So what did I find out? Well, I realized that my kiddos could perform at a Novice Mid level during a unit and at the end of the unit but months later they could barely list a word. I know that spiraling is important and I thought I was doing it but it turns out that I wasn't super effective at it.
One of the things I noticed with my smaller students is that they have to hear things OVER and OVER and OVER before they get it. One of the areas my kindergartners struggled with last year was body parts. So starting on day 1 of class this year we got some wiggles out by singing Cabeza, brazos, piernas, pies.
At a session on the Brain and Learning at SCOLT from Greta Lundgaard, she told us that "Rote memorization can lead to superficial learning" and the "Rote memorization wears many disguises." One of those disguises is a song. My kinders could only name their body parts if they were in the same order of the song.
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| If you ever get a chance to see Greta present - GO! She always has great information. |
So I also made sure that we practiced body parts along with our rules. Piernas cruzadas, manos dobladas, bocas cerradas, ojos en la maestra - still rote memorization but in a different context and order. Later when we actually reached the body part unit, I told them the story of Caperucita Roja. We played Diego Dice where they had to touch the different body parts and they labeled a worksheet with a character from Caperucita Roja.
Get your Caperucita story and labeling worksheet here.
I did the same things with animals. Instead of waiting to introduce the animal names during the animal unit I had students say Hola and Adios to stuffed animals during that first unit where we practice greetings. Every few weeks I added an animal to the growing zoo on my desk. By the time we reached the animal unit my students already knew the names and it was much easier for them to add Me gusta/No me gusta and describe them.
For both topics, what started out as rote memorization in the initial practice phase was heard and applied in different ways in later units and it worked! My scores this year (if you take out the kiddos who showed up in the middle of the year) were 93% Meets this year. This is actually better than last year's scores when I saw my students more frequently!
I also have benchmark assessments in 2nd and 5th grade and seeing how well my kindergartners did this year I now need to figure out where I can spiral and reinforce vocabulary and language chunks so that they actually do remember them.
For example in third grade students are supposed to learn numbers 1-100 so I've introduced it in 2nd grade during calendar time for temperature. It's not something I spend a lot of time, emphasize or even informally assess but it should give them a jump start next year because it won't have been the first time they've seen the numbers.
And Greta is right. I can't teach as fast. I'm supposed to teach 4 units a year* but I think I'll be taking that down to 3 next year - especially in 3rd, 4th, and 5th. If I want my students to get to Novice High then we need to go deeper rather than broader.
It also means that we need to be singing ALL of our songs from previous years and bringing back content where it makes sense in later units or even introducing it earlier than I would have before so they can go deeper with it during the actual unit I'm supposed to teach the content.
So there you go - not only is spiraling SUPER important but also HOW you do it. How do you spiral content? How do you assess your students' performance? How do you analyze data from assessments? Share in the comments below!
And if you ever get a chance to see Greta present I say go! Here is a post from last year's SCOLT also inspired by a Greta Lundgaard session.
*This curriculum was designed for 90 minutes a week so it's no surprise I don't have time to teach all 4 units in a 6 day rotation.
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