If this phase is prepared intensively, it'll be better for them to listen, speak, read, and write at an advanced level. Learning sounds eases them to pronounce and spell words correctly. When they find new words, they try to decode the letters sounds to find what word it is. By using their knowledge of letter sounds that they have, they can associate the sound of every letter to produce full sounds of a word.
For instance, when they find a tip word, they will try to sound every letter and combine those sequentially until they can speak the tip.
How do you teach the alphabet sounds? Here are some tips to teach kids the alphabet sounds: 1. Introduce letters that are commonly used in the beginning, especially used as the first letter of words.
For instance, T for Table or A for Apple. Separate the schedule of learning of similar sounds of letters, such as d and b or n and m. This happens because they need to learn about differing sounds or even the shapes between both letters.
Introduce short vowels first. Short vowels refer to one-syllable words that consist of one vowel in between. For example, in Story Lab activities such as "Active Listening" and "Connection," children listen to the story and then turn to a peer and discuss the book. Literacy: The curriculum consistently supports the development of literacy skills through varied authentic opportunities for children to discuss, use, and make print materials.
Each day's Opening Group time incorporates print in the form of illustrated poems, songs, charts, and chants that increase in complexity over the year. Make-Believe Play involves making print-based props e. Story Lab activities use engaging children's books and magazines to support children's development of critical literacy skills, such as listening comprehension strategies, making predictions and inferences, building vocabulary, and conversing with peers about stories.
The curriculum emphasizes the importance of written language even if the mark is a scribble to help children remember and express their inner thinking. Scaffolded writing is used in many activities e.
Intentionally designed math activities and games, with suggestions for how to increase complexity as the year progresses, provide children with ample opportunities to develop mathematical skills and concepts. Math is introduced as a "tool for thinking" and is used to record data e. Activities with materials such as puzzles, manipulatives, calendars, and blocks are used to promote conceptual understanding and introduce children to math vocabulary.
For example, the "Remember and Replicate" activity uses playdough as a mode for producing shapes and arranging them in different ways, using vocabulary words to describe position, size, and shape e. Science Eyes, the main science activity in the curriculum, engages children in focused observations, communication, and documentation once or twice a week.
Working with a partner, children describe and discuss observations in detail and then document them in their science journals using drawing and writing. Teachers are guided to ask questions that encourage in-depth observations using different senses e.
What else do you notice? As the year progresses, children participate in simple science experiments, exploring topics such as actions and reactions, force, and motion.
However, limited weekly time is allocated for science learning, and there is no guidance on how to integrate science into other domains of the curriculum. However, physical skills are addressed indirectly through participation in activities that focus on self-regulation skills. Guidance for these games includes learning trajectories for gross motor development and some instructions about how to support children to participate successfully.
There are also highly targeted learning activities for fine motor development e. However, the curriculum lacks direction on how to create a safe outdoor environment that encourages active physical exploration, as well as intentional guidance to support the development of self-care skills, handwashing, personal safety, and nutrition.
The curriculum includes an organized developmental scope and sequence to support children's development and learning.
A scope and sequence outlines what the curriculum focuses on and how the plans and materials support children at different levels of development. The scope refers to the areas of development addressed by the curriculum; the sequence includes plans and materials for learning experiences that progressively build from less to more complex, with the goal of supporting children as they move through the developmental progressions.
A content-rich curriculum ensures that sequences of learning experiences include multiple, related opportunities for children to explore a concept or skill with increasing depth. Sequences of learning experiences should be flexible to respond to individual children's interests, strengths, and needs. The "Standards Alignment Chart" lists specific activities and goals within each domain and articulates how the curriculum's activities map to the seven domains.
The sequences of learning activities support children as they move through the developmental progressions in each of the ELOF preschool domains. They offer ample opportunities for children to explore concepts and skills. In addition, each activity includes a chart showing the developmental progression from 3 to 5 years of key skills addressed in the activity, scaffolding suggestions to individualize based on children's development and special needs "Zooming in on the ZPD" , and ideas for increasing challenge "Up the Challenge".
The curriculum is aligned with the ELOF. The majority of ELOF sub-domains are supported throughout the curriculum's sequence of games and activities described in the Training Manual. For example, the curriculum's Make-Believe Play and Story Lab literacy activities support children's development in areas such as cognitive self-regulation, oral language skills, literacy skills, and creativity.
In most science activities, children learn to observe, classify, and describe their observations, but there are fewer opportunities for children to plan and conduct investigations and experiments. The curriculum also does not address the sub-domain of Health, Safety, and Nutrition. The curriculum specifies learning goals for children.
The curriculum's learning goals are objectives for children's development and learning across domains. Learning goals should be measurable and developmentally appropriate. Measurable learning goals focus on skills, behaviors, and knowledge that are observable; developmentally appropriate learning goals are consistent with well-established developmental progressions. Teachers should be able to use a curriculum's learning goals to individualize learning experiences for all children, such as children from diverse cultures, children who are dual language learners DLLs , children who are tribal language learners, and children with disabilities or other special needs.
The goals concentrate mainly on children's underlying cognitive skills self-regulation, focused attention, and deliberate memory , social-emotional school readiness e.
Each activity in the Training Manual provides a list of learning goals "Purpose" , the rationale for the activity, and a "What to Expect—Developmental Learning Trajectories" chart showing the developmental continuum of skills across ages. Overall, the learning activities in the curriculum support children in making progress toward these goals.
Building on the Vygotskian approach to teaching, the curriculum's activities provide scaffolding strategies to support children in reaching the goals "Zooming in on the Zone of Proximal Development ZPD ".
The curriculum provides guidance on ongoing child assessment. Ongoing child assessment is a process of gathering information to understand and support children's development over time.
Information gathered through observation and documentation helps inform curriculum planning, teaching, and individualizing for all children. Ongoing child assessment can also be used to periodically complete standardized and structured assessment instruments to evaluate children's developmental progress. Through observations, the teacher identifies the child's independent level of performance ZPD and how the child responds to scaffolds and instruction.
For example, the section "Scaffolding Make-Believe Play" suggests the teacher observe the child's current stage of play, identify a scaffolding goal, provide supports according to the child's ZPD, and observe again to assess the need for further support.
Additionally, Pre-K Assessment offers specific assessment resources for observing and documenting children's progress across domains within daily routines and learning experiences e. Standardized and Structured Assessment Instruments: The curriculum provides structured assessments but does not provide information about selecting and using standardized assessment instruments.
The curriculum encourages programs to use these assessment tools at regular intervals to track children's progress and adjust learning experiences.
However, the tools are not standardized valid or reliable , and there is no guidance on how to select standardized assessment instruments. The curriculum promotes parent and family engagement. Parent and family engagement is a collaborative and strengths-based process through which early childhood teachers, families, and children build positive and goal-oriented relationships.
It is a shared responsibility of families and staff that is built on mutual respect for the roles and strengths each has to offer. The curriculum provides culturally and linguistically responsive strategies to communicate with families and to engage families in children's learning. It also contains a detailed brochure explaining the curriculum's philosophy, goals, and ways parents can effectively support their children's continued development of self-regulation skills at home.
In addition, it offers newsletters to be sent home at the beginning and mid-point of each month that describe the curriculum's learning experiences, including lists of books and "fingerplays" children experienced in class. Each parent resource is provided in both English and Spanish.
However, the curriculum provides minimal guidance about the importance of two-way communication with families, how to communicate with families in culturally and linguistically responsive ways, and how to share information with parents and families about their child's development. Engaging Families: The curriculum provides specific guidance on how to engage parents and families in children's learning and development.
Each parent newsletter, available in English and Spanish, includes a list of "Extensions at Home" with simple activities parents and children can do together e. A "Need Your Help! In addition, eTools offers "Let's Pretend" books in English and Spanish to help parents support the development of children's make-believe play skills at home. However, there is no guidance for teachers to invite families to become involved in the classroom environment and activities, nor is there consideration on how to engage culturally diverse families or families that speak languages other than Spanish or English.
The curriculum offers professional development and materials to support implementation and continuous improvement. Professional development includes gaining the knowledge and skills required for effective implementation of a curriculum. Standardized training procedures include initial and ongoing training to support education staff as they learn to implement a curriculum with fidelity. Standardized training procedures provide consistent content and delivery methods across training sessions.
Curriculum materials to support implementation include resources that come with a curriculum to help education staff understand how to use it. The materials may also include resources to help education managers and coaches support education staff to implement the curriculum effectively. Initial training includes four "CORE" trainings workshops for a fee. The first is offered in person, over two days, prior to the start of the school year.
Each of the remaining three sequential workshops is a one-day session, delivered in person or virtually, in fall, winter, and spring of the first year. In addition, the curriculum offers varied opportunities for ongoing professional development on a range of topics through webinars, "PreK Beyond the Core" workshops, and online modules. The primary Training Manual offers detailed information about each of the curriculum's activities, including materials and set-up, steps for implementing each activity, and detailed guidance for teachers about engaging and supporting children during the activity "Flow and Process".
The Additional Scaffolds Appendix Manual describes strategies for supporting specific learning needs e. In addition, the Pre-K Assessment appendix provides assessment instruments to identify baselines, document children's development over time, and identify areas of individual need to target scaffolding and intentionally plan instruction.
The curriculum promotes rich learning experiences and interactions to support development across domains. Rich learning experiences support and extend children's knowledge, understanding of concepts, and skills across domains. As children actively explore their learning environment by manipulating objects and investigating concepts, teachers interact with them to extend their exploration, thinking, and communication.
The curriculum offers children ample opportunities to engage in hands-on exploration and provides teachers with guidance on how to extend children's exploration, thinking, and communication. Rich learning experiences should be culturally and linguistically responsive and inclusive of children with disabilities, suspected delays, or other special needs.
PreK - 2 nd. Activities , Bulletin Board Ideas , Posters. Formats Included. Add one to cart. Buy licenses to share. Add to Wish List. Share this resource. Report this resource to TpT. They are the foundation when creating a print rich environment for young learners. The Tools of the Mind curriculum uses sound maps to help children connect letters and their sounds. Children use their sound maps when writing their daily plans and also when helping the teacher to create the morning message.
I created these consonant posters to hang around my Morning Meeting area to help children to become more familiar with the pictures, letters, and sounds that they work with every day on their Tools of the Mind Sound maps.
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