Last month I had the privilege of watching two of our Lincoln staff members present their work at the annual Tri-Association conference in Panama City. The session was focused on how to develop independent writing in our youngest learners. Specifically, participants were given an inside look at how one of our first grade teachers, with the support of an early learning coach, was able to support students in elevating their writing and literacy skills. It was an incredible learning session, and I wanted to share some of my reflections and takeaways.
The pair explained how many of our favorite fairy tales and childhood stories have countless creative versions all riffing on the same foundational story. Whether it is The Three Little Pigs, or the Gingerbread Man, it seems that children’s literature authors love to think of new and creative ways to present old favorites. Why not have students similarly get creative about these familiar stories? Basically, students built up to publishing their own children’s stories, moving from the short 3-4 sentence writing tasks that are common in many classrooms to writing an entire book with a full story arc. I had three big takeaways from the session.
High Expectations
Our classroom teacher mentioned on several occasions that she just wasn’t sure if students could produce the quality and volume of writing that would be required to produce a full book. With faith in her students’ capacity and with the encouragement of our early learning coach, she jumped in anyway, and was repeatedly impressed but how much her students were both able and eager to produce. She realized that sometimes as teachers we might artificially lower our expectations, out of a genuine concern that we will push students too hard. The flip side of that concern is a committment to ensuring that students are supported to their full potential, even when that sometimes requires that they move through uncertainty and even some productive discomfort.
Endless Variety
On several occasions, our teacher said, “if students can say it, they can write it.” Funny enough, students can say a lot, and thus they can produce a lot of writing. The creative part of the process is in designing lots of different, engaging learning activities to help students with that literacy production. This was really the heart of the session, and the fun part two. There were pages of different ideas, and we had the chance to practice several of them. My favorite was the “retelling bracelet.” Basically, we used beads of different colors and shapes to represent the key elements of the Three Little Pigs, with the end product being a bracelet that we could use to help us retell our story. It was brilliant!
The Power of Coaching
My final takeaway was really just a reminder that when the coach/teacher relationship is really working, magical things can happen. Of course perhaps the most challenging part of coaching is navigating those relationships with teachers; there is never a guarantee that a genuine professional working relationship will develop. But when it does it makes a huge difference. It was really powerful to see our teacher and coach working as a team in their presentation, sharing both of their perspectives about what it takes to create a learning environment that promotes both joy and rigor for all students. It also reminded me of the importance of mindset – here we had a teacher whose willingness to consider alternate methods and try new things led to some really powerful learning. And this, mind you, from a very experienced and talented teacher.