WEBVTT
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Welcome back to another episode of From Classroom to Home.
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I'm Liz Beth Stone.
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Have you ever wondered whether you should help your child right away or encourage them to keep trying on their own?
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Finding that balance can be challenging for parents, and it's something teachers think about every day as well.
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In today's episode, we'll explore how teachers help children in kindergarten, first, and second grade build independence in the classroom and what parents can do to support that process at home.
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I'm so glad you're here.
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Let's get started.
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Allie, it's so great to have you here.
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I am so happy to be here with you, Lisbeth.
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Can you share a little bit about yourself?
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Yeah, my name is Allie Richardson, and I have been teaching second grade for 14 years.
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So I'm headed into my 15th year.
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I'm a mom of a beautiful 16-month-old daughter, and she has lit up our world in ways we never thought were possible.
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So that's a fun new adventure that we're on over here.
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Great.
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Thanks so much.
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Well, I'm really excited about our discussion today, talking about helping children become independent learners.
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And I first want to start by asking, why do we want to have students be independent learners?
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I think that as teachers and as parents, we think that academics come first in a classroom and in our kids' lives.
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But before our kids can even access academics, they need to be independent, which means they need to have the functional skills to do all the different tasks that are required of them in their own life and at school.
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So before they can do math and before they can read, they need to have those independent skills to be able to access all of those different experiences and their environment.
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So those functional skills are those independent skills, being able to get their supplies out, being able to navigate their environment, which includes social experiences with friends, which then also taps into the areas of play.
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So independent learning, in being an independent learner, is being able to do those things on your own before you can actually dive in deep to academics.
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I'm curious, you know, if there's a little bit more that you want to share about what that means being independent in the classroom.
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And I think that a lot of these things I'm about to explain or touch on are shocking to parents that, oh, my kid needs to be able to do that or they should be able to do that.
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So some of the more obvious ones would be when they arrive at school.
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Can they unpack their backpack?
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Can they make their lunch choices?
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If they bring a snack, do they know how to open the containers?
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Do they know how to open their bag of snacks that they brought?
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Those little things.
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But then there's also other tasks like, are they responsible for their space?
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There's a lot of materials involved in learning.
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So do they know how to organize their materials?
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Do they know how to keep track of them?
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What do they do when they're when their space becomes messy?
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You know, do they organize and stay on top of their work and put it away and take out news supplies?
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Or is their space kind of a disaster zone, as I call it in my classroom, which impedes on their learning?
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So independence can look kind of like that with organization.
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But then in terms of some of these other skills, it also looks like when they play with their friends.
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So what do those interactions look like?
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Are they sharing materials?
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Are they offering, you know, their friend to go first?
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Some of these skills that we think are really natural are not always the easiest for kids just to do.
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So making sure that the kids have functional skills in those areas as well at school, especially in unstructured playtime.
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So it sounds like these skills are just sort of like the baseline in order to get to be able to really start learning.
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What are teachers doing to help students become more independent?
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So you're spot on to be able to even learn or to be able to even create as a teacher, to create a space where kids can learn and feel safe and that it's calm enough for us all to learn and function.
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I need to know that my students can do those things and that we can do them every day, and that everyone's doing them.
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So our space is a good space to learn.
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But then you asked, you know, what am I doing or what are teachers doing to help kids?
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And what I think has shifted is that we are spending a lot more intentional instruction, intentional time teaching these routines, teaching students how to do them.
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You asked it, are you said if you know, is it a baseline?
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It is a baseline.
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I mean, I need all my students doing this, and it doesn't have to be day one of school, but in order for us to get into it, I need them doing it within the first few weeks.
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So teachers are teaching these skills explicitly, teaching how to unpack backpacks, how I need your desk organized, which folder goes on top, which is a better arrangement in your desk, how do we sit on the carpet so that we're not disrupting other people?
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So kind of learning how to live in a space of 20 or more other students.
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So there's intentional lessons happening by teachers and practice, modeling these expectations, modeling how we do them, and then having kids practice those individual skills in the classroom.
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Even in second grade, you still are aware that for the first couple of weeks, you still want to make sure that your students have these skills so that you can then get to learning.
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You know, kindergarten through second grade, they are learning how to be a learner.
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So their first experience with that is in kindergarten.
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By the time they get to second grade, there are still skills that they are learning how to be a learner, how to actively listen, how to advocate for themselves, how to organize their supplies, how to sit and attend.
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Those skills are very much still happening in second grade.
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So, how do teachers decide when to step in and help a child and when to encourage them to figure it out on their own?
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So that's a really hard space to live in as a teacher because you never want to see a child break down, you never want to see them really get worked up over that.
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But you know, as a human, we don't have a built-in emotional support person to walk around with us all day long.
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So as a teacher, I can't be that for every kid all day long.
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So you have to push students to move into that space that's really uncomfortable for them sometimes.
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And we call that productive struggle.
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And as a teacher, you want to jump in and you want to rescue a kid.
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You know, they raise their hand, I don't know what to do.
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And you want to run over to their desk and you want to help them.
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But what's really important is that you give a little bit of pause and space because that productive struggle time is really valuable.
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It's it's building a child's stamina and their resilience.
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You want them to live in that space for a little bit and be uncomfortable.
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And that's where the creativity happens.
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That's where their imagination can bloom.
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That's where they learn how to kind of reason and talk that self-talk in their head to figure out how to problem solve that experience that they're having.
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So, teachers, we have a lot of different strategies for this.
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Sometimes it's simply just backing off, letting them be uncomfortable and seeing what they do with it.
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Sometimes it's waiting and then giving prompts, like, have you looked around to see what other people are doing?
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Have you started the directions?
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What part can you get started with?
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I think that's that's one of my favorite.
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Is there any part that you can start?
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Is there any part that you know how to do?
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And then kind of tapping into what they're good at in that moment and then letting them kind of steer the ship.
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That space of frustration and letting them marinate in that, in that time is is really, really important.
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So if they're going right to tiers, then I can intervene about like, okay, we need to talk about some coping strategies, right?
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When we get like this, what are some things we can do so that we don't go right to tiers?
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Or if we get really, you know, start to get physical and we're banging our fists on the desks, what can we do when we're feeling like this before we start pounding on the desk?
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So sometimes it's an adjustment for more of a coping strategy.
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But if a kid isn't shutting down, then it shows me that I can start to use some of my other strategies.
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Have you asked three people around you before you went right to the adult?
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Have you read the directions?
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Have you looked up at the board for visual clues?
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So sometimes it's about how can I scaffold for them?
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Is it more of an emotional coping scaffold that they need right now?
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Or is it academic?
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It's like pick which one would be better for them.
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So it sounds like they're getting your time with them in a very special way.
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What are some simple everyday routines that parents can be doing to help build independence at home that will potentially support what's going on at school?
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I love this question so much.
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So, what routines does your child do independently that are part of their school day?
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So, as a parent, you need to structure that for them.
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So I would say in most cases, a child is going to have a backpack that goes back and forth to school.
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And in most cases, there's probably some sort of folder or vessel in which, you know, homework or important papers or anything from school travel back and forth.
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So, does your child have a built-in routine that you have established with them for what to do with that backpack and those things?
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Or are you, as the parent, the one initiating all of that?
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You should not be.
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You should not be saying, hey, where's your backpack?
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And then, you know, you're opening it without the child and taking the things out and putting the things back in.
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One of the big things I say to my students is when they come in and they're like, Well, my mom forgot to put it in my backpack.
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No, you forgot to put it in your backpack.
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You are the learner.
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Your parents already went to school.
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So establishing those routines in your house where they are responsible for that.
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I think another really important one would be do they have a space in the house that they are responsible for?
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Whether it's a workspace or even just their toys that they're responsible for keeping organized, tidy, they're responsible for cleaning up every night or, you know, every few days, because at school, they're responsible for a space, whether it be a table or a desk, and that's really critical.
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So making sure that you've built those routines at home and those skills so that they can transfer over back and forth between school.
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How can parents tell the difference between supporting their child and then doing too much for them?
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I think keeping your bar high at all times is the best assumption to start with.
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So us not assuming, but really saying, I think my kid can do this, and then starting there and seeing if they can't, then maybe you bring it back enough.
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You know, you scaffold backwards, let's try a few more things, and then but you keep your bar high.
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So you want your kid to be doing as much as they possibly can.
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Because I think it's so important.
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Can we give our parents an example?
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So if a child is having trouble keeping their desk clean, I might show them how I want it organized with them and I would do it with them, and then we would take a picture.
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So I would take out my camera, I would take a picture of what it should look like.
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So you could do that with a bookshelf or your toys at home.
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You would help them organize it the way it all fits together with them, take a photograph, and then put that photograph next to the area.
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So when they go to clean it, they can use that visual of where all their things could go.
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So when you're helping them at night, if if they're not doing it independently, you can say, Hey, I see here the blocks go next to the stack of books.
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So let's do that together.
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Blocks, and then we put the stack of books.
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So visuals are really, really important.
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Or steps.
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So if your child is having trouble getting started on that task, like first, put the books away.
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Next, put the blocks away.
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Last, put the dolls on the bottom shelf.
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You could make a visual of that, like a number one with the picture, a number two with the picture that comes next to help their executive functioning get through the different things they need to do.
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And if they're still struggling, one more support you could add in is okay, you're going to do the blocks, then I'm going to do step two, the books.
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Third, you're going to put the dolls on the bottom shelf.
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So kind of you do one, I do one.
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And you can start to see where the breakdown is for your child.
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Because it there's so many, when you think about it, there are so many executive functioning steps involved in that.
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So, from a parent perspective, I'm wondering, what do you do if your child says, I just can't do this?
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So I think the important part is if you know it would depend on your child's language skills, but actually trying to get to the bottom of what feels hard.
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And that's why I, when I gave those other supports just now about other things you could do, what feels hard?
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Is it hard to get started?
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You not know where the things go?
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Does this task feel too long?
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So trying to figure out the why.
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So talking to your child and giving those, you know, feeding them some of these ideas of what feels hard or simply just like, I don't want to.
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That might be your child's reason.
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I don't want to do it.
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But okay, well, I understand you might not want to, but it's important to keep our space clean and you know, we all live here together, and then working through some of those value type concepts so the child starts to value why their tasks are important to your environment.
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So it sounds like really sort of partnering with your child about the reasons for this, so that it's not just a parent saying you you need to do this, but that there's a better understanding of why that's important.
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Yeah, and their role in your, you know, the community of your household, that they're empowered by it, that it's an important job that they have to do and it's theirs, theirs to do.
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I think that's really important.
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So, what's one thing that you hope parents take away from our time today?
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I really hope that parents understand that in order for any child to learn or be successful or participate at school, those independent functional skills are number one.
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And we often don't think about that.
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So the more independence you build at home, the better your child comes equipped to school, and the more access they have to learning, the better version of your child that I get at school.
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That that's it.
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They can jump right in, the more independent skills they have, it translates directly into their learning.
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Allie, thank you so much for being here today.
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I loved being here.
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It was such a pleasure.
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We hope today's conversation helped you feel a little more connected to what's happening in your child's classroom and the important role you play at home.
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If you're looking for simple and fun ways to support your child's reading and math skills at home, visit our website, slamhomelearning.org, for free games, activities, and videos.
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Until next time.
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Welcome back to another episode of From Classroom to Home.
00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:04.799
I'm Liz Beth Stone.
00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:10.880
Have you ever wondered whether you should help your child right away or encourage them to keep trying on their own?
00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:17.199
Finding that balance can be challenging for parents, and it's something teachers think about every day as well.
00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:29.120
In today's episode, we'll explore how teachers help children in kindergarten, first, and second grade build independence in the classroom and what parents can do to support that process at home.
00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:30.719
I'm so glad you're here.
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Let's get started.
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Allie, it's so great to have you here.
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I am so happy to be here with you, Lisbeth.
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Can you share a little bit about yourself?
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Yeah, my name is Allie Richardson, and I have been teaching second grade for 14 years.
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So I'm headed into my 15th year.
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I'm a mom of a beautiful 16-month-old daughter, and she has lit up our world in ways we never thought were possible.
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So that's a fun new adventure that we're on over here.
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Great.
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Thanks so much.
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Well, I'm really excited about our discussion today, talking about helping children become independent learners.
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And I first want to start by asking, why do we want to have students be independent learners?
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I think that as teachers and as parents, we think that academics come first in a classroom and in our kids' lives.
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But before our kids can even access academics, they need to be independent, which means they need to have the functional skills to do all the different tasks that are required of them in their own life and at school.
00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:56.319
So before they can do math and before they can read, they need to have those independent skills to be able to access all of those different experiences and their environment.
00:01:56.560 --> 00:02:10.639
So those functional skills are those independent skills, being able to get their supplies out, being able to navigate their environment, which includes social experiences with friends, which then also taps into the areas of play.
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So independent learning, in being an independent learner, is being able to do those things on your own before you can actually dive in deep to academics.
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I'm curious, you know, if there's a little bit more that you want to share about what that means being independent in the classroom.
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And I think that a lot of these things I'm about to explain or touch on are shocking to parents that, oh, my kid needs to be able to do that or they should be able to do that.
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So some of the more obvious ones would be when they arrive at school.
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Can they unpack their backpack?
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Can they make their lunch choices?
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If they bring a snack, do they know how to open the containers?
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Do they know how to open their bag of snacks that they brought?
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Those little things.
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But then there's also other tasks like, are they responsible for their space?
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There's a lot of materials involved in learning.
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So do they know how to organize their materials?
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Do they know how to keep track of them?
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What do they do when they're when their space becomes messy?
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You know, do they organize and stay on top of their work and put it away and take out news supplies?
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Or is their space kind of a disaster zone, as I call it in my classroom, which impedes on their learning?
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So independence can look kind of like that with organization.
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But then in terms of some of these other skills, it also looks like when they play with their friends.
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So what do those interactions look like?
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Are they sharing materials?
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Are they offering, you know, their friend to go first?
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Some of these skills that we think are really natural are not always the easiest for kids just to do.
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So making sure that the kids have functional skills in those areas as well at school, especially in unstructured playtime.
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So it sounds like these skills are just sort of like the baseline in order to get to be able to really start learning.
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What are teachers doing to help students become more independent?
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So you're spot on to be able to even learn or to be able to even create as a teacher, to create a space where kids can learn and feel safe and that it's calm enough for us all to learn and function.
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I need to know that my students can do those things and that we can do them every day, and that everyone's doing them.
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So our space is a good space to learn.
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But then you asked, you know, what am I doing or what are teachers doing to help kids?
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And what I think has shifted is that we are spending a lot more intentional instruction, intentional time teaching these routines, teaching students how to do them.
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You asked it, are you said if you know, is it a baseline?
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It is a baseline.
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I mean, I need all my students doing this, and it doesn't have to be day one of school, but in order for us to get into it, I need them doing it within the first few weeks.
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So teachers are teaching these skills explicitly, teaching how to unpack backpacks, how I need your desk organized, which folder goes on top, which is a better arrangement in your desk, how do we sit on the carpet so that we're not disrupting other people?
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So kind of learning how to live in a space of 20 or more other students.
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So there's intentional lessons happening by teachers and practice, modeling these expectations, modeling how we do them, and then having kids practice those individual skills in the classroom.
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Even in second grade, you still are aware that for the first couple of weeks, you still want to make sure that your students have these skills so that you can then get to learning.
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You know, kindergarten through second grade, they are learning how to be a learner.
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So their first experience with that is in kindergarten.
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By the time they get to second grade, there are still skills that they are learning how to be a learner, how to actively listen, how to advocate for themselves, how to organize their supplies, how to sit and attend.
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Those skills are very much still happening in second grade.
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So, how do teachers decide when to step in and help a child and when to encourage them to figure it out on their own?
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So that's a really hard space to live in as a teacher because you never want to see a child break down, you never want to see them really get worked up over that.
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But you know, as a human, we don't have a built-in emotional support person to walk around with us all day long.
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So as a teacher, I can't be that for every kid all day long.
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So you have to push students to move into that space that's really uncomfortable for them sometimes.
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And we call that productive struggle.
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And as a teacher, you want to jump in and you want to rescue a kid.
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You know, they raise their hand, I don't know what to do.
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And you want to run over to their desk and you want to help them.
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But what's really important is that you give a little bit of pause and space because that productive struggle time is really valuable.
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It's it's building a child's stamina and their resilience.
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You want them to live in that space for a little bit and be uncomfortable.
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And that's where the creativity happens.
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That's where their imagination can bloom.
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That's where they learn how to kind of reason and talk that self-talk in their head to figure out how to problem solve that experience that they're having.
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So, teachers, we have a lot of different strategies for this.
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Sometimes it's simply just backing off, letting them be uncomfortable and seeing what they do with it.
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Sometimes it's waiting and then giving prompts, like, have you looked around to see what other people are doing?
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Have you started the directions?
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What part can you get started with?
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I think that's that's one of my favorite.
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Is there any part that you can start?
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Is there any part that you know how to do?
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And then kind of tapping into what they're good at in that moment and then letting them kind of steer the ship.
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That space of frustration and letting them marinate in that, in that time is is really, really important.
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So if they're going right to tiers, then I can intervene about like, okay, we need to talk about some coping strategies, right?
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When we get like this, what are some things we can do so that we don't go right to tiers?
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Or if we get really, you know, start to get physical and we're banging our fists on the desks, what can we do when we're feeling like this before we start pounding on the desk?
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So sometimes it's an adjustment for more of a coping strategy.
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But if a kid isn't shutting down, then it shows me that I can start to use some of my other strategies.
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Have you asked three people around you before you went right to the adult?
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Have you read the directions?
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Have you looked up at the board for visual clues?
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So sometimes it's about how can I scaffold for them?
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Is it more of an emotional coping scaffold that they need right now?
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Or is it academic?
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It's like pick which one would be better for them.
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So it sounds like they're getting your time with them in a very special way.
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What are some simple everyday routines that parents can be doing to help build independence at home that will potentially support what's going on at school?
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I love this question so much.
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So, what routines does your child do independently that are part of their school day?
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So, as a parent, you need to structure that for them.
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So I would say in most cases, a child is going to have a backpack that goes back and forth to school.
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And in most cases, there's probably some sort of folder or vessel in which, you know, homework or important papers or anything from school travel back and forth.
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So, does your child have a built-in routine that you have established with them for what to do with that backpack and those things?
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Or are you, as the parent, the one initiating all of that?
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You should not be.
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You should not be saying, hey, where's your backpack?
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And then, you know, you're opening it without the child and taking the things out and putting the things back in.
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One of the big things I say to my students is when they come in and they're like, Well, my mom forgot to put it in my backpack.
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No, you forgot to put it in your backpack.
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You are the learner.
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Your parents already went to school.
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So establishing those routines in your house where they are responsible for that.
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I think another really important one would be do they have a space in the house that they are responsible for?
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Whether it's a workspace or even just their toys that they're responsible for keeping organized, tidy, they're responsible for cleaning up every night or, you know, every few days, because at school, they're responsible for a space, whether it be a table or a desk, and that's really critical.
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So making sure that you've built those routines at home and those skills so that they can transfer over back and forth between school.
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How can parents tell the difference between supporting their child and then doing too much for them?
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I think keeping your bar high at all times is the best assumption to start with.
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So us not assuming, but really saying, I think my kid can do this, and then starting there and seeing if they can't, then maybe you bring it back enough.
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You know, you scaffold backwards, let's try a few more things, and then but you keep your bar high.
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So you want your kid to be doing as much as they possibly can.
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Because I think it's so important.
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Can we give our parents an example?
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So if a child is having trouble keeping their desk clean, I might show them how I want it organized with them and I would do it with them, and then we would take a picture.
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So I would take out my camera, I would take a picture of what it should look like.
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So you could do that with a bookshelf or your toys at home.
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You would help them organize it the way it all fits together with them, take a photograph, and then put that photograph next to the area.
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So when they go to clean it, they can use that visual of where all their things could go.
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So when you're helping them at night, if if they're not doing it independently, you can say, Hey, I see here the blocks go next to the stack of books.
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So let's do that together.
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Blocks, and then we put the stack of books.
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So visuals are really, really important.
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Or steps.
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So if your child is having trouble getting started on that task, like first, put the books away.
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Next, put the blocks away.
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Last, put the dolls on the bottom shelf.
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You could make a visual of that, like a number one with the picture, a number two with the picture that comes next to help their executive functioning get through the different things they need to do.
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And if they're still struggling, one more support you could add in is okay, you're going to do the blocks, then I'm going to do step two, the books.
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Third, you're going to put the dolls on the bottom shelf.
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So kind of you do one, I do one.
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And you can start to see where the breakdown is for your child.
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Because it there's so many, when you think about it, there are so many executive functioning steps involved in that.
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So, from a parent perspective, I'm wondering, what do you do if your child says, I just can't do this?
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So I think the important part is if you know it would depend on your child's language skills, but actually trying to get to the bottom of what feels hard.
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And that's why I, when I gave those other supports just now about other things you could do, what feels hard?
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Is it hard to get started?
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You not know where the things go?
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Does this task feel too long?
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So trying to figure out the why.
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So talking to your child and giving those, you know, feeding them some of these ideas of what feels hard or simply just like, I don't want to.
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That might be your child's reason.
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I don't want to do it.
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But okay, well, I understand you might not want to, but it's important to keep our space clean and you know, we all live here together, and then working through some of those value type concepts so the child starts to value why their tasks are important to your environment.
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So it sounds like really sort of partnering with your child about the reasons for this, so that it's not just a parent saying you you need to do this, but that there's a better understanding of why that's important.
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Yeah, and their role in your, you know, the community of your household, that they're empowered by it, that it's an important job that they have to do and it's theirs, theirs to do.
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I think that's really important.
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So, what's one thing that you hope parents take away from our time today?
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I really hope that parents understand that in order for any child to learn or be successful or participate at school, those independent functional skills are number one.
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And we often don't think about that.
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So the more independence you build at home, the better your child comes equipped to school, and the more access they have to learning, the better version of your child that I get at school.
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That that's it.
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They can jump right in, the more independent skills they have, it translates directly into their learning.
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Allie, thank you so much for being here today.
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I loved being here.
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It was such a pleasure.
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We hope today's conversation helped you feel a little more connected to what's happening in your child's classroom and the important role you play at home.
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If you're looking for simple and fun ways to support your child's reading and math skills at home, visit our website, slamhomelearning.org, for free games, activities, and videos.
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Until next time.
