August's Tickler is from Stephanie N. in Lexington, NC:

I was a first year kindergarten teacher in a program that fully supported Developmentally Appropriate Practice. One of my DAP beliefs is that reading is the process by which children translate symbols into meaning. Therefore, I believe that children are reading when they are interpreting pictures. Now, on to my story . . . .

In an attempt to calm some of the kindergarten children's fears about "going to big school" and learning to read, I decided to act on my reading beliefs and have DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read) in my kindergarten classroom. I excitedly introduced my idea on the first day of school and explained to the children what DEAR time meant. They were such good readers, I told them, they already knew how to read a story by themselves. Therefore, for 10 minutes each day we would have our special DEAR time.

All went well at our first DEAR time. On the second day of school we started our DEAR time and I realized I had made a foolish mistake when I heard a conversation between two children. Ally leaned over to Katelin and asked, "What are we supposed to do at DEAR time?" Katelin replied, "I think she wants us to be real quiet and act like deer." After I recovered from laughing, I realized how foolish I was to use acronyms with Kindergarten age children.

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