1/03/2025

 

 

Early childhood education and Kindergarten lay the foundation for student learning, preparing them for the future. In an ever-changing world, positive supports play an important role in student success— especially in Kindergarten.

 

Chelsi Christensen, Kindergarten teacher at Knickrehm Elementary, uses many positive support strategies in order to set her students up for success. 

 

"The beginning of the year can be really rough," said Christensen, who has been teaching at Grand Island Public Schools for eight years. She has taught Kindergarten for four years.

 

She acknowledged that many students have never been in a classroom setting before, as not all of them have attended preschool. Her positive support methods help students adjust by establishing routines, visuals, and clear expectations.

 

One of her main positive support strategies? Connection.

Christensen uses the “2 x 10 method”, which involves taking two minutes every day to connect with each student and learn something about them. 

 

“[When you have conversations and ask them questions], you find that they also start asking you questions, like, ‘what's your favorite color, what's your favorite animal?’” expressed Christensen. “So it's cool to see that repeated in the classroom.”

 

Without relationships, Christensen said, students won’t do what you expect of them. Positive relationships are crucial to successful learning and help students feel safe and supported in the classroom.

“They're only going to work for people they trust. I have to build that relationship with all those kiddos before they'll do what I ask them to do well,” she said. “They’re such cool individual people, too. If I hadn’t taken the time to get to know them, I would’ve missed out on that.”

 

“Kindergarten is a lot more rigorous [than it used to be],” she said, noting the past days of half-day Kindergarten and naptime.

Today, Kindergarteners are expected to read, write a sentence, and count to 100. If students aren’t set up for success and aren’t ready, Christensen said the learning gap widens, which is why the positive support strategies are so important. 

 

In addition to connecting with her students, Christensen said visual reminders are also a positive support strategy that’s helpful.

In the beginning of the year especially, students may not know how to read yet, so displaying photos of expectations or items of reference is important. For example, Christensen said displaying photos of glue when explaining the steps to a project can help students. The visual cues help all students, Christensen said, including students who are in Special Education, are Newcomers or who are still learning English. 

 

“For all teachers [the visual cues are] still a good positive support to have in your back pocket,” Christensen said. 

She continues to give her students positive feedback to reinforce the learning and behavior expectations. When a student displays positive behavior, she calls it out with positive praise. 

 

Knickrehm also has a positive supports method school-wide, called the house system. All students are placed in “houses”, or teams rather, where they get to build positive relationships with other grade-level students. Students earn positive support tokens from staff, and houses compete to have the most positive support tokens at the end of the year. It’s another way to foster  positivity and connection.

 

In all, Christensen said positive supports help set students up for future success in school and beyond.

 

 

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