Kindergarten
At PS 8 since 2005
Ms. Merriam taught as a substitute for K-8 while earning her master’s degree in education at Hunter College (something she accomplished in just 18 months) before becoming a full-time kindergarten teacher in 1998. For three years she taught 4- and 5-year-olds at Plymouth Church School, a private nursery school in Brooklyn Heights. A strong part of the kindergarten curriculum at PS 8, she says, is the Breakthrough to Literacy program, an introduction to reading that uses “shared reading” books–enlarged-text picture books designed for group reading exercises–computer activities and take-home books to familiarize kids with words and sentence structure. Ms. Merriam is also excited about the regular “publishing parties” that she and the other kindergarten teachers have been hosting and plan to continue throughout the year. These special events, to which parents are invited, give children the opportunity to share their drawings and the stories they have composed to go with them. (Students start by jotting down the first letter of each word of their story; gradually they learn to sound out, and write down, complete words and, in time, complete sentences as captions to the drawings.) When Ms. Merriam isn’t teaching, she is often at her second job as a fitness instructor at New York Health & Racquet Club, teaching Pilates, sculpt and spinning classes and working as a personal trainer.
