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Bridgewater College

EDUC 332
Janna Grandle

Care Provider Involvement and the KITS program
Imagine walking into your class-
room on the first day not knowing
what to do with a foster care
child in your class who is strug-
gling when it comes to reading.
However, you have the advantage
that many new teachers like
yourself dont; you get to read and
article that provides you with
important information you need.
Its true when they say that chil-
dren in the foster care system are
at a particularly high risk for
difficulties in school.
3
Often
times, you will find that foster
care students who are in your
class could easily be moved out
due to multiple placement transi-
tions. Because of this, its best
that the possible interventions
you use for the foster care chil-
dren in your class to focus on the
short-term nature of home place-
ments.
3
A new program has been
designed to help with the literacy
and behaviors of foster care chil-
dren known as the KITS pro-
gram. It focuses on providing
these students with critical skills
necessary for school success dur-
ing the summer months as to not
create a service gap, self-
regulatory skills, early literacy
skills and social skills, and finally
it provides high-density learning
opportunities.
3
This program has two compo-
nents. The first is a 24 session
school readiness group that
meets 2 hours weekly in the sum-
mer and 2 hours once a week in
the fall thats main focus is on
promoting early literacy and so-
cial-emotional skills. There is
also an 8 session caregiver group
that meets 2 hours every 2 weeks
that focuses on promoting care-
giver involvement in early litera-
cy and school.
3
The foster care
children involved in the program
cover letter names, phonological
awareness, comprehension, social
interaction, social problem-
solving, handling frustration and
disappointment, listening and
following multistep direction.
3

However, if your school doesnt
want to implement the program,
you as the teacher can implement
it in steps on your own in simple
ways. With early literacy, you can
do a letter of the day, a poem of
the week and even a storybook/
dramatic activity. A good example
of this is readers theater. The
concept of this is to give the stu-
dents a script that they act out in
groups. They get with their group
and practice, then they act it out
in front of the class. If there are
other children
within the school
who are foster
care children, you
can get with their
teachers and have
them do one big
readers theater
production. The
next concept to focus on is the self
-regulatory skills. Ways that you
can implement this are by defin-
ing sharing, providing verbal ex-
amples and then have the child
provide examples, role play,
which means modeling sharing
and not sharing, and activity-
based intervention, in which chil-
dren could complete an art project
requiring that they share the ma-
terials.
Once the implementation has
started with the foster care
students, you can consider
meeting with the caregivers
to help them focus on skills
relevant to the transition of a
new school. Suggest that they
help children develop their
literacy skills by doing family
read alouds and to promote
child regulation, which means
they promote behavior man-
agement skills like those used
in the school readiness
groups.
3
Studies have shown
that students who participate
in the KITS program show
lower levels of oppositional as
well as aggressive behaviors,
meaning that it could be an
effective way to prevent dis-
ruptive classroom behav-
iors in a group that is at a
high risk for school diffi-
culties.
3
This also means
that it will help with their
literacy skills. Also, getting
the care provider involved
helps to get them actively
involved in what is going on
in their childs school career
and lets them lay the founda-
tion to success for their child.
While it may be hard for your
school to implement this pro-
gram and it may seem over-
whelming to you as a first
year teacher, research shows
that it is worth it in the end
and that it is much easier and
better to intervene to early
rather than too late.
KITS Program 1
Consistency Is Key 2
Ask Ms. Apple 2
Understanding Devel-
opment, Foster Care
and Education

3
Letter to the Editor 4

Letter to the Editor 4
Inside this issue:
Attention New
Teachers!!
Are you a new teacher? Are you trying
to figure out a way to get outside in-
volvement from parents, caregivers,
college students, etc., into your class? If
so, you should consider having literacy
tutors! Tutoring as a mode of training
and teaching has a long history
4
, and it
is also an effective way to improve
reading and language skills, especially
with foster children.
5
They need the
direct attention and what better way to
give it to them, than to provide them
with a tutor. For more information or to
ask any questions, contact Bridgewater
College TEP.

Volume 1, Issue 1
To Foster Children...
May 2014
3
citation-Pears, K. C., Kim, H. K., & Fisher, P. A. (2012). Effects of a school readiness intervention for children in foster care on oppositional and
aggressive behaviors in kindergarten. Children & Youth Services Review, 34(12), 2361-2366. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.08.015
4
Morrow, L. M. (2001). Tutoring programs for struggling
readers: the America Reads Challenge. New York:
5
Harper, J., & Schmidt, F. (2012). Preliminary effects of
a group-based tutoring program for children in long-term
foster care. Children & Youth Services Review, 34(6),
1176-1182. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.01.040
TEACHING
Foster children will enter your classroom
coming from situations that are far from
ideal. Many of the children have been
bounced from family to family and home to
home, and lack any consistency in their
lives. Nancy McKellar, PhD from Wichita
State University explains, The families
from which children are removed for foster
care have complex problems involving ne-
glect, abuse, homelessness, and parental
substance abuse. Children in foster care
are very likely to have been exposed to
violence, both before and after being sepa-
rated from their biological parents.
1
Of-
ten times, these students have experienced
more misfortune and hardships in their
few years, than you could imagine in a
lifetime. One of the main issues present
with foster children is the lack of con-
sistency that they have in their daily lives
due to being bounced from place to place
and person to person. These students
lack stability and feel as if they do not
belong, and have difficulty fitting in.
1
As
a new teacher entering this every chang-
ing profession it is imperative that you
implement consistency in your daily lit-
eracy activities. Foster students lack
consistency in their lives, and in order to
ensure success in their academic achieve-
ment in literacy, they must have the sta-
bility of a continued and shared goal be-
tween themselves and you as the teacher.
As a teacher of literacy to foster students
it is important that you understand that
you must balance the instruction of your
literacy program and accept that how you
teach is just as important
as what you teach.
2
You
must meet the needs of
the students by practic-
ing consistency, creating
an atmosphere in which
is predictable and com-
fortable to the students.
2

There are enough uncer-
tainties in their life, done
make your classroom
another unknown and
uncontrollable domain. One of the best
ways, as a new teacher that you can help
foster literacy learning of children who
lack consistency in their lives is to teach
them how to set goals, problem solve and
promote organizational skills.
1
In doing
this, you are setting the student up for
success in literacy. Graphic organizers,
such as semantic maps, seman-
tic webs, and frayer models,
just to name a few are a great
way to help students organize
their thought and information,
while also helping them make
connections and applying their
knowledge of the literacy terms
of which they are learning.
When students are able to take
ownership of their learning
and consistently feel success,
their learning is solidified. It
is necessary to focus your attention on
helping students succeed early by be-
ing consistent in their literacy instruc-
tion. Once the students master the
literacy element, they will then be able
to use what you have taught to apply
to other subject matter, and grow to be
a well rounded successful student.

DearMs. Apple,
I was informed today that a new student will be joining my class in 2 days. She is coming to
our school because her foster care placement changed and she is now in our school district. I am un-
sure of how to address the topic of foster care with my students in a realistic and respectful way. How
do I address their unexpected questions and comments?
-Fearful in Fourth Grade

Dear Fearful in Fourth Grade,
It is understandable that you feel uneasy and concerned about how to handle the topic of foster care
with your students. Most likely, you and the other students in your class have not experienced life as a foster
child. Thankfully, I found some information that may be useful for you! Meese writes that unexpected com-
ments by students that highlight the differences of the foster child should be counterbalanced by the teacher
acknowledging the ways in which all students are similar.
7
In addition, teachers should explain that families are unique and come in many different forms
and fashions. There is not simply one correct or normal family. When using literature about foster care or adoption, teachers also need to screen the story
before it is presented to students. You must assess whether literature relating to these themes perpetuates stereotypes and myths. Meese explains that common
stereotypes about foster and adoptive children in literature include children being troubled, characters that should be pitied, characters that must overcome
insurmountable odds to obtain a loving caregiver, and caregivers and parents being portrayed as evil and abusive. Also keep in mind that you may need to
modify assignments in order to make foster children feel comfortable; provide alternatives to family history or timeline assignments. Dont force students in
foster care to invent a family story or deal with guilt and shame about their situation.
Here is an overview of Meeses tips for teacher:
Choose books that portray foster children without perpetuating stereotypes and myths
Use stories that contain realistic character actions and emotions and accept all forms of contemporary families
Read believable stories that feature acceptance, love, and mutual care and respect as the true nature of families
Consider developmental needs of foster children
Use sensitive language in classroom discussions and create assignments safe for all students
Best wishes,
Ms. Apple

7
Meese, R. (2012). Modern Family: Adoption and foster care in children's literature. Reading Teacher, 66(2), 129-137. doi:10.1002/TRTR.01112
Consistency Is Key
Page 2

School can be an important stabilizing force in
the lives of foster children. Teachers should
strive to help them feel safe and welcome in the
school. Treating foster children the same as
other children is crucial, especially because they
already feel uncomfortably different because
they do not lie with their biological parents.
2
1
McKellar, N. (2004). Foster care for children: Information for teachers. National Association of School Psychologists. Bethesda, MD
2
Strickland, D. (n.d.). Balanced Literacy. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/balanced-literacy. Retrieved on May 3, 2014.
Ask
Ms. Apple
Putting it all Together: Understanding
Development, Foster Care, and Education
As teachers it is important to develop an
understanding of how experiences related
to foster care placement can impact devel-
opment and educational outcomes. First,
teachers must recognize the mechanisms
and factors that influence language acqui-
sition and vocabulary development. Carol
Lyons emphasizes the role of caregivers
in the development of language in young
children
8
. Open ended conversations with
young children help them to define the
world and may help to facilitate language
acquisition and creative thought pro-
cessing. Furthermore, research sited by
Lyons shows a strong correlation between
the size of a toddlers vocabulary and
how much the parent talks to the child. At
a young age, children need to hear words
in a variety of complex sentence struc-
tures to have a larger vocabulary. Chil-
dren must have face-to-face interaction to
understand how to use language and vo-
cabulary in meaningful ways. Social in-
teraction through language helps to devel-
op cognitive abilities. Another study finds
that the way in which a mother talks to
her child has huge consequences on the
childs capacities for learning and com-
munication
9
. Relationships with parents
and caregivers provide children with the
security, confidence, and self-efficacy to
attempt new tasks.
Emotions and past experiences impact the
ability to remember and understand lan-
guage and vocabulary. The strongest
memories anyone experiences have an
emotional component attached. Physio-
logically, the structure critical for
memory (hippocampus) and the struc-
ture involved in emotion (amygdala)
are neighbors in the brain; the amyg-
dala encircles the hippocampus. Emo-
tional state and past experiences can
facilitate or inhibit learning. Specifi-
cally, the more anxiety a child experi-
ences, the poorer their academic per-
formance on a task.
Teachers need to know the developmental
information provided above for all stu-
dents, but specifically they need to under-
stand this information in the context of
foster care children. Most children in fos-
ter care have experienced abuse, neglect,
and/or trauma prior to their arrival in your
classroom.
10
Foster children experiencing
neglect and insecure attachment to their
biological parents may have deficits in
language and vocabulary development.
Neglect eliminates the continuous social
interactions between parents and children
that are needed for children to acquire
language and expand their vocabulary.
Furthermore, negative past experiences
with literacy will impact a foster childs
motivation and emotions towards reading
and writing. One study estimates that fos-
ter children lose four to six months of
educational progress each time they
change schools due to a change in foster
care placement
8
. Teachers may have lim-
ited information on a foster childs previ-
ous academic performance and history;
therefore, it is critical for teachers to
know some of the challenges that foster
kids are facing in their classroom in order
to provide effective instruction.
Now it is important to develop strategies
to help foster children to be successful
with literacy in your classroom. Given
that you may have limited or no back-
ground on the childs abilities the day
they enter your classroom, you need to
assess those students in a non-threatening
and informal way. Carol Lyons suggests
using running record to get a sense of a
students fluency and to evaluate the ways
in which the student is processing the
text. Running record provides a founda-
tion of knowledge for you as the teacher.
You can use running record to begin dif-
ferentiating instruction for the foster child
in your classroom. In addition, research
has found that many foster children strug-
gle getting involved in school activities
which can negatively impact their educa-
tional outcomes
11
. Increase activity and
involvement within your classroom by
using a variety of vocabulary and com-
prehension strate-
gies that utilize
group work and
collaboration.
Activities like
vocabulary high
five, vo-back-
ulary, and tea
parties can help
foster kids to
work with other
students in het-
erogeneous
groups and de-
velop a sense of
belonging. Fos-
ter kids may
also be experi-
encing a lot of
instability and
emotional, so
give them a
sense of control
by giving them
choices in their
reading and assignments. Creating a
menu of options is a great way to level
activities, give students options, and
allow foster children to feel involved
and in control of their education. As
teachers, you have the opportunity to
provide a safe and stable environment in
the fearful and uncertain world of a fos-
ter child.
Understanding Development, Foster Care, and Education
Teaching Strategies to
Promote Learning in
Foster Kids:
1

Orient the new student
to the classroom.
Determine academic
needs of the student
Emphasize strong social
interactions.
Build a relationship with
the foster parents
Include biological
parents, when and how
appropriate.
Have an understanding
of the students history,
and use strategies to
are effective given that
history.
Help foster children
learn how to cope
Create an inclusive
environment in your
classroom.
Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 3
8
Lyons, C. A. (2003). Teaching struggling readers: how to use brain-based research to maximize learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
9
Neuman, S. B. (2009). Changing the odds for children at risk: seven essental principles of educatonal programs that break the cycle of poverty. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
10
Williamson, L. (2013). Providing support and stability to students in foster care. Educaton Digest, 79(3), 62-65
11
Chambers, C., & Palmer, E. (2010). Educatonal stability for children in foster care. Touro Law Review, 26(1), 1103-1130.
About a month ago, I was reading your newsletter when I came across an interesting article about foster care chil-
dren and literacy. Within it, it stated that a study found this concept of Direct Instruction (DI) to be one of the
top 3 effective models.
6
As I continued reading, I saw that the article noted how after just six weeks of DI, students
were showing gains in reading efficiency, reading rate, reading accuracy and reading fluency (citation). I also
noticed that they were conducting this study on children who are in the foster care system. I have been a teacher
for 5 years now, and I have been trying to find ways to help these children with their reading. The results of the
article really captured my attention; DI intervention has significant and positive effects on reading skills for
foster children.
6
After reading this, I went and talked to my principal who agreed to let my try DI intervention
last year for my struggling foster children. With DI intervention, the students had to take three subtests includ-
ing word reading, spelling and sentence comprehension. The children in my class who were being assessed, were
placed into small tutoring groups of three or four children (as there are many foster care children within my
school) based on their skill level. All the children who received this intervention improved drastically and now it is
something that my whole school district has implemented because they were pleased with the results. I would rec-
ommend this intervention to any school district. If you are a first year teacher, talking to the principal about this
would show how much research you have done and how much you want the students within your class to succeed.
Kudos to this newspaper for including this article and helping teachers like me learn about the programs that are
available to us.
~Mr. Franklin
6
Harper, J., & Schmidt, F. (2012). Preliminary effects of a group-based tutoring program for children in long-term foster care. Children & Youth Services Review, 34(6), 1176-1182. doi:10.1016/
j.childyouth.2012.01.040
Letter to the Editor...
F u t u r e L i t e r a c y E d u c a t o r s

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