First-grade Classrooms Research Articles

Ground rules for talk – the use of conversation rules to increase productivity in mathematical conversations in the early years

ABSTRACT In recent years, social aspects of teaching and learning have gained increased recognition, prompting researchers to focus on conversations and language in mathematics classrooms. While prior studies have highlighted the importance of conversations in primary school teaching, a gap remains in understanding how they influence mathematics teaching and learning, especially among younger children (Muhonen et al. 2016; Patterson 2018). To address this gap, this study explores the implementation of ground rules for talk in two first-grade classrooms in Norway (ages 5–6 years). This educational design research study investigated the impact of conversation rules on enhancing mathematical reasoning and promoting productive communication in primary school. Findings indicate that implementing ground rules for talk can foster productivity by encouraging pupils to inquire about others’ reasoning and share their perspectives to foster a respectful discourse. However, it also emphasises the importance of teachers being mindful of their language to foster reasoning effectively.

“This might have been better than anything we could have taught or planned”: disrupt/ion leading the way towards culturally sustaining pedagogies

In this paper, I describe moments from a first-grade classroom whereas co-researchers, the classroom teacher and I found ourselves challenged by ways we experienced disruption in the classroom. Upon further analysis we saw these moments as opportunities to embrace culturally sustaining pedagogies, recognizing students’ enactment of their culturally situated ways of knowing and being as important, disrupting traditional approaches to schooling. Insights described provide recommendations for practice as well as questions to consider regarding how educators can engage in this approach, as well as how administrators and higher education faculty can support and mentor educators in developing their pedagogical practice to value and sustain students culturally diverse ways of knowing and being in early education classrooms.

Exploring Relations between Teachers’ Language- and Code-Based Writing Supports to Early Literacy and Vocabulary Learning in Children with Language Vulnerabilities

Early writing is a critical factor in children’s literacy development and academic success. This study observed and analyzed videos from twenty-eight teachers working in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and first-grade classrooms in under-resourced schools. The coding process focused on categorizing the type (language- and code-based) and demand (low- and high-demand) of strategies that teachers used to support children’s development of the foundational skills for early writing. We use the Not So Simple View of Writing as a framework to outline which writing-related skills (specifically, vocabulary and literacy) are important to explore. Multilevel models explored unique links between teachers’ (N = 28) supports for various early writing-related component skills, as well as children’s (N = 324) vocabulary and early literacy outcomes. The findings demonstrated that, regardless of grade level, teachers tended to emphasize code-based skills over language-based ones as children composed. Multilevel models showed that the vocabulary and literacy skills of children improved in classrooms where teachers provided higher levels of both high-demand language- and code-based writing support. The findings indicate that teachers’ support for children’s translation and transcription processes during composing may result in reciprocal and mutually beneficial effects on the foundational component skills of writing.

Does Universal SEL Promote Academic Success? Examining Learner Outcomes Under Routine Conditions in First-Grade Classrooms

Although proponents suggest that universal social-emotional learning (SEL) programs promote academic achievement, few studies have directly tested these outcomes under routine conditions in schools. Forty first-grade classrooms participated in an effectiveness trial in which schools (N = 13) were randomly assigned to implementation of a universal SEL program (SSIS SEL CIP) or control (business-as-usual practices) conditions within sites/regions. Teachers in the treatment condition prepared for and implemented the program in accordance with their typical local practices. There were no statistically significant main effects on teacher-rated student engagement, motivation, and academic skills. Effect sizes, however, were medium to large and positive for academic engaged time and math achievement. Students with lower teacher-rated academic motivation at pretest also were more likely to improve after program exposure. These findings help identify considerations for further studying the potential academic outcomes resulting from implementing universal SEL under typical conditions.

Prompting story elements in first grade: An intermodal approach for exploring two teachers’ orchestrations

Although the teaching of narrative texts in primary school is well researched, there is a lack of insight into how visual models and multimodal prompts are used by teachers to convey genre-specific knowledge. Therefore, we conducted a multimodal study of the teaching practices in two first-grade classrooms during joint re-tellings of the folktale Little Red Riding Hood and subsequent interactions around narrative genre. In both cases, the teachers used the graphical model The Story Face as well as a whiteboard canvas in their orchestrations. Data was collected in the form of audio and video recordings. Underpinned by a social semiotic framework combined with Bernstein’s concept framing, the analyses revealed that both teachers focused on story events and the story’s macrostructure while displaying different orientations in the use of verbal language and visual representations. This resulted in different emphases on either story-specific or more general features of narrative genre. Furthermore, the students showed an interest in iconic and suspense-building story dialogue, but this aspect was generally de-emphasized by the teachers’ use of verbal language and visual resources. Based on these findings, we discuss the significance of studying teachers’ differing orchestrations through overlapping modes.

The First-Grade Outcomes of Pre-K Attendees: Examining Benefits as a Function of Skill Type, Environments, and Subgroups

This study examined whether pre-K benefits persist through the end of first grade and the extent to which persistence differs based on outcome domains, subsequent classroom environments, and key subgroups of children. Data from 2,351 children living in a large and diverse county in Virginia revealed that the initial benefits of pre-K for academic and executive function persisted through the end of first grade but were 75% to 80% smaller than at kindergarten entry. Kindergarten and first-grade classroom environments did not sustain pre-K benefits. Although the initial benefits of pre-K were larger for dual language learners and children in poverty relative to English speakers and low-income children, there were no differential benefits by the end of first grade.

¡BE PREBEARED! TEATRO EN EDUCACIÓN - THEATRE IN EDUCATION: A multilingual project for early learners

ABSTRACT This article documents the creation and implementation of a multilingual (Spanish and English) Theatre in Education (TIE) play for general education and Dual Language kindergarten and first-grade classrooms. The author illustrates how enacting “role work” and dramatic play in TIE supports Lev Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theories in enhancing learning in the early childhood classroom. The author argues for the need to create more multilingual Theatre in Education. Through an analysis of critically engaged pedagogy by scholars Sonia Nieto and D. Pakkar-Hull, as well as the author’s implementation of a multilingual TIE play, the article highlights the positive outcomes in classroom learning when students’ languages and cultures are embraced in the learning environment while wrestling with the challenges of creating multilingual spaces in traditional monolingual theatrical and classroom structures.

Does participating in a daily handwriting without tears curriculum for 4-weeks improve a first-grade student’s spelling abilities: Single-subject ABA design

ABSTRACT COVID−19 and remote instruction negatively impacted student’s handwriting. This study aimed to determine if the implementation of a rigorous handwriting curriculum has an impact on a first-grade students’ ability to spell. This study used a single-subject, ABA quasi-experimental design. The study was completed by a first-grade teacher, with consultative support from an occupational therapy practitioner. The study was completed in a single first-grade general education classroom. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling and were eligible if they were in the principal researchers first-grade classroom. The total number of participants was 15 first-grade students of which six were boys and nine were girls, ages six to seven. Intervention was implemented in small groups for 20 minutes/day, five days/week, for a total of twenty-sessions. The Primary Spelling Inventory was administered pre- and post-intervention to measure the student’s spelling abilities. Paired sample t-test indicated statistically significant difference between pre- and posttest scores. Participants demonstrated an average improvement of 5.27 words after receiving the intervention, with 14 of 15 students demonstrating an improvement in pre- and post-assessment scores. Implementation of a handwriting curriculum improves a first-grade student’s handwriting skills and positively impacts spelling ability. Evidence supporting systematic approaches to improving handwriting contributes to teachers and occupational therapy practitioner’s professional reasoning when selecting specific intervention tools, in addition to determining appropriate dosage of intervention. Evidence can be utilized by occupational therapy practitioners to support classroom teachers and influence curricular decisions at the administrative level when determining curriculum to address handwriting. Occupational therapy practitioners can highlight the positive impact that mastery with handwriting can have on academic areas such as spelling.

Early-Grade Reading: The Challenges That Affect Teachers’ Practice of Phonological Awareness: The Case of Koorete Language

This study aimed to identify the challenges affecting teacher practice of phonological awareness (PA) in the first-grade classrooms of the teaching of the Koorete language. The study adopted the descriptive research design using the survey method and exploratory case study technique, and it was conducted in selected schools in Amaro in the Southern part of Ethiopia. The qualitative method was used to observe and interview the selected participating teachers, and questionnaires were used with the thirty native-language teachers selected. Thirty participating schools were selected through stratified sampling, and 30 native-language teachers were selected through targeted sampling from the selected schools based on their qualifications, experience, and recommendations for merit. Classroom observations, in-depth semistructured interviews, and questionnaires were used to collect data. The recorded data was then transcribed, translated, analyzed, and then it was thematically discussed. The results of the study showed that a lack of subject content and pedagogical knowledge, inadequate teaching materials, inadequate teacher-training programs, a lack of an enabling, literacy-rich environment, and a lack of in-service training in the first grades pose major challenges. The study recommends that teachers need to be adequately equipped with content and pedagogical awareness, to be provided with phonological awareness resources, and they require support by way of in-service training to enhance the teaching of native-language reading skills in early grades. Finally, all stakeholders need to work on the access and quality of textbooks and supplementary reading materials, adopt explicit and systematic teaching practices, organize in-service training, and create a literacy-rich environment for the teacher education program.

Classroom interaction and metacognition by ‘enculturation’ of thinking in early education

ABSTRACT This case study explores the impact of a thinking-based teacher training and professional development programme on the quality of classroom interactions and on students’ metacognitive capacity in early childhood education and elementary first-grade classrooms. The study was conducted in a Spanish school, and the sample comprised 13 educators and 117 students aged 4 to 7 years old. The self-assessment scale of cultural forces for the promotion of thinking was used to analyze the change in the self-perception of teachers after the completion of the thinking-based training programme. The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) was used to assess teacher–student interactions, and the drawing-telling technique was used to analyze students’ metacognitive capacity. The results reveal that the thinking-based teacher training improved their self-assessment as teachers that promote thinking, enhance the quality of classroom interactions (organisation and learning support), and develop children’s metacognitive processes. These findings indicate that a culture of thinking helps to develop key skills for twenty-first-century teachers and students.

“Breathe and Be Ready to Learn”: The Issue with Social-Emotional Learning Programs as Classroom Management

As social-emotional learning (SEL) has become a more acknowledged and central part of early schooling in the last two decades, many schools and educators, particularly those in progressive spaces, have adopted SEL programs to supplement or substitute other systems of classroom management. While research demonstrates that children’s social, emotional, and cultural practices and experiences are central to inclusive, humanizing, and culturally relevant learning, SEL programs are often implemented to more closely resemble behaviorist systems of classroom management. This article presents findings from a progressive first-grade classroom of Latinx children from immigrant families led by a white teacher. Examples from ethnographic observations of the classroom illustrate the ways that the teacher used an SEL program alongside a discourse of “readiness to learn” to manage and control children’s behavior. These classroom experiences proved to be closely connected to the ideas about learning that children in Mr. Walsh’s class shared in video-cued interviews, namely that students need to be calm, quiet, focused, and “ready” in order to learn. The article considers the ways that larger systems of whiteness, individualism, and control weaving through SEL programming and progressive schooling create, foster, and perpetuate discourses of control and “readiness” that ultimately prevent children from meaningfully contributing and engaging in the type of deep learning that results from focused, structured agency and relationships of mutual trust and respect.

Arts-Embedded Education: Experiential Learning in a Waldorf First-Grade Classroom

This article provides an overview of the first-grade art and literacy curriculum of Waldorf schools, the world’s largest, non-religious independent educational network. The Waldorf curriculum was created by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, a contemporary of John Dewey and Maria Montessori who shared their belief in the advantages of active learning. Yet Steiner was unique among his contemporaries in his focus on an artistic approach to learning. Under their teacher’s direction, children draw, sing, play and learn the sounds of alphabet letters.

Justice Is More Important Than Kindness: Antiracist Pedagogy in a First-Grade Classroom

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Tell or Retell? The Role of Task and Language in Spanish-English Narrative Microstructure Performance.

This study examined performance of dual language learners (DLLs) on Spanish- and English-language narrative story retells and unique tells. Transcription and analysis focused on comparisons of common microstructural language sample measures in Spanish and English across tasks. Each language sample measure was evaluated for its possible convergence with norm-referenced standardized assessments for DLL children. Spanish-English DLLs (N = 133) enrolled in English-only kindergarten or first-grade classrooms completed two-language sample tasks (one in each language), which were transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller & Iglesias, 2017) for measures of syntactic complexity (mean length of utterance [MLU] in words), lexical diversity (number of different words [NDW]), and grammaticality (percent grammatical utterances [PGU]). Students also completed a norm-referenced sentence repetition task (Peña et al., 2014) and expressive vocabulary assessment (Martin, 2013). Comparison of story retells and unique stories revealed similar performance on MLU, NDW, and PGU across elicitation techniques, with one exception: NDW in Spanish was higher in the story retell condition. Predictive models revealed several differences in the relations between the microstructure measures and norm-referenced language measures by elicitation technique, although neither context demonstrated a consistent advantage across all metrics. Measures derived from story retells and unique tells offer practical findings for speech-language pathologists and other educators to use in assessment of early grade DLLs. This work increases knowledge of procedural differences across narrative assessments and their influence on language variables, supporting school-based speech-language pathologists in making assessment decisions for DLLs on their caseload. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19191278.

Testing the Impact of the Whole-Day Good Behavior Game on Aggressive Behavior: Results of a Classroom-Based Randomized Effectiveness Trial.

Three generations of developmental epidemiologically based randomized field trials of the Good Behavior Game (GBG) have been delivered to Baltimore elementary schools. With the collaboration of family and community partners, all three trials were directed at decreasing proximal targets of aggressive behavior and improving learning in first-grade classrooms with distal mental health and substance abuse outcomes. GBG is a group-contingent classroom behavior management strategy that promotes classmate/peer concern for each child's positive behavior by rewarding teams with below-criterion levels of aggressive, disruptive behavior. GBG targets early risk factors for the above distal outcomes: aggressive, disruptive behavior, family/school relationships, and school failure. Here, we report on the third-generation randomized prevention trial of the GBG (whole-day first grade program (WD)), including 12 elementary schools. WD enhanced the standard curriculum in the areas of classroom behavior management; academic instruction, particularly reading; and family-classroom partnerships. Using a within-school classroom randomized trial design, we: 1) evaluate the effectiveness of the WD program by sex and cohort and 2) measure variation in WD impact by the quality of teachers' behavior management practices. Data from 961 first graders were used in general growth mixture modeling that accounts for classroom randomization to identify distinct developmental trajectories of aggressive, disruptive behavior and GBG impact on these trajectories. In the chronic high aggression trajectory of males, ratings of aggression after WD implementation and to the end of third grade were significantly lower in the WD condition than in controls in classrooms with a higher WD dosage (Cohort 2) and especially in classrooms with higher quality of WD implementation. For females, we found a modest but significant benefit of GBG in the low trajectory class when cohorts were combined. Regarding policy implications, embedding GBG into the curricula in teacher's colleges could better support student learning and behavior. Clinical Trials Registration number: NCT00257088.

Synchronizing and amending: A conversation analytic account of the “Co-ness” in co-teaching

Despite extensive interdisciplinary research on co-teaching over the last few decades, the existing body of work still leaves unanswered questions about what teacher collaboration looks like and how, precisely, co-teaching might enhance student learning or even teacher experience. In the first conversation analytic study to be done on co-teaching for gifted students, I examine one first-grade classroom where two head teachers with equal roles instruct accelerated children. I identify two interactional practices (synchronizing and amending) that co-teachers deploy which underlie and maximize the “co-ness” of their collaborative dynamic. In analyzing and describing these practices in detail, I reveal some of the ways in which co-teachers accomplish collaboration, and I also present evidence for how such collaboration can enhance both learning and teaching in a classroom with young students. Findings contribute to a nascent body of discourse analytic research on co-teaching, provide novel insight on co-teaching in gifted classrooms, and lay the groundwork for some practical suggestions for training materials for co-teachers.

Development and Initial Validation of the Early Elementary Writing Rubric to Inform Instruction for Kindergarten and First-Grade Students

This article describes the development of the Early Elementary Writing Rubric (EEWR), an analytic assessment designed to measure kindergarten and first-grade writing and inform educators’ instruction. Crocker and Algina’s (1986) approach to instrument development and validation was used as a guide to create and refine the writing measure. Study 1 describes the development of the 10-item measure (response scale ranges from 0 = Beginning of Kindergarten to 5 = End of First Grade). Educators participated in focus groups, expert panel review, cognitive interviews, and pretesting as part of the instrument development process. Study 2 evaluates measurement quality in terms of score reliability and validity. Data from writing samples produced by 634 students in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms were collected during pilot testing. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the EEWR. A one-factor model fit the data for all writing genres and all scoring elements were retained with loadings ranging from 0.49 to 0.92. Internal consistency reliability was high and ranged from .89 to .91. Interrater reliability between the researcher and participants varied from poor to good and means ranged from 52% to 72%. First-grade students received higher scores than kindergartners on all 10 scoring elements. The EEWR holds promise as an acceptable, useful, and psychometrically sound measure of early writing. Further iterative development is needed to fully investigate its ability to accurately identify the present level of student performance and to determine sensitivity to developmental and instruction gains.

Automatic Detection of Gaze and Body Orientation in Elementary School Classrooms.

Detecting the direction of the gaze and orientation of the body of both teacher and students is essential to estimate who is paying attention to whom. It also provides vital clues for understanding their unconscious, non-verbal behavior. These are called “honest signals” since they are unconscious subtle patterns in our interaction with other people that help reveal the focus of our attention. Inside the classroom, they provide important clues about teaching practices and students' responses to different conscious and unconscious teaching strategies. Scanning this non-verbal behavior in the classroom can provide important feedback to the teacher in order for them to improve their teaching practices. This type of analysis usually requires sophisticated eye-tracking equipment, motion sensors, or multiple cameras. However, for this to be a useful tool in the teacher's daily practice, an alternative must be found using only a smartphone. A smartphone is the only instrument that a teacher always has at their disposal and is nowadays considered truly ubiquitous. Our study looks at data from a group of first-grade classrooms. We show how video recordings on a teacher's smartphone can be used in order to estimate the direction of the teacher and students’ gaze, as well as their body orientation. Using the output from the OpenPose software, we run Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to train an estimator to recognize the direction of the students’ gaze and body orientation. We found that the level of accuracy achieved is comparable to that of human observers watching frames from the videos. The mean square errors (RMSE) of the predicted pitch and yaw angles for head and body directions are on average 11% lower than the RMSE between human annotators. However, our solution is much faster, avoids the tedium of doing it manually, and makes it possible to design solutions that give the teacher feedback as soon as they finish the class.

Teachers’ Focus of Attention in First-grade Classrooms: Exploring Teachers Experiencing Less and More Stress Using Mobile Eye-tracking

ABSTRACT This study investigated teachers’ focus of attention and stress in first-grade classrooms. Teachers’ (n = 53) focus of attention was recorded in fall and spring with a mobile eye-tracking device, and the teachers reported stress via questionnaires. Correlation analysis was used to examine association between teacher stress (exhaustion, cynicism, and inadequacy) and focus of attention. Then, one teacher reporting more stress and one reporting less stress were selected for a case study to examine variations in their focus of attention. The results showed positive associations between teachers’ perceived inadequacy and overall focus of attention (whole eye-tracking recording) both in fall and spring. Teachers’ focus of attention during specific activity settings of management/routines and transitions correlated positively with all three stress domains in fall. In addition, a positive association was also found between teacher inadequacy and focus of attention during teacher-directed large group activity setting.

Literacy practices as social: relational-keys in literacy events

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to work toward more fully conceptualizing literacy practices as social by theorizing the combined relational and intellectual context for learning. This context is created through students’ and their teachers’ uses of language. In particular, the quality of language that creates this intellectual relational context is relational-keys that are inherent to any talk between people. Building upon Hymes (1974) conceptualization of key, relational-keys can be described as the emotional mood or spirit of a conversation, but they are much more than that per se. They are constitutive of the complex, multi-layered relationships that people have with each other, with themselves and with the material environment through their uses of language.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon a classroom ethnographic study in a first-grade classroom and using discourse analysis of classroom interactions, the author uses data from instructional conversations to illustrate how students and their teachers collaboratively perform relational-keys.FindingsFindings reveal that students and their teacher perform relational and intellectual stances toward reading and toward each other through relational-keys, that frame the act of reading and their experience of doing it together.Originality/valueThe concept of relational-key provides literacy researchers with another tool to analyze what happens in instructional conversations. It also provides teachers with a curricular resource to identify relational-keys that are enacted. Therefore, teachers are able move away from the enaction of relational-keys that contribute to subtractive schooling, and toward relational-keys that nurture empowering stances in students toward reading and their relationships.