K-PALS+for+Teachers

==== As a kindergarten teacher in a high poverty area, many of my students enter school with a lack of early literacy skills and oral language skills. My beginning of the year student testing indicates students are lacking in basic readiness and literacy skills. They tend to demonstrate: lack of phonemic awareness, poor letter recognition and lack of knowledge in phonics. This missing (foundational) knowledge in early literacy became an increasing problem for our entire kindergarten team a few years ago. The team decided it was time to think outside of our basel program for solutions to our early literacy problem. It was then we found the Kindergarten Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (K-PALS) program and attended the training seminar as a grade level. ==== ==== As we began to use the K-PALS program on an intensive basis, we noticed that our children were beginning to demonstrate phonemic awareness skills, basic letter knowledge and increased phonics ability. Our test scores began to improve throughout the school year and most of our students were at grade level on the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) test issued by our district. As the news of our success spread throughout our district, many teachers from other schools came to visit us to see the power of K-PALS. Many of our peers decided to adopt the program and have found similar success within their own classrooms. ====

PROGRAM BASICS:
==== The Kindergarten Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (K-PALS) program was developed by Vanderbilt University. According to the university website, the peer assisted programs were developed to help teachers "accommodate diverse learners and to promote their academic success" in a peer tutoring environment. K-PALS is the kindergarten version and was specifically designed to meet the needs of early childhood students. K-PALS focuses on a team approach to learning, which helps build relationships between students while they are learning literacy strategies. ====

HOW IT WORKS:
====The class is divided into pairs where one child is the coach and the other is the reader. The program recommends creating the pairs according to ability grouping and assessments. It does not recommend placing the highest student with the lowest student, rather scaffolding the levels of student teams. Each sheet has 4 games the pair must play. Both the coach and reader must take a turn playing the game. The 4 games include the following literacy related activities: ====
 * ===Letter Identification- called the Name Game. ===
 * ===Phonemic Awareness- called Rhyme Time, Say the Word & Stretch It ===
 * ===Sound Isolation- called First Sound & Last Sound ===
 * ===Letter Identification- same Name Game (above) ===

Once the team has completed the games, they get to color happy faces and earn points for the day. The happy face and point component allows the class to gain a sense of completion and pride for completing the game. BENEFITS: At my school, we have seen increased assessment scores and developing fluency in: letter Identification, sound fluency, and phonemic awareness skills. The children also have gained a sense of confidence: during K-PALS, while testing and in group literacy activities. Positive peer relationships between the pairs have also translated into increased social skills for many students because they are learning to work together as a team. For more information about the K-PALS and PALS programs visit: []