Introduction

Purpose

I. Mentor-Coach and Protégé Concepts
             Role of a Mentor-Coach
             Role of a Protégé
             Mentor-Coaches' and Protégés' Skills and Strategies

II. Foundation of the Mentor-Coach and Protégé Relationship
             Building A Relationship
             Cultural Sensitivity
             Professional Conferencing Process
             Observation
             Reflective Conferencing
             Keeping a Journal
             Glossary of Skills and Strategies Used by Mentor-Coaches

III. Supporting Your Practices For Language and Literacy Development
             Language Development for Infants and Toddlers
             Strategies to Promote Language Development for Infants and Toddlers
             Early Literacy for Infants and Toddlers
             Strategies to Promote Early Literacy Skills
             Language and Literacy Child Outcomes
                  Book Knowledge and Appreciation for 3- to 5-Year-Olds
                  Print Awareness and Concepts for 3- to 5-Year-Olds
                  Early Writing for 3- to 5-Year-Olds
                  Alphabet Knowledge for 3- to 5-Year-Olds
                  Listening and Understanding for 3- to 5-Year-Olds
                  Speaking and Communicating for 3- to 5-Year-Olds
                  Phonological Awareness for 3- to 5-Year-Olds
              Ongoing Child Assessment  
              Individualizing Instruction

When we have children in our care, we need to act in a respectful manner and to demonstrate respect toward the child, others and ourselves. Keep in mind that children are learning all the time from what we do and that we are their role models for learning respect. By demonstrating respect in all aspects of our lives - our children will learn how to respect all life. —Wakanyeja WoAwanka Manual (2001)

This Protégé Journal will help you to prepare and reflect on work with your Mentor-Coach, plan observations, and use child assessments and other resources to help children progress in developing early literacy and language skills.

Together, you and your Mentor-Coach will:

• Define the roles and responsibilities within your relationship

• Meet regularly and engage in reflective conferences

• Identify and solve problems

• Maintain confidentiality

• Plan observations and follow-up activities

• Provide and receive feedback

• Use assessment information to guide children's learning

• Enhance your professional growth.

PURPOSE OF THE JOURNAL

This journal is for you to use to note any questions, issues, and needs as they arise or to remind you of what you want to discuss with your Mentor-Coach. Use it to extend your thinking about new ideas and changes in your classroom or home-based child care setting. The Protégé Journal provides a place to write down what you are already doing well and what you might do to improve your child care and teaching practices.

The Protégé Journal contains three sections. The first section describes the roles of the Early Literacy Mentor-Coach and Protégé and associated skills and strategies. The second section describes processes and activities that are the foundation of the Mentor-Coach and Protégé relationship. The third section includes resources to promote positive language and literacy outcomes for children ages birth to five years.

I. MENTOR-COACH AND PROTÉGÉ CONCEPTS

ROLE OF A MENTOR-COACH

Mentor-Coaches guide, support, and provide resources to classroom staff and home visitors. Mentor-Coaches help you solve problems, reflect on your practices, and learn new ways to help children develop language and literacy. Your Mentor-Coach will:

• Share information about culturally and age-appropriate curriculum, and early literacy practices

• Schedule and conduct conferences

• Help to solve problems

• Assist in organizing and analyzing your classroom or home-visiting setting

• Visit your classroom or home setting to observe and discuss observations

• Provide resources and information about professional development opportunities.

ROLE OF A PROTÉGÉ

A Protégé is a staff person who is willing to learn new skills, reflect on practices with others, and develop teaching and caregiving practices to enhance children's learning and growth.

You can get the most value and meaning from your relationship with your Mentor-Coach if you make a commitment to involve yourself in the following activities:

• Assess your learning needs and strengths

• Engage in reflective dialogues and conferences with your Mentor-Coach

• Apply and analyze new teaching and literacy practices with the support of your Mentor-Coach

• Identify issues and problems, and work with your Mentor-Coach to resolve them

• Participate in professional development opportunities, trainings, and events.

MENTOR-COACHES' AND PROTÉGÉS' SKILLS AND STRATEGIES

The following skills and strategies are key to enhancing your relationship with your Mentor-Coach:

• Sharing beliefs, principles, and ideals

• Recognizing and respecting values, attitudes, and practices in different cultures

• Reflecting on one's own practices, knowledge, and beliefs

• Enhancing communication by careful listening and by asking questions

• Identifying and setting realistic goals related to your relationships and practices

• Solving problems by defining the problem, examining options, and selecting appropriate solutions

• Using observation tools and techniques to gather information on classrooms, other child-care settings and the practices used

• Using journals to write thoughts about professional practices and new ideas and plans

• Providing honest and respectful feedback to improve professional practices and behavior

• Planning professional development, making time to identify professional goals, to obtain additional training or information, and to document progress.

PLEASE NOTE: At the end of this section, there is a two-page resource—Glossary of Skills and Strategies Used by Mentor-Coaches. It expands on some of the above skills and strategies.

What are my strengths in each of these areas?

What do I want to focus on with my Mentor-Coach?

THE VALUE OF MENTORING

Has anyone ever been a mentor to you?

What was it like?

What did you most appreciate about that person?

What did you learn?

YOUR ROLE AS A PROTÉGÉ

At this point in your career, what does being a protégé mean to you?

Do you have any questions about your role?

The following three pages are examples of how to use your journal before, during, and after meetings with your Mentor-Coach. You may want to make multiple copies of the second and third pages. You can use them as an ongoing record of your meetings with your Mentor-Coach.

SAMPLE JOURNAL PAGE

Mentoring has helped me to confidently assess my practices, to see other perspectives, and to grow as a teacher. It has also helped to build a strong sense of community among teachers in our program. —A Protégé

My Mentor-Coach's name, phone numbers, and e-mail address: Next meeting: Bring:

What questions do I have as I plan to meet with my Mentor-Coach?

SAMPLE JOURNAL PAGE

Date:_________

Notes during my meeting with my Mentor-Coach

SAMPLE JOURNAL PAGE

Date:_________

After meeting with your Mentor-Coach, write about what happened.

How did our Mentor-Coach and protégé meeting go?

What I shared (Did I ask the questions I wanted to? Why or why not?):

What I learned:

Next steps that I will try:

Questions and comments:

II. FOUNDATION OF THE MENTOR-COACH AND PROTÉGÉ RELATIONSHIP

BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP

Forming and maintaining a trusting, supportive relationship with another person is essential to mentor-coaching.

Key ingredients to relationship building are:

• Good communication skills
• Reflective practices
• Clarity in roles and expectations
• Making time to meet
• Honoring confidentiality
• Cultural sensitivity.

What are my strengths in relationship building?

What are my challenges in relationship building?

What I want to talk about with my Mentor-Coach?

Definition: Cultural Sensitivity Culture is the fundamental building block of identity. Through cultural learning, children gain a feeling of belonging, a sense of personal history, and a security in knowing who they are and where they came from…Early child care that respects time- honored cultural rules helps children develop a secure sense of self. In essence, the gifts children receive from infancy firmly grounded in their home culture are confidence, competence, and connection. For children to receive these gifts, culturally sensitive care is crucial. — Mangione, Lally, and Signer (1993)

CULTURAL SENSITIVITY

Mentor-Coaches and Protégés often come from different cultural backgrounds. Seeking and sharing cultural knowledge with each other is a first step in demonstrating respect for who the other person is. When both Mentor-Coaches and Protégés recognize that values and practices vary across cultures, they are more prepared to demonstrate cultural sensitivity with children, staff members, and parents in their program.

What does it mean to you to be culturally sensitive with your co-workers, families, and children?

What are some of the ways your cultural background influences you as a teacher?

Reflection means stepping back from the immediate, intense experience of hands-on work and taking the time to wonder what the experience really means. —R. Parlakian (2001)

PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCING PROCESS

The Professional Conferencing Process is a process in which a Mentor-Coach and Protégé evaluate practices and plan new approaches.

• Pre-Observation Conference— Set a goal for the observation, identify teaching strategies to observe, and share these strategies with your Mentor-Coach.

• Observation— Conduct the observation in your classroom or during your home visit.

• Post-Observation Analysis— Think about the strengths of the practices and the missed opportunities that occurred during the observation.

• Reflective Conference— Discuss the observation and plan next steps.

• Post-Conference Analysis— Reflect on the goal for the conference and whether that goal was met.

How comfortable do you feel with the Professional Conferencing Process?

Do you have any questions about the process?

OBSERVATION

You may have already had the experience of being observed by someone who used a formal observation tool. It is very common for Mentor-Coaches to take notes or to use a tool when observing your practices. Find out what your Mentor-Coach plans to do and which tools she or he will use during the observation.

What have been your experiences with formal observation, either as an observer or as someone who was observed?

How comfortable do you feel about being observed?

What would you like to discuss with your Mentor-Coach prior to the observation?

REFLECTIVE CONFERENCING

Reflection begins with thoughtful questions. For example, an observation may focus on promoting children's use of new vocabulary words. As you think about the observation afterward, you and your Mentor-Coach might ask the question, "How effective was this activity in encouraging the children to use new words?"

In reflective conferences Mentor-Coaches and Protégés:

• Talk, ask questions, and listen
• Plan for observationa, reflect on practices, and analyze results
• Equally participate in the reflective process
• Document teaching and learning.

What Protégés can do to prepare for a reflective conference:

• Reflect on the observed activity and the effectiveness of the strategies used

• View a video or audio tape of the observation when available

• Prepare questions to ask the Mentor-Coach.

What are your experiences with reflective conferencing? What is your reaction?

How can reflective conferencing be most helpful to you?

KEEPING A JOURNAL

Keeping a journal helps you to regularly examine your practice, think about what works and what doesn't, and come up with new ideas. Keeping a journal also enables you to review your progress, thoughts, and the impact of professional development on your practices over time.

Have you ever kept a journal?

How did you use it?

Begin this journal by writing about a specific situation with a child, a home-visit or a classroom activity:

What happened? Describe the situation.

Why do you think that happened?

What did you want to happen?

What were you thinking about when this situation occurred?

What would you do differently next time?

GLOSSARY OF SKILLS AND STRATEGIES USED BY MENTOR-COACHES

Relationship Building— A process of forming, expanding, and maintaining a trusting, supportive connection with another person, often within a particular context. The processes of building and maintaining relationships require careful attention, patience, and persistence.

Sharing Values— Sharing values means that a person is willing to share beliefs, principles, or ideals with another. In the ongoing process of sharing values, Mentor-Coaches and Protégés come to know one another and are more prepared to meet the diverse needs of the children and families with whom they work.

Culturally Sensitive Approaches— Mentor-Coaches and Protégés show respect for each other by seeking out and sharing each other's cultural knowledge. When Mentor-Coaches and Protégés recognize that values and practices vary across cultures, they can better demonstrate cultural sensitivity not only with each other, but with children, staff members, and parents.

Self-Reflection— Reflecting on one's own practices, knowledge , and beliefs enables a person to be more self-aware and make changes in one's behavior or viewpoint.

Listening and Reflective Inquiry— Mentor-coaching relationships are based on effective communication. They involve building trust and confidentiality, careful listening, and asking respectful questions to achieve clarity. In two-way conferences with Protégés, Mentor-Coaches often engage in reflective inquiry (asking thoughtful questions to elicit thoughtful answers).

Setting Achievable Goals— Mentor-Coaches assist Protégés in identifying, refining, and setting realistic goals. In content-focused mentor-coaching, the goals relate to the specific Head Start or Early Head Start Child Outcomes being targeted.

Problem Solving— When a problem arises, Mentor-Coaches actively assist Protégés in finding the solution. Rather than stepping in and providing an answer, Mentor-Coaches help Protégés to define the problem, examine the options for a solution, and select strategies to resolve the problem.

Observation and Use of Observation Tools— Observation is a central activity in mentor-coaching relationships. Most commonly, the Mentor-Coach schedules a visit and observes Protégés at work. A pre-observation conference allows you to talk with your Mentor-Coach about your thoughts and goals for the observation. If an observation tool is going to be used you will talk about how it will be used. During the observation, your Mentor-Coach will document what she or he sees. In a post-observation conference you and your Mentor-Coach will discuss your thoughts and reactions to the observation.Results of observations are always shared with Protégés.

Reflective Conferencing— Reflective conferencing is an interactive process through which Mentor-Coaches support Protégés as they examine and enhance their teaching practices. In reflective conferences, Mentor-Coaches help lead Protégés to analyze observed events, address any challenges, and discuss next steps.

Using Journals — Mentor-Coaches and Protégés frequently use journals to write their thoughts about professional practices, interactions, new ideas, plans, and observations. Journals help Protégés to track their own growth and development. Referring to journal entries is a way to prepare for meetings between Mentor-Coaches and Protégés.

Providing and Receiving Feedback— Honesty, encouragement, and respect are guiding principles for Mentor-Coaches to follow when providing feedback. Receiving feedback is about moving forward or being "proactive," not about making mistakes and going backward. By asking Protégés what they want to learn or gain from feedback, Mentor-Coaches follow the lead of the Protégé.

Professional Development Planning— Mentor-Coaches and Protégés, through reflection and dialogue, can document their progress and identify professional pursuits. As milestones are achieved, new ones can emerge.  

III. SUPPORTING YOUR PRACTICES FOR LANGUAGE AND LITERACY DEVELOPMENT

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT FOR INFANTS AND TODDLERS

This section of your journal focuses on how you can promote young children's language development. Use the checklists and questions to guide you in thinking about current practices.

Language Development for Infants and Toddlers Key Concepts Language plays a key role in early literacy. The development of language abilities is an important goal for infants and toddlers. Children learn to use language over time by watching, listening to, and conversing with adults and peers. Adults should help children to interact and have "conversations" beginning in early infancy. As their ability to participate in conversations improves, children's opportunities for learning language increase. Infants develop listening and speaking skills when adults respond to their sounds, gestures, and actions. Infants use crying, smiling, facial expressions, and body movements to communicate. They learn to send powerful messages through their gestures and sounds. From there, they progress to using single words to communicate. By the toddler years, children are using more vocabulary and combining words. They can verbally participate in short conversations. Language skills are essential elements of social competence.

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT FOR INFANTS AND TODDLERS
(Adapted from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. (2001). Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community—Emerging Literacy: Linking Social Competence and Learning. Washington, D.C.)

What strategies have you tried?

Responding verbally to children's sounds and actions

Imitating infants' vocalizations to create a "conversation"

Describing what the children are experiencing during daily routines

Talking to babies and toddlers as you go about everyday activities

Communicating with words and nonverbal cues

Naming objects and actions

Singing songs and using simple finger-plays

Reading aloud to children frequently

Using children's names when talking with them

Encouraging parents to read, sing, and talk to children

Replicating what parents are doing at home

REFLECTING ON MY OWN PRACTICES
Language Development with Infants and Toddlers

Ways I am currently supporting infants' and toddlers' language development:

What strategies are working?

What could I do differently?

What is my greatest challenge?

MY GOALS AND IDEAS TO SUPPORT:
Infants' and Toddlers' Language Development

How I can individualize my interactions with children: Learn more about the stages of language development Assess each child's language abilities Learn about what parents are doing Learn about parents' expectations. How I can become more intentional about engaging children in "conversations": Use routine times (diapering, feeding, napping) as opportunities Increase the number of times I initiate interactions throughout the day Use strategies to encourage turn-taking that are appropriate for each child's developmental stage.

SUPPORT I NEED TO MEET MY GOALS FOR:
Language Development for Infants and Toddlers

What questions do I have for my Mentor-Coach about the development of language in infants and toddlers?

How can my Mentor-Coach help me to meet my goals?

Talk with your Mentor-Coach about observing you as you interact with children. Decide on a focus for the observation that relates to your goals (e.g., responding appropriately to children in different stages of language development). Ask your Mentor-Coach to videotape the observation so you can see yourself "in action." Meet with your Mentor-Coach soon after to reflect on your success in meeting your goal.

EARLY LITERACY FOR INFANTS AND TODDLERS

This section of your journal focuses on how you can set the stage for young children's later development of skills related to literacy. Use the checklists and questions as a guide to help you think about your current practices.

Early Literacy Key Concepts Young children develop skills, knowledge, and attitudes about literacy even before they can read and write in adult ways. While literacy skills may not seem like a focus for infants and toddlers, the development of the whole child, the growth of language and problem-solving, and socialization with peers and adults are the literacy skills that are appropriate for this age. Infants and toddlers are building and refining important fine and gross motor skills that affect their later attempts at writing. Reading aloud to children beginning in infancy increases their interest in books and supports their emergent literacy.

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE EARLY LITERACY SKILLS

What strategies have you tried?

Encouraging parents to read to children

Singing familiar rhyming songs and using finger plays at home or school

Offering a variety of materials such as blocks, puzzles, and manipulatives

Reading books with simple words, rhyming patterns, and animal sounds to help children have fun with the sounds of language

Providing children with a wide selection of sturdy, durable books with engaging pictures

Displaying children's names and simple print

Building the eye-hand coordination needed for writing, through fine motor activities such as pouring and dumping at the sand table, stacking blocks, and manipulating clay or play dough

Providing very young children with safe opportunities to crawl and climb, to enable them to develop the arm and upper-body muscular strength they will need to be able to sit at tables and to use writing or drawing materials

Allowing toddlers to explore a variety of writing materials, including paints, markers, and large crayons

Providing opportunities to scribble and draw at an easel, on a white board, and on paper

Modeling writing for various purposes, including making lists, writing letters, labeling children's work

Narrating what you write for children

Reading simple alphabet books

REFLECTING ON MY OWN PRACTICES
Development of Early Literacy Skills for Infants and Toddlers

Ways I am currently supporting development of early literacy skills:

What strategies are working?

What could I do differently?

What is my greatest challenge?

MY GOALS AND IDEAS TO SUPPORT:
Development of Early Literacy Skills for Infants and Toddlers

Provide more opportunities for book reading: Place books on a low shelf so children have access to them throughout the day Set a goal of reading to children at least three times per day Identify more infant-appropriate books (board books, and soft covers and pages). Model the purposes of reading and writing: Sit on the floor with the children while I complete their daily activity sheet to send home. Talk to them about what I am doing: "I'm writing to Mom to let her know that you played outside today."

SUPPORT I NEED TO MEET MY GOALS FOR:
Development of Early Literacy Skills for Infants and Toddlers

What questions do I have for my Mentor-Coach about early literacy?

How can my Mentor-Coach help me to meet my goals?

Do an inventory of available books and ask your Mentor-Coach to review the list with you. Assess the quality, quantity, variety, and age-appropriateness of the books. Your Mentor-Coach can share knowledge and resources to help you improve your collection.

LANGUAGE AND LITERACY CHILD OUTCOMES
Book Knowledge and Appreciation for 3- to 5-Year-Olds

This section of your journal focuses on how you can promote children's development of book knowledge and appreciation . Use the checklists and questions as a guide to help you think about your current practices.

Head Start Child Outcomes Framework Indicators for Book Knowledge and Appreciation: Shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and nonfiction books and poetry. Shows growing interest in reading-related activities, such as asking to have a favorite book read; choosing to look at books; drawing pictures based on stories; asking to take books home; going to the library; and engaging in pretend-reading with other children. Demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story. Progresses in learning how to handle and care for books; knowing to view one page at a time in sequence from front to back; and understanding that a book has a title, author, and illustrator.

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE BOOK KNOWLEDGE AND APPRECIATION FOR 3- TO 5-YEAR-OLDS
(Adapted from: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. (2001). The Head Start Leader's Guide to Positive Child Outcomes: Strategies to Support Positive Child Outcomes. Washington, D.C. pp. 50 – 51.)

What strategies have you tried?

Reading to children one-to-one or in small groups where children can see and touch the book and develop positive feelings about reading

Reading the same book over and over if children request it

Actively engaging children in reading time—asking questions about the book before reading it, posing questions that call on them to predict what will happen, noticing cause and effect relationships, chanting with rhyme and patterns

Assisting children in seeking information in books or using books as resources to help solve problems ("What does the space shuttle really look like, so that we can build it with blocks?")

Engaging children in retelling stories or acting out favorite stories in dramatic play

Making sure that books reflect children's culture, home language, and identity

Encouraging parents to read and tell stories to children

REFLECTING ON MY OWN PRACTICES
Book Knowledge and Appreciation

Ways I am currently supporting children in learning about and appreciating books:

What strategies are working?

What could I do differently?

What is my greatest challenge to helping children learn about and appreciate books?

MY GOALS AND IDEAS TO SUPPORT:
Book Knowledge and Appreciation

My goals and ideas for supporting children's knowledge and appreciation of books:

Types and examples of books available to young children: Fiction: e.g., The Snowy Day Nonfiction: Are You a Snail? Concept: Eating the Alphabet Predictable: The Napping House Poetry & Rhyming: Hush! A Thai Lullaby Multicultural: More, More, More Said the Baby: Three Love Stories Folktale: Anansi the Spider Wordless: Pancakes for Breakfast

Books I'd like to read to children :

Make a list of ways to extend and re-visit books: Flannel board Use props during reading Re-write or illustrate a favorite story Make an "All About Me" book with and for each child about his or her family.

SUPPORT I NEED TO MEET MY GOALS FOR:
Book Knowledge and Appreciation

What questions do I have for my Mentor-Coach about supporting book knowledge and appreciation?

For center-based staff: Your Mentor-Coach can support your goals by observing. You may decide to use a tool that assesses how you are supporting children in acquiring book knowledge. For example, the Early Language & Literacy Classroom Observation Toolkit (ELLCO) has several sections related to book knowledge and appreciation. Be sure to join the Mentor-Coach in a reflective conference after the observation.

LANGUAGE AND LITERACY CHILD OUTCOMES
Print Awareness and Concepts for 3- to 5-Year Olds

This section of your journal focuses on how you can promote children's awareness of print and print-related concepts. Use the checklists and questions as a guide to help you think about your current practices.

Head Start Child Outcomes Framework Indicators for Print Awareness and Concepts: Shows increasing awareness of print in classroom, home, and community settings. Develops growing understanding of the different functions of forms of print, such as signs, letters, newspapers, lists, messages, and menus. Demonstrates increasing awareness of concepts of print, such as that reading in English moves from top to bottom and from left to right, that speech can be written down, and that print conveys a message. Shows progress in recognizing the association between spoken and written words by following print as it is read aloud. Recognizes a word as a unit of print, or awareness that letters are grouped to form words, and that words are separated by spaces.

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE PRINT AWARENESS AND CONCEPTS FOR 3-TO 5-YEAR OLDS
(Adapted from: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. (2001). The Head Start Leader's Guide to Positive Child Outcomes: Strategies to Support Positive Child Outcomes . Washington, D.C. pp. 52-53.)

What strategies have you tried?

Reading aloud using oversized books (big books), so children can see print and pictures