Presenting
In transitional kindergarten, children make progress toward
the kindergarten standards of the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy
related to presenting. Specifically, they begin to describe
familiar people, places, things, and events, and, with prompting
and support, provide additional detail (SL.K.4), add drawings
or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide
additional detail (SL.K.5), and speak audibly and express
thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly (SL.K.6).
Presenting requires more formal language use and
awareness of audience than discussions. Among other ways, children in transitional kindergarten
present during “show and tell.” They show a small or large group of peers:
- A favorite book
- An interesting toy
- A project they are working on (such as a painting or a clay figure)
- A photograph
- Items from home that carry special meaning
- Other items of their choice
Children are encouraged to prepare what they wish to tell their peers about their object and
sometimes scaffolds are provided, such as prompts (“Tell us about a character in the book.” “Tell us
about a favorite page or illustration in the book.”) and sentence frames (“This photograph shows
_.” “This object is a __. It is special to me because _.”).
Children also present to family members, either virtually, such as recording and posting a group
poem recitation on the class Web page, or face-to-face, such as when parents are invited to attend a
performance.
Teachers provide instruction in speaking clearly, making eye contact with the audience, and
responding to questions.
Using Language Conventions
Children in transitional kindergarten make progress toward the
language conventions outlined in the Kindergarten CA CCSS for
ELA/Literacy. (See the kindergarten section of this chapter for a
discussion of the kindergarten grammar and usage expectations
for writing and speaking and the capitalization, punctuation, and
spelling expectations for writing.) Transitional kindergarteners are
provided instruction as well as meaningful contexts in which to apply
their learning. Teachers build from the California Preschool Learning
Foundations (California Department of Education 2008) in grammar.
In preschool, at around age 60 months, children:
3.1 Understand and typically use age-appropriate grammar, including accepted word forms,
such as subject-verb agreement, progressive tense, regular and irregular past tense,
regular and irregular plurals, pronouns, and possessives.
Teachers attend to children’s usage and ensure that children hear accurate models of usage. They
plan game-like activities that guide children’s correct usage, and they recognize the value of recasting
children’s comments. They know that language conventions develop over time and that children may
overgeneralize new understandings (e.g., saying runned when using past tense).
Presenting requires more
formal language use and
awareness of audience than
discussions. Among other
ways, children in transitional
kindergarten present during
“show and tell.”They [teachers] plan
game-like activities
that guide children’s
correct usage, and they
recognize the value
of recasting children’s
comments.Transitional Kindergarten Chapter 3 | 177