Over a year ago, I connected with Dr. Sonia Cabell! Her work around oral language development and assisting teachers with creating a 5-turn Conversation with students is amazing! During her recent presentation with Early Learning Educators at WVEC's Early Learning Conference, she shared that preschool students often mimic their teachers' oral language by easily adopting similar vocabulary, sentence structures, and pronunciation patterns they hear frequently in the classroom. We were filled with some hope as she shared the evidence & research that students with less opportunities for rich discussion are capable of success when paired with a classroom teacher that understands the science and complexities and needs of our youngest learners (we truly are brain scientists down here). Educators finished out our session by reflecting and digging into our own conversational opportunities in the classroom specifically utilizing read alouds. Teachers shared their questions and challenged each other with additional thoughts for engaging students in 5-Turn Conversations. Teachers aren't often allowed the opportunity to hear the evidence based science AND reflect on the application of that knowledge. If I could turn back time (thank you, Cher), my teachers would KNOW the evidence as they learn new strategies so as to carefully analyze the benefits and struggles of each practice added to their toolbox. Many administrators have shared a fear of once again becoming followers instead of the lead learners - and I couldn't agree more. As the classroom experts, we can't allow ourselves to be led astray. My favorite advice on this journey thus far has been, "Stay Curious. Understand the evidence." In the meantime, I will celebrate the 2100+ students that are going to be learning from the Educators that attended the session this month.
No comments:
Post a Comment