Kamaile Elementary third-grader Philomena Dalumpinis-Ganaban bends close to her friend, Tasha Florendo, and holds a pink puppet of Wilbur the pig steady at the front of Annie Ratke's reading class.

The roomful of eager students waits excitedly for the puppet show that will follow, explaining as only children can, the story of an abiding barnyard friendship between a spider named Charlotte and a pig named Wilbur.

"Wilbur, you're going to die," intones Tasha, bobbing her puppet of Farmer Zuckerman as Philomena leans in to help her hold it steady.

"Oink-oink," said the Wilbur puppet.

At Kamaile, a school challenged by poverty, homelessness and rock-bottom standardized test scores, Ratke's classroom activities provide one ray of hope for those challenges as well as integrated learning for all kids of all abilities.

The puppet show topped an hour of presentations that included several songs about Charlotte and Wilbur, performed by their young and enthusiastic songwriters; a colorful board game; a character web about the story's themes; a poem; and an interview with one of Wai'anae's own local farmers.

The projects were all done by 8- and 9-year-olds, some in special education, many economically disadvantaged, and several homeless.

DIFFERENT STRATEGIES

Ratke's classroom is part of a pilot project at the Wai'anae Coast school that's proving that with certain teaching strategies, children who have different paces, different learning styles and are at vastly different levels can learn successfully together.

Under a federal TACT (Teaching All Children Together) grant administered by the University of Hawai'i's Center on Disability Studies, Ratke and 24 other public school teachers have spent two years in a program training them to teach to multiple kinds of students in one classroom.

Kamaile principal Glen Kila wants to expand the concept even further.

"We're looking at grades 3 to 6 next year for full inclusion," said Kila. "It will provide students a learning environment to work with other children so they'll have role models. With the revisions of the Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004, there's encouragement to change the environment for special education students to be more integrated."

Vice principal Dale Arakaki is impressed with the results in Ratke's classes.

"It benefits everyone," he said, referring to the teaching style. "It gives all students an opportunity to learn regardless of their needs — and all children have needs."

Said UH assistant professor Norma Jean Stodden, who wrote the grant and will administer it through 2008: "This is really designed to help access the general education curriculum for students with disabilities. One of the real need areas is the number of students who are still in segregated settings like a special ed classroom."

With Kamaile in its second year of restructuring — or special state oversight under the federal mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act — and applying for conversion charter school status under the nonprofit Ho'okako'o Corporation supported by Kamehameha Schools, the staff and school community have been casting around for strategies to move their children upward.

The excitement of what Ratke's class is producing — and the enthusiasm displayed by the children — have proved inspirational. Even the UH team has filmed her successful efforts to show to other teachers.

KEEPING THEM TOGETHER

In general, children with special education needs are pulled out of regular education classrooms at certain times for special attention, depending on the level of need. What they can lose, in theory, is the support of their peers, and the strength and modeling they get from being around other children. While there has been a push in the past few years — and because of the IDEA revisions — to pull them back into regular education classrooms as much as possible, Ratke believes more should be done.

"We're wanting to break the cycle of pulling kids out of the regular classroom and putting them in special education," she said. "We want to educate all kids together; that's the philosophy."

This approach proposes keeping children together, grouping them by different strengths so they can learn from each other, and then teaching to their strengths with an individualized strategy.

"Everybody doesn't learn the same way," said Ratke.

In her classes, not every child is a whiz at writing a paragraph. But some have dynamite abilities to sing, and write the words to songs. Others like to be up and moving about and creating puppet shows. Others are math whizzes. Others can put the ideas from the story onto a "character web."

"The kids were given an activity called the Choice Board," said Ratke. "It's based on the theory of eight multiple intelligences (developed by Harvard professor of education Howard Gardner): the verbal/linguistic, musical/rhythmic, visual/spatial, naturalist, intrapersonal, logical/mathematical, kinesthetic, and interpersonal."

Students pick the areas where they're strongest — or those that interest them most — and create a project to show what they've learned about the theme of friendship in "Charlotte's Web."

For instance, Kealohilani Leleo's strength is math, and she wrote a book review by sequencing the events.

Derek Yaris-Ganigan and Ikaika Bargas love to sing, so they both wrote songs and belted them out in class.

Tchevette Martinez-Freitas wrote a poem: "If I was a pig and Wilbur was my friend, we would roll around in the mud and maybe even eat a slug ... " he read to his classmates.

Stephen Kaopuiki, meanwhile, decided to map the character of Wilbur on bright chartreuse paper, putting the pig's name at the center and surrounding him with his characteristics. Asenati Cook interviewed her auntie about life on her own farm. And Nalikolani Pukahi created a game board and cards with questions about the book.

"No matter what their test scores, they're able to show us their learning through these different avenues," said Ratke. "And once we teach other teachers how to do this, then our kids can really do well."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.