Methodology
Do you know what would fill up my bucket? One year, just one, without serious behavior challenges. One year where all children are afforded the right to learn every day, all day because every child respects the rights of their peers. As the quote above suggests, I, Mrs. Hoerr, am not a great person, but I have to strive to change the moral foundation from which my students come. “Fostering social and emotional development is just as important for helping students attain positive life outcomes as it is for helping students to advance academically” (as cited in Barber, Richardson, Schultz, & Wilcox, 2011, p. 143) is a crucial quote that is driving my research. While it does not directly address how stories influence the social-emotional needs of my
students, it addresses the developmental needs of early learners. As educators, our goal is to teach our students the academic skills required to succeed in school, however early childhood educators understand that this will not happen unless pro-social competencies are formed. How does this happen?
A desire for change and a search for answers brought me to wonder:
How do kindergartners solve problems by exploring stories?
Through research, colleague collaboration and child observation, I have decided to research this question using the following methods:
Interviews
Some children from my morning literacy class were chosen to follow through the research process. They were interviewed after selected stories, crafted comprehension pieces and dilemmas to solve problems with puppets or share their thinking. I chose two children that might be considered stable, focused students that follow the rules and classroom/school expectations. The other two children were students that posed daily difficulty with maintaining positive behavior choices.
Interviews were videoed, reviewed and shared when appropriate.
Behavior Choice Tracking
I monitored and tracked daily behavior logs for each month. The purpose for this data collection was to show a decrease in poor behaviors and an increase in positive behavior choices. The interviewed children received primary focus for reporting in this project.
Behavior choices are monitored daily on a clip chart. The children move up or down the chart according to their choices. At the end of each day, the children color in their bucket according to how they choice to participate in their learning community. This goes home to their parents each day and, hopefully, discussed as a family.
The behavior logs were uploaded for visual documentation.
David’s Daily Dilemma
David (puppet) came daily to share a dilemma that he had encountered at this school. These dilemmas were chosen by the teacher as a reflection of a conflict observed in the day. David presented the dilemma and asked the children to help him solve the problem. These dilemmas were videoed and some were chosen to demonstrate student thinking and reasoning when encountering dilemmas. It was hoped that the students would eventually bring their own dilemmas to David, the teacher or their peers so to discuss problems relevant to the students.
The four chosen students were videoed as the responded to one of David’s dilemma to better observe their thinking and reasoning during problem
solving.
Storytelling
Various stories were chosen from Aesop’s fables and fairytales that support moral literacy and the school’s six habits. The telling of these stories was videoed for analysis and interaction amongst the students. The stories focused on manners, voice and tone. Through observation of peer relationships I noted instances where students intertwined language from the story into their everyday relationships and interactions.
After attending a literacy conference, I implemented Meaning Matters Storytelling. I introduced my four students to their story telling journals. Each day I met with the students and scribed a story that they chose to tell. My goal was to see if the students were carrying over any moral literacy
experiences and problem solving in their stories.
Literature Connections
Some literature that supports moral literacy and the school’s six habits were used to share positive behavior choices through tangible texts.
This literature was imbedded into the literacy block to show that social studies is supported and valued across many subjects. The students experienced dilemmas within texts and helped each other understand the characters’ choices make connections to themselves and the six habits.
Social stories, specifically created for kindergarten, were shared daily. These stories were designed to help my population of learners comprehend the six habits. Six habits are a lot for young learners to grasp, so the social stories helped the students break down each habit in appropriate, meaningful
language.
Crafting Understanding
Some of the students crafted artifacts that demonstrated their understanding of the six habits or the story objective through writing and art. Some of these artifacts are posted on the website to give a visual representation of a child’s understanding and connection with a story or habit.