Pre- K Teacher Interview

Elian Flores
Houston Baptist University
Fall 2015

Elizabeth Palacios is a Pre- K teacher at Ninfa R. Laurenzo Early Childhood

Education Center for the Houston Independent School District. She is currently in

her 11th year teaching. She has been team teaching with her pre- k partner for the
past 10 years. She is currently in her first year for the Dual Language program
implementation at the early childhood center. She began substituting in grades k-5
and decided that she wanted to be in pre- k and she has been a pre-k teacher ever
since. Mrs. Palacios has been able to notice the differences in ranges of fine motor
skills, social skills, language skills, disabilities, challenging behavior, has established
goals and has implemented many techniques to help her students be successful.
As students start the school year, she notices that they have differences in
fine motor skills which include: opening markers, opening food, milk cartons, juice,
holding a pencil, butting their clothes and zipping up zippers. There are students
who are very independent and there are some students who are limited in their
abilities. She also notices that the students have different ranges of social skills
because some have difficulty with the concept of sharing the school materials. Also,
during the initiation of the school year she faces difficulty with separation anxiety,
because some students are only use to interacting with their care takers and home
family. Furthermore, she states that some students struggle to adapt to their
classroom time because they miss their parents as well as their home. Mrs. Palacios
also notices that there are different ranges of language skills from students who
have been exposed to different experiences to those who are just limited to their
home life. Limited vocabulary is the number one difficulty due to lack of exposure of
outside resources, books, and limited parent education. In addition not only do
students come with a limited vocabulary, but they are also limited in background
knowledge.
Mrs. Palacios mentioned that she is an inclusion teacher and the number of
students requiring special education services vary from year to year. She relates

that she has been able to work with students who have been diagnosed with
Autism. As she continues to provide instruction to students requiring special
education services, she has faced students who exhibit challenging behavior. Some
of the challenging behavior is students being disruptive, blurting out, throwing
objects, being defiant and aggressive as well as harming other students.
When discussing her point of view concerning her primary purpose as the
Pre-k teacher Mrs. Palacios mentioned that she has many goals that she sets with
her students. She points out that she has very high expectations for her students
that narrowing to her three top goals presents a challenge. She mentions that her
top priority is to teach students social skills that will help them be successful now
and in the higher grades particularly working together and sharing. Furthermore, it
is essential that the students leave Pre-K knowing all the letter names of the
alphabet. Last, she really wants them leaving Pre- K writing their own name and last
name. Mrs. Palacios also mentioned that the technique that brings the biggest
results with the Pre- K students is her classroom management. She teaches the
students routines and goes over procedures constantly so they can be successful.
Mrs. Palacios experience in the early childhood arena has enabled her to
notice the different ranges is fine motor skills, social skills, and language skills. She
has also been able to serve students with different types of disabilities in which she
has learned to react appropriately to their challenging behavior so the students
could be successful. Without a doubt Mrs. Palacios loves to be a Pre- k teacher and
has many goals for her students including the development of social skills, letter
name knowledge and writing their name as well as their last name. Furthermore,
classroom management is her key technique that helps her have a successful
classroom for her students.