Marseilles Elementary kindergarten teacher fosters family spirit in class

Marseilles Elementary kindergarten teacher Lindsey Johnson runs her classroom not all that differently from Marseilles, itself: In a town where everyone knows everyone, she ensures the same environment with her kids.

Johnson said she does everything she can to make her class feel like family.

“Once we get that relationship down, the learning part happens easily,” Johnson said. “This last year, I love coming in because I get so many hugs. I treat them just like family, like little people. I don’t treat them like 5-year-olds.”

This sort of atmosphere is important for kids, Johnson said, especially for kindergarten students who are potentially attending classes in-person for the first time because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said she spends a lot of time thinking about what she can do differently, and the family atmosphere in the classroom is just one thing she does differently. Another is her approach to teaching reading: Johnson brought back an old method called the Science of Reading.

The Science of Reading is an approximately 40-year-old method that fell out of use within the last 10 years, but Johnson said it’s been coming back recently. It works so well for her that she was able to hold a writing workshop for her kindergarten students at the end of the last school year.

First grade teacher Laurie Leslie gets to see firsthand what these now first grade students are capable of, and Johnson invited her into the classroom during the workshop.

“That was a big leap of faith, but she felt she could get those kiddos to write. So, she opened up her classroom and asked if anyone wanted to come see it in action,” Leslie said. “That’s not always easy, to have people come in and watch, but I was amazed at what these little kindergarteners were doing. They’re so creative.”

Johnson said the Science of Reading is a return to direct, explicit and systematic phonics instruction, which is how language was taught in the 80s and 90s.

This is a departure from guided reading, which is what Johnson learned how to teach when she was in college.

“We were taught that if you make a really cute reading nook, everyone learns to read,” Johnson said. “What we’ve found is actually, there’s a bunch of brain science that says that’s not true.”

She used dyslexia as an example: There are four areas of the brain that need to function for reading to occur, and two of those centers in dyslexia are not firing. For children who are struggling to read, phonics is beneficial.

“Before, we were telling kids to look at the pictures and use that as a cue to make a guess,” Johnson said. “Now we’re saying to take that word out and code the word. Look at our vowels, break it into syllables and really dissect that word, then put it back in the sentence and see if we can comprehend it.”

Johnson said there have been a lot of changes in education, like the switch to common core for math, which has been an adjustment, but she believes education will continue to change.

Principal Shawn Collins said Johnson has a gift for teaching kindergarten students, and she’s always willing to go the extra mile. This includes constantly seeking out new ways to reach the kids inside the classroom.

Leslie agreed, and said Johnson is always willing to take extra time to provide feedback, accept feedback, and even help out when a teacher feels like they need a little break.

“I’m thankful to have her around because she’s a wonderful person as it is,” Leslie said. “But then I have a colleague who I can bounce ideas off of, and she’s always willing to offer suggestions and try something new. That’s invaluable in a person and a co-worker.”