes

Students will do a better job of tracking the reader and will comprehend critical elements of the story through loose parts.
Students might feel encouraged to share their bilingualism/multilingualism as part of the learning process—possible opportunities to share ideas and experiences in a different language.
Students who are dominant in another language than English might experience higher levels of engagement.

Guiding Questions

How might you consider students’ assets as you develop a high-quality, interactive literacy experience?
How might you learn more about students’ backgrounds to help identify what stories are chosen and how loose parts can be representative of students’ backgrounds?
How might you solicit student and parent feedback before the activity and after?

Equitable Literacy Programming – Y.O.U.th

by Ashley Walker | Oct 4, 2022

Youth Organized and United to Help (Y.O.U.th) is disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline through our #BooksNotBarsOr programming. We use tutoring, advocacy, literacy, and training—as well as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion education—to create awareness around the issues that cause the school-to-prison pipeline and what we can do to end it.

What if all children received an equitable education in the United States? Imagine a world where even the poorest children from the most desolate neighborhoods had the opportunity to dream through literacy.

Research and historical data have shown and proven the public educational system was designed to reach and benefit a specific demographic and population which often purposefully excludes the majority of learners, specifically Black, Brown, and Indigenous students. We see this immediately in the K-5 model, but also are aware of the preschool to prison pipeline that is sadly becoming more prevalent with the expulsion rates of students aged four and five.

This current educational system does not offer equitable educational resources to Black, Brown, and Indigenous students. As a result, students of those households are over-represented in incarceration and dropout rates.

Change Idea:

Our change plan is to ensure Black, Brown, and Indigenous students have access to literacy resources outside of school by providing free and low-cost tutoring services, ensuring parents are equipped to advocate for their children, and training white educators to see the beautiful diversity in each of our children.

As an organization, our ultimate goal is to equip children with the tools they need to add to their literacy toolbox and to ensure each child has access to additional literacy resources, including tutoring outside of school. We believe with our commitment to step into the gaps, that literacy will look equitable for communities that are often excluded. While our work focuses on Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth, we know any race from a lower socio-economic background will fall into this category of exclusion, not receiving resources, and often being left behind. We believe our commitment to change and our commitment to close the gap where we see need will begin to change the trajectory of young people’s lives one student at a time.

We are an organization that leads community and collaboration. We partner with organizations such as Decoding Dyslexia to provide Dyslexia screenings for our youth. We have strong relationships with local educators and students to provide tutoring services to our children. We partner with community members and parents to provide advocacy resources to parents. In addition, we created programs through our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion curriculum to deliver training to white educators across the state.

During our summer program, learners were tutored remotely for a total of 35 hours. Learners showed growth and progress in foundational reading skills (vowel and consonant sounds and decoding and spelling consonant-vowel-consonant words). The mothers of the learners were present, engaged, and supportive. The children responded positively to the instruction. Sometimes learners would even work beyond the 45-minute session because their engagement and focus were strong. Children responded joyfully to the images of children who had the same skin complexion depicted in books and learning games. When one boy was playing a matching game and he turned over a card depicting a Black baby, he remarked, “That looks like me!”

All parents of students expressed knowing their child was behind in reading and literacy and hoped their child improved with our support. With just a short amount of intentional tutoring time, the students began to improve drastically. What became clear to us, is the schools do not make time to be intentional with students until they are not meeting standards or grade levels. Once a child falls behind, it is very difficult to make up for that time loss. Now multiply that by three or four grade levels and this is how we get high dropout rates and loss of enthusiasm in students. The students in our tutoring program showed grit and joy while they were learning and became more confident in their reading.

We learned that all children can read when they are given the opportunity to learn—when they are seen as the brilliant little minds that they are. When educators are able to see children for who they are, anything is possible. Our change idea has reinforced the knowledge that time with children is the key to their success. Not every learner learns the same way. Therefore, intentional time is required to bring out of a child what is inherently inside of them.

This change has become the catalyst of our programming. It is in the very fabric of who we are as an organization and fuels the change we want to be in the world. It is important to us to ensure that our children have access to an equitable education. Education is a civil right and it’s our responsibility as parents, educators, and community members to ensure that our children are given the opportunity.

Status of the Change Idea: Adapted, Adopted, or Abandoned?

Adopted

Additional Resources

March to Literacy Summit

Parents: It’s Not Your Fault – Resha Conroy, MPA

Curricula & Accountability – Kareem Weaver

Why We Do the Work

Student-Directed Storylines – McKay Elementary

by TES_CIWebmaster | Aug 28, 2022

Systems for teaching literacy are usually designed to be “top-down,” teacher-led activities leaving less room for student interest and inquiry. As part of the Early School Success team at McKay Elementary in the Beaverton School District, two first-grade teachers and a literacy coach wanted to excite children’s curiosity, co-create a learning experience where students would feel reflected, and encourage students to see themselves as learners in a community.

Change Idea:

We offered a few “storylines” with geographic backgrounds for students to vote on, and they ultimately chose the African Savanna. We then purchased materials for students to feel immersed in the chosen storyline (e.g., vests, hats, badges, binoculars). Students learned about the geographic region and selected a role to explore within the storyline. They wrote stories about themselves in their roles.

In order to make this work, we needed to partner with the other first-grade teacher in our building to ensure consistency across the grade level. We all worked together with administration to establish a budget for materials.

We hoped students would experience excitement and motivation to read and write as a result of having agency over the topic and place. We wanted them to feel connected to their classmates as they learned more together about the geography of their chosen storyline.

Students read and learned about being a biologist or an animal reporter in the Savanna. Then they wrote about life in these roles. Teachers and literacy coaches noticed an increase in student joy and motivation to participate (compared to teacher-directed approaches to literacy). The volume of writing output also increased. Students reported seeing themselves as “learners,” and an unexpected bonus outcome was smooth integration with the science curriculum.

We learned that student interest increases when they have agency and choice over the way they will engage in literacy activities. The collective experience of writing while all wearing immersive costumes and using special materials is positive and palpable—students wrote more and seemed more enthusiastic.

Status of the Change Idea: Adapted, Adopted, or Abandoned?

Adopted! We’re going to continue with storyline-style learning to observe its impact on student literacy, both in terms of enthusiasm/joy and skill development.

Purposeful Conversation – St. Helens School District

by TES_CIWebmaster | Aug 28, 2022

The St. Helens School District Early School Success Team (PK-2 educators across three elementary schools) noticed that our system was not designed to foster purposeful conversation among children during literacy.

Change Idea:

We tried increasing purposeful conversation in a variety of ways based on developmental stage and grade level. In PK, children turned to a buddy after story time to discuss a question. The buddy reported what they heard in pairs to the class. In first grade, children discussed a meaningful question about the story, at first with modeling and the use of sentence stems. In Title I reading, partners personalized a decoded word, giving a definition and example.

Teachers received weekly email nudges reminding us to collect data on this strategy, with a spot preorganized for us to share notes. Our principals knew the plan and supported it.

We hoped this change would help students stay on topic, increase their vocabulary, and make deeper meaning of the story. We learned that children need support at first, with gradual release of responsibility. Spring was a good time of year to try this, as it was similar to job expectations they had already learned. Taking notes on student engagement and videotaping them helped.

Over the course of four weeks, children learned the new routines, became more independent and on topic, and increased their vocabulary. Students were more engaged and connected to each other.

Status of the Change Idea: Adapted, Adopted, or Abandoned?

We are adopting this and adapting it during different times of the school day.