Knightly News

In PreK-4 at Episcopal, we nurture a love of books and reading through pre-conventional reading experiences. We teach the students that books can open the world to new adventures and experiences. Through the characters in books, students learn to problem solve, respond to events in the story, and figure out answers to questions. We read books throughout the day and use illustrations to help us understand what is happening in the story and make predictions about what we think will happen next.

We encourage preschoolers to understand that they are readers. They start to see that they can read books by holding the book, looking at the illustrations to understand what is happening, and talking with their friends about the text. This allows them to make meaning and have joyful experiences with books. On Fridays, the Episcopal community participates in D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read). This is a time when children look at books independently in the classroom. Once a month, PreK-4 children share D.E.A.R. time with their fifth-grade buddies. The fifth graders enjoy reading different books to them. All the students love this special time with their buddies!

We are also writing in PreK-4! We use a wide variety of fine motor activities to strengthen our grasp. This can be as simple as forming letters and shapes with clay or playdough, peeling and sticking stickers on top of letters as this provides practice using thumbs and pointer fingers. These and other activities are important for strengthening hands to write and color with pencils, crayons, and markers. We learn handwriting strokes through our Handwriting Without Tears journals, which is a combination of learning lines and curves.

Author studies are incorporated during the year. These include a study about Eric Carle during the Color unit, and an author study about Jan Brett in the winter. We learn what authors do, and gain understanding that sometimes authors write about their own experiences. We begin our book writing about events or experiences in our everyday lives. The writing process begins with drawing pictures including a picture on the cover of our book, and on each page after that to tell their story. As the year goes on, children start adding letters to represent the sounds that they hear in the words that would be on the pages. When the children are ready, they can write enough letters to represent the words on the page that tell their story. Every month we learn about different aspects of books, and we make our own books that show this from our own perspective.

At Episcopal, learning is integrated across the curriculum. Story Workshop is an approach utilized in PreK-4 that supports language and literacy while integrating reading, writing and art. In PreK-4 we read a book together at circle time, the children talk about the book together and the teacher asks a question about the book for the children to consider. The children can answer the question about the story through artwork. For example, after reading a book about pumpkins, they might answer the question, “What story do these pumpkins tell?” The children have several different art supplies to choose from as they answer the question with artwork, such as collage, markers, paint, and yarn. Then children can describe their artwork to others as they answer the question. Throughout the year, children can start adding letters and words to their Story Workshop creations.  

As a culmination of our reading and writing, the PreK-4 classes create a book that they publish every year. The children start learning about the life cycle of a butterfly in the fall as they observe monarch caterpillars and butterflies in the PreK-4 garden. In the spring, the children write a book together about the life cycle of a butterfly. Every child has a page of their own words, and every child draws an illustration for the book. We mail the book off to be published, and children discover they can write a beautiful book about an experience together. They each take home a copy of the book after the Butterfly Art Show.

In PreK-4, children discover that reading and writing can be fun, exciting ways to explore and to share their ideas. They learn that reading and writing connects them with others and the world around them. The children discover that they can take the joy of what they learn about reading and writing on to kindergarten, as they continue to grow in their exploration of books, reading and writing. 

Stephanie Ezell

Stephanie Ezell has twenty years of experience in education, including significant Montessori experience. She joined Episcopal’s Lower School team after serving as a kindergarten language arts and math teacher and first grade reading specialist at The Runnels School. Stephanie earned a Bachelor of Arts in elementary and early childhood education from Furman University and trained at the Montessori Institute of Atlanta. Stephanie is involved with numerous community service organizations, including the Junior League of Baton Rouge, Feeding Our Friends and Welcome House Ministry.

Lindsay Smith

Lindsay Smith is is a longtime Episcopal PreK-4 teacher. She previously taught first grade at Brownfields Elementary  in Baton Rouge for four years where she was Teacher of the Year in 2011.  Ms. Smith holds a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education from Louisiana State University. She is certified in grades PreK through 3rd.

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