When Declan was in kindergarten, his teachers would retrieve the class from down in the school yard, and walk them up the stairs to their classrooms. The kids would walk in a line-like mass up the stairs, sometimes a few straggler parents bringing up the rear. The routine was, when they got to the classroom door, the students would take their notes and homework out of their backpacks and place them in the labeled baskets sitting on the table outside the room. Then they would take their coats, their hats, their mittens, and their backpacks into the classroom and store them in the closet. Other tasks awaited them when they were finished, like turning over their attendance card, checking to see what their class job was for the day, and reading the schedule or morning message. A kindergarten teacher once upon a time, I know that these are all sound, valuable routines. And with guidance from day one, most kindergarteners grasp the routine within the first month and do it without thinking, the way a grown up might drive home on auto-pilot.
I will never forget the day in October when I accompanied the class to their room. The minute the group arrived at the classroom door, all of the children dropped to their knees and started to pull their folders out from their backpacks. All of them, except for Declan. Thinking nothing of it, I casually prompted him to get started. "Go ahead, Dec. Don't mind me." But Declan stood there, as if he did not hear me. It was odd. He seemed aware and ready to start his day, but continued to stand there. Then I noticed him walking through the sea of children and backpacks and into the room, coat and backpack still on his back, and he headed toward the attendance chart. "Wait, Dec!" I reminded him. "First you need to take your notes out."
What I realized that day, was that Declan had every intention and desire to follow the routines his teachers set out for him to do, but was unable to sequence the steps that needed to be taken to do them. After I brought him back outside the room and helped him, I realized the information was in there; he knew what had to be done, but even the simple notion of I need to take my backpack off first before opening it to get my notes did not occur to him. It was fascinating. Concerning, but fascinating. The part of his brain whose job it was to tell the hand to slide the backpack strap off his shoulder was asleep at the wheel. It wasn't until his teachers and I found ways to sequence the routine for him that he was able to eventually do it for himself. We knew he learned best visually, so we ended up using a student model to show Declan each phase of the task, step by step, almost like a game of follow the leader, which then led to a chart similar to the one shown above, made by a team of co-teachers that my colleague worked with at PS 41 in Manhattan. It eventually worked, and not only did we help to foster his ability to function independently, but we also freed him from constant prodding and reminders from peers and teachers.