Author: Targetedreadingintervention.org

Children’s education is important for many reasons. It helps them grow as individuals and allows them to become confident in their own abilities. It also teaches them how to work with people from different backgrounds, beliefs, and ages.

Access to education is a fundamental human right for all. UNICEF works with partners worldwide to ensure that children can exercise their right to quality learning opportunities.

Early Childhood Education (ECE)

ECE encompasses a wide range of formal and informal educational programs that guide children from birth to age five. These programs help develop a child’s linguistic, social, and emotional skills during a critical time for brain development. They can be provided in a variety of settings, including daycare centers, head start programs, and preschools.

High-quality ECE has been shown to have a number of benefits, including improved school readiness and narrowing achievement gaps for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. It also helps children gain the social and emotional skills necessary to be successful in life.

A career in ECE can offer a flexible and rewarding work experience. According to research by Nobel laureate economist James Heckman, children who attend quality ECE programs are less likely to require remedial education or special services later in life and have a greater chance of becoming productive workers, contributing to a stronger economy for everyone. If you’re interested in learning more about the early childhood education field, check out UMass Global’s flexible and affordable bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education.

Montessori

The Montessori method is based on the idea that children are naturally eager to learn. This approach to education prioritizes respect for the child and requires educators to allow students to engage in learning independently, without imposing their own agenda.

Montessori classrooms are carefully crafted environments designed to meet the unique needs of children within a particular age range. Guided by a trained Montessori educator, called a Directress, children engage in experiential learning with sensory materials that translate abstract concepts into concrete understanding. These classes are typically multi-age, allowing older students to model skills for their younger peers.

As a result, kids develop an intrinsic desire to learn, making them lifelong learners. They’re also taught to respect and care for their environment and the people around them, developing strong character and a sense of responsibility. This self-motivation is a cornerstone of the Montessori curriculum and helps prepare kids for a successful future. Lastly, they’re introduced to cultural exercises that teach them about the world outside of their classroom and home, which encourages compassion for others.

The Grandma Method

Jill VandeHey Klefstad is working on a book about grandparents, teachers and parents who are nurturing children’s brains through everyday activities. Her goal is to teach people how they can encourage the natural learning of their granddarlings at any age or stage. In this blog series, she will share a theme page of simple activities each month to give you the What and the Why so that you can implement these ideas in your own home with your grandchildren.

Montessori environments are child-centered and based on self-directed exploration and hands-on learning. They are also orderly and contain natural materials. Montessori emphasizes respect and empathy in interactions with children. It also teaches conflict resolution and problem-solving skills.

Mitra’s hole-in-the-wall experiments led to his next project, the Granny Cloud. His experiment aimed to see if children could learn advanced material on their own, with only a Skype connection and remote support from British grandmothers. Mitra’s hypothesis was that if children are allowed to learn on their own, they won’t need the traditional education model that has traditionally relied on adults to educate them.

Prisma’s Early Years Program

Prisma offers a unique online learning experience that allows learners to learn in their local community with a close-knit cohort, while still joining a global learning network. They also have an extensive afterschool program focusing on foreign languages, arts and culture with an emphasis on meaningful play. They are a part of the Reggio Emilia, Inquiry and Constructivist philosophies with hands on instruction. Their teachers are fluent in English, Spanish, French and Mandarin.

While men are significantly underrepresented in ECEC careers, strategies to increase their representation should focus on addressing occupational gender segregation, dismantling gender stereotypes, fostering caring masculinities in childhood, and engaging organizational gatekeepers. These approaches can reduce tokenism, while increasing the representation of men in ECEC without affecting women’s career choices. They can also help prevent the feminization of ECEC work. The goal is to create a more equitable, diverse and sustainable workforce.

Education support is a critical component of an effective learning environment. It provides students with the resources they need to thrive academically and emotionally.

Servisource has recently teamed up with a UK charity called Education Support (formerly Teacher Support Network, Recourse and Worklife Support Partnership). It champions good mental health and wellbeing for teachers and others in the education sector.

Definition

Education support refers to any resources or guidance a student needs to help him excel in his studies. This can take many forms, from academic to emotional to financial assistance.

Teachers play an essential role in delivering education support, fostering strong relationships with students and ensuring they have access to necessary services. Students who have a supportive environment tend to perform better academically and are more likely to continue their education after school.

Supplementary aids and services are an important component of educational support, but there are also many community and online resources that can be beneficial. For example, libraries often host tutoring sessions and nonprofits offer mentoring programs. There are also websites dedicated to providing free practice tests and instructional videos.

Education Support is a UK charity that champions the mental health and wellbeing of everyone working in education. It was founded in 1877 as a benevolent fund for teachers, and today it provides services for staff in further, higher and adult education.

Stakeholders

A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in the success of a system. They can include individuals, groups or organizations. Stakeholders are a crucial part of any educational sphere because they help to make sure the system continues to evolve and provides students with the knowledge and skills to succeed in life.

Stakeholders in education are typically community members, teachers and support staff, school board members, parents and student’s extended family; architects and designers; local businesses; and other people within the school district. They are all vital to the success of a student’s learning process.

Stakeholders can also include organizations that help to hold a school accountable and formulate accrediting and guidance policies. Examples of these organizations include state departments of education and collegiate regional accrediting agencies. The local business community is often interested in a school’s education program as it helps to ensure future top managers, business owners and employees have the skills they need to be successful.

Forms

Educational support staff provide valuable information to educational teams, gathering data and monitoring implementation. They also serve as key contributors to the Individualized Education Program process by completing Prior Written Notices throughout each step of evaluation, identification (classification), school location and special education services.

Broader understanding of educational practices improves effectiveness and creates advancement pathways. Build relationships with lead educators to foster collaboration on instructional approaches, enhancing communication between roles. Role clarity prevents unsustainable workloads and role overreach.

Demonstrate leadership capability without overstepping boundaries, taking initiative to meet needs before being asked. Maintaining sustainable practice ensures both current effectiveness and career growth. Explore credential advancement to increase future contribution opportunities and demonstrate professional commitment. Many organizations offer tuition support or schedule accommodation for staff pursuing advanced credentials.

Resources

Many educational support programs are available to students, families and educators. They include tutoring, counseling services, and financial assistance. These resources help students overcome learning disabilities and other barriers to success in school. They can also provide students with the tools they need to succeed in life.

In addition, the educational environment should encourage family participation and support. Research shows that students with supportive families have higher academic achievement rates and are less likely to drop out of school.

Education support professionals often experience a sense of personal fulfillment from their work. They play a crucial role in student success by fostering a supportive, empathetic classroom atmosphere. They also gain valuable skills in their roles such as patience and empathy, which enrich their lives.

Schools are educational institutions that provide students with the curriculum they need to succeed. They also offer many social and career opportunities.

The chief task of schooling is to remove ignoranceand the most important ignorance is illiteracy. For that reason, reading is the key to all learning, and phonicsis the way to it.

Socialization

Schools offer a form of socialization that can help to shape young people’s views and attitudes. This socialization extends beyond the formal curriculum offered in classrooms and into many other aspects of school life.

For example, schools often teach students a view of their country’s history that makes them feel emotionally attached and proud of it. This type of socialization is called cultural socialization.

Another form of socialization occurs when students are forced to conform to a set of rules at school, such as wearing uniforms or participating in group activities. These rules are meant to improve school safety and security.

Teachers also socialize students by offering a positive and supportive environment. They can help students to develop a healthy and positive self-esteem, and they can encourage children to have respect for others and for their differences.

Personal Development

Many schools offer personal development courses that teach students the skills they need to succeed in school and life. These skills include self-reflection, goal-setting, time management, and communication. Students who develop these skills are better able to handle stress, stay motivated, and make smart choices about their future.

Personal development also encourages a growth mindset, which helps students build their confidence and take risks. This can lead to more opportunities for success, whether academically or in their career.

The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OFSTED) evaluates schools based on their personal development programs. They focus on the quality of instruction, leadership experiences, and opportunities for personal and professional development. OFSTED also evaluates how well schools support pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.

Career Opportunities

School-based jobs provide a variety of career opportunities for students and adults. From administrative and managerial roles to physical and technical work, schools offer an array of different job opportunities to suit every interest and skill set.

Moreover, because trade school programs are often shorter than traditional four-year college degrees, students enter the workforce with a significant head start and are able to start earning a paycheck much sooner. This can allow students to begin saving for retirement or putting money towards other financial goals, and also may help them avoid the large student debt that often follows a college degree.

Ladders for Leaders is a six-week summer internship program that connects NYC youth ages 14-15 with paid internship opportunities in corporations, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies.

Community

Community schools offer many services to students, families and the surrounding community. These include school-based health centers, food services and expanded learning opportunities. Student behavioral issues are addressed using restorative discipline practices instead of zero-tolerance approaches that lead to suspension and expulsion.

National studies show that community involvement improves academic performance and school culture. Students become more engaged learners and report positive experiences at school.

Schools can engage the community by inviting local businesses, civic organizations and churches to support their efforts like CIS of Cape Fear’s annual Stuff the Bus back-to-school drive. This event invites local business, civic groups and community members to donate supplies like winter coats, backpacks and school uniforms. It also gives students an opportunity to help children in foster care by donating a stuffed animal, security blanket and age-appropriate book.

Kindergarten serves as an important bridge between preschool’s playful exploration and the more structured learning of first grade. It’s the time when kids learn everything from their ABCs and 123s to social skills like sharing, taking turns and following instructions.

While a lot of children enter kindergarten with pre-academic and school-readiness skills, many parents can do simple things to help their kids prepare for school.

Social and Emotional Development

When people think of kindergarten readiness, they usually picture children knowing their ABCs and 123s or learning about shapes and colors. But research shows that social and emotional development is just as important for school success.

Social-emotional skills include enjoying interactions with others, making and keeping friends, appropriately expressing emotions, and adjusting to new environments. To build these skills, a child needs to be curious and willing to explore.

Children can develop social-emotional skills by interacting with their peers and other adults in the classroom. By promoting social-emotional learning, teachers can help students adjust to new environments and feel competent in their work. To learn more, check out the Social and Emotional Development Competency Reflection and other resources available in this course.

Language and Literacy Development

Children’s ability to read and write is a journey that requires both language and literacy development. Literacy is the destination while language is the vehicle that drives it.

Infants and toddlers begin to discriminate and encode the sound structures of their languages, an ability known as phonological awareness. They later learn to match sound-to-letter correspondences and link printed and spoken words, an ability called phonics.

By kindergarten, children build a bank of correctly spelled words and develop early literacy skills like rhyming and matching letters to sounds. This is the emergent literacy stage, which also includes early image recognition.

They can recognize some upper and lowercase letters and high-frequency words and begin to read simple stories, according to The Edvocate, This Reading Mama and UpToDate. They may even begin writing to express their ideas.

Physical Development

Physical development includes the growth and refinement of children’s motor skills. It also supports the cognitive domain and lays the foundation for learning through exploration.

Children in kindergarten build their gross and fine motor skills by using their bodies to explore their surroundings and engage in play. Group activities, such as team sports or group dance, encourage both social and physical development.

In kindergartens with a PE teacher, children scored higher on the fitness assessment than in kindergartens without one. The survey showed that children in kindergartens with a PE teacher were more active and had better room conditions that were suitable for physical activities, such as indoor play areas and playground equipment. Linear regression analysis clarified that these environmental factors influenced children’s physical fitness scores.

Creative Arts

Creative arts include a variety of practices like painting, photography, and sculpture as well as performance art such as acting, singing, and dancing. These activities encourage self-expression and creativity, fostering personal growth and a better understanding of the world around us.

For example, children who draw illustrations from a storybook foster literacy skills and artistic expression. Similarly, a simple craft activity of cutting natural sponges into various shapes and then dipping them into paint allows them to create colorful patterns on paper while encouraging fine motor skill development. Moreover, participating in the arts stimulates various areas of the brain, boosting cognitive development and improving problem-solving and spatial awareness. This also aids in emotional self-regulation and nurtures a sense of resilience. The arts also help to develop community and collaboration skills.

Technology

Kids’ natural affinity for touch-screen gadgets gives them access to a vast array of educational tools. Interactive educational apps and games promote cognitive development, while drawing and storytelling platforms foster creativity and self-expression. Exposure to technology at an early age also equips children with crucial 21st-century skills, which will serve them well throughout their academic and career endeavours.

Teachers can use tech to tailor learning experiences for students’ unique needs and learning styles. For example, visual learners can learn through video presentations or smart boards, while auditory and tactile learners may benefit from audio or music streaming platforms. Educators can also integrate EdTech into classroom activities to keep students engaged and motivated with interactive lessons. This can help students understand new concepts and apply them to real-world problems.

Reading intervention is one component of a school’s response to intervention (RTI) or multi-tiered support system process. It focuses on providing intensive, personalized instruction to students who struggle with reading.

Reading intervention strategies vary, but generally involve reteaching and practice to strengthen skills. Students who struggle with phonics may need a phonics program to learn letter sounds, while those struggling with comprehension may need vocabulary instruction.

Group interventions

One of the most popular methods for reading intervention is to group students together based on their level and needs. This allows teachers to provide targeted instruction for multiple students at the same time. There are a number of evidence-based programs available that can help educators plan and implement effective small group instruction for struggling readers.

Phonics reading groups focus on building foundational skills such as phonemic awareness and phonics. This includes teaching students to isolate and identify sounds in words (phonemes) and the relationships between these sounds and their corresponding grapheme/letter combinations (grapheme-phoneme correspondences).

The blended reading group supports student progress by helping them transition from learning to decode to becoming fluent readers. This group teaches students to read more complex texts and helps them build a stronger understanding of text structure through activities that include analyzing themes, drawing inferences, and connecting the text content to their personal experiences.

Individual interventions

Individual reading interventions offer students more individualized attention and provide teachers with the opportunity to adapt instruction to each student’s learning needs. These interventions are typically delivered outside of core instruction, and can be provided in a classroom or by a reading intervention specialist. These strategies can be used with students in any grade level, but are most effective in lower grades.

Research has found that most students with reading difficulties can make significant gains in their reading skills if they receive more instruction and intensive support. Studies in which students received daily intervention for extended periods of time over 16 weeks have shown that these students made large pre-post test gains in word reading, spelling, and comprehension. However, there is less knowledge about the optimum group size for intervention with older students. Generally, students in higher grades need more intensive Tier 3 interventions to close the performance gap with their normally developing peers. However, it is important to carefully consider the intensity of these interventions in terms of time and resource constraints.

Assessments

Educators need a range of assessments to get a complete picture of student reading skills and needs. Screening, diagnostic, progress monitoring and summative assessments all play a role in getting the data educators need to make informed decisions about how they will group students for instruction, how they will differentiate instruction, and whether or not a certain curriculum is effective.

Screening assessments, such as universal screeners, provide a snapshot of students’ skill levels and help identify which children are at risk for difficulty with reading. These assessments typically are brief and efficient to administer. One type of screening assessment is a Curriculum-Based Measurement, or CBM, which uses a short criterion-referenced test that measures a student’s growth over time in specific reading skills, such as letter name and sound fluency, phoneme segmentation fluency and nonsense word reading fluency.

Diagnostic assessments, such as the Single Word Reading Inventory and the Multi-Method Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS Next), are administered to students identified by screening assessments who require a more in-depth look at their reading skills. These assessments measure a student’s performance in specific reading skills such as decoding and language comprehension to determine their specific needs.

Strategies

Students who need reading intervention may require a variety of strategies to improve their skills. Some strategies focus on specific aspects of reading, such as comprehension or phonics. Others address more general aspects of reading, such as fluency and vocabulary. For example, teaching morphological awareness, which includes prefixes, suffixes, roots, and other elements that make up words, can help students understand word structure and decoding.

For adolescent readers, it is important to focus on improving their comprehension skills. This can be done through incorporating discussion and using cognitively challenging texts that are relevant to their lives. In addition, focusing on building skills that support comprehension like academic language and perspective-taking is essential.

Individual reading interventions offer many benefits, including individualized instruction and personalized feedback. Let’s Go Learn offers tools and resources to support individualized instruction, such as diagnostic assessments and student progress monitoring. By monitoring student progress, teachers can adjust their instruction accordingly and help students achieve their learning goals.

Education empowers children and enables them to develop into productive members of society. Educated kids can contribute to economic growth, help reduce poverty and inequality, and build strong communities.

Early learning helps children adapt to new situations and make friends. It also helps them develop fine and gross motor skills, and cognitive (thinking) skills.

Social and emotional development

Children develop social and emotional skills through their everyday interactions with peers and adults in school. They learn how to manage their emotions, build healthy relationships and be responsible and caring citizens. These skills are important for a child’s lifelong learning and success.

Lev Vygotsky developed a socio-cultural learning theory that stresses the importance of children’s social and cultural experiences. He also proposed the idea of the zone of proximal development, which describes how children build on and adapt prior knowledge to take in new information.

Effective education includes a holistic approach that prioritizes all aspects of children’s growth and development, including their social-emotional and cognitive skills. It’s vital to understand how these skills interact and influence each other to ensure that kids have the best chance of achieving their full potential. It’s also important to communicate milestone competencies to parents and educate them on how they can support their child’s social-emotional development at home.

Cognitive development

Cognitive development is how children learn and understand their world. It encompasses many aspects, including perceptual skills, language learning and understanding, and logical reasoning. It is an important area of research for scientists who study children’s growth and development.

One of the most famous perspectives on cognitive development is that of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. He theorized that cognitive development occurs in a series of distinct stages. He believed that each stage has a fixed order and that thinking within the stages differs in fundamental ways.

For example, in a classic experiment with 3- to 6-year-olds, researchers placed a dog mask over the head of a cat named Maynard. Despite this, most children at this stage still identified Maynard as a cat. This is a classic demonstration of the distinction between perception and reality that Piaget called object permanence. It is an important concept for children to grasp at this stage.

Physical health and safety

Educators must keep safety in mind with nearly every aspect of their classroom environment and day-to-day operations. From the layout of rooms to the materials used in craft projects, a safe environment is a must. It is also vital to regularly inspect playground equipment for damage and sharp edges that could lead to injuries.

Children require frequent opportunities for physical movement to develop the motor skills and confidence that promote ongoing participation in health-enhancing activities. School-based physical education curricula are designed to provide these developmentally appropriate experiences and the trained teachers who deliver them have the unique knowledge and skill set to do so.

Unfortunately, many barriers stand in the way of children exercising their right to quality education – conflict, natural disasters, poverty, geographic isolation and social exclusion. UNICEF’s Let Us Learn initiative aims to level the playing field and remove these obstacles. It provides out-of-school children with alternative ways to learn and helps strengthen formal education systems for fully enrolled students, paying particular attention to girls and children with disabilities.

Personal development

In addition to general knowledge of child development, educators need to have a deep understanding of each individual in their care. They need to know what each child knows, what they are interested in learning, and what cultural assets each brings to the classroom. This allows educators to provide the right amount of scaffolding for each child as they learn, based on the knowledge and skills that children already have.

Personality development helps children develop a positive attitude toward life and an ability to bounce back from setbacks. It also teaches them to be more patient and empathetic with others, which can help them build strong relationships at school and home.

The social and emotional competencies that support personality development are shaped by a complex interplay of social, biological, and representational influences. These include the family contexts that support children’s developing social and emotional competences and underlie temperamental individuality, the relationships they have with peers (including their friendships), and the ways they interpret these experiences in relation to their growing representations of themselves and the world.

Educational support encompasses a variety of resources, services, and guidance designed to empower students. It can take many forms, from tutoring and counseling to community programs and online platforms.

At Servisource, we understand how important education support is. Read on for our tips on how to effectively provide it to your students.

Student success

Student success is a top priority for colleges and universities, but it requires the support of multiple stakeholders. Educational support involves a variety of services and resources, including tutoring, mentoring, counseling, and financial assistance. These programs help students overcome obstacles that might interfere with their learning.

Academic support services—tutoring centers, writing seminars, and mentorship programs—are often among the first to feel budget cuts during times of fiscal uncertainty, but they’re some of the most effective strategies for improving retention rates. They also have the added benefit of helping students build confidence and self-esteem, a key factor in student persistence.

In addition to school-based resources, community programs and online platforms offer education support as well. These programs can help students stay focused on their goals and provide valuable skills and tools to help them succeed. In addition, student success platforms can identify early warning signs of academic and emotional distress to guide timely interventions. This helps institutions preserve student outcomes while demonstrating accountability to accreditors and funders.

Family support

Family support refers to all the informal and formal systems that help families with children to function well. These include immediate family members, relatives, friends, neighbors, community organizations, home helpers, and professional therapists and teachers. These support systems can also be formally structured, such as public entitlement programs that provide for housing, food, transportation, and child care.

Academic success is closely linked to the support of students by their families. However, existing studies on family support tend to focus only on parents and ignore extended kin networks. This study aims to address this shortcoming by using panel survey data to explore the association between adolescents’ academic performance and family support in a global context, with GDP per capita and cultural individualism as societal-level moderators.

Beyond emotional and psychological support, many families lack the resources necessary to ensure that their children are able to excel in school. Providing access to basic supplies, quiet space and devices can have significant impacts on student outcomes.

School-based resources

The health and well-being of students is critical for their academic success, but many kids lack access to essential services due to poverty, low incomes, insurance coverage and systemic inequities. School-based health centers, for example, offer medical, behavioral, and dental care, health education and youth development programming in schools where kids already spend most of their time.

These resources are designed to help educators do their jobs better. They’re available in The Dynamic School OT Course or as standalone tools.

Research shows that to promote equitable student outcomes, schools need to address a range of issues including academics, mental and physical wellness, and community support. Providing county-level services and resources through a community school approach is one way to ensure that these needs are met.

There are no perfect schools just as there are no completely good governments. But schools can perform better than they do today.

A school is a place that teaches subjects like math, science, language arts, and social studies. It also teaches practical skills like writing and reading. It also teaches useful habits like punctuality and respect for authority.

Education

Education is an important aspect of society and helps shape the future of each individual. It provides people with information and understanding of various subjects, such as science, math, and literature. It also helps students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Education can take place in both formal and informal settings.

Education has a direct impact on health and well-being. It is an essential foundation for lifelong learning, and a key to economic development. It is also the foundation for social cohesion and civic engagement.

Children without quality education face significant barriers to success in life, including lower wages and higher rates of poverty, which are linked to poor health outcomes. They are also less likely to participate in community decisions that affect them, and have a lower ability to advocate for their needs. In addition, schools that cannot attract and retain teachers are at a disadvantage. The Department of Education should work to make school staffing more flexible, and empower district leaders to adopt policies that meet local needs.

Structure

Whether in traditional classrooms or online learning environments, students need a clear structure to navigate their educational journey. A well-defined organizational structure improves accountability, communication, and collaboration to achieve academic objectives.

While the details of an organization’s structure may vary between a high school and a university, most schools have core departments and leadership roles that are consistent. A clear org chart helps everyone see how they fit into the big picture and reveals departmental interdependencies.

To stay effective, schools must regularly review and adjust their organizational structures. Using tools like surveys and job audits, HR teams can identify gaps in workflow and efficiency, then revise reporting lines and update job frameworks to ensure that the school’s people-centered structure supports its current functions. In turn, this reduces project delays and fosters a culture of transparency and openness. This also empowers people to thrive when their roles change or new initiatives arise. The result is a more adaptable, agile, and resilient institution that can respond to technological shifts, evolving student needs, and shifting funding models.

Discipline

School discipline involves the adherence to certain codes of behavior within educational settings and encompasses policies regarding classroom conduct, dress codes, and student interactions. Various methods exist to enforce discipline, from traditional corporal punishment to contemporary approaches that emphasize restorative justice and positive teacher-student relationships. Harmful discipline practices can have short and long-term negative impacts on students’ social, emotional, and academic development. Choosing the right discipline policies and practices can create safe learning environments that support students’ overall growth and well-being.

Preventive discipline focuses on establishing classroom expectations and guidelines to proactively promote positive student behavior and reduce classroom disruptions. This can include posting classroom rules, providing regular instructions on appropriate behavior through simple explanations, and using a discipline framework like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). It also includes enforcing rules with consistency. However, preventive discipline should be combined with supportive discipline and logical consequences. This is where the real power of discipline lies, ensuring that the consequences for misbehavior are meaningful and aligned with what was broken.

Community

Community schools build strong ties to families and communities by engaging them in education. They assess needs through surveys and meetings, and they capitalize on local assets. These may include the nearby university, the mechanic who coaches a soccer team, the baker who inspires a class of students to learn baking, or the city agency leaders who oversee parks, planning, public health, and workforce development.

These partnerships foster a culture of mutual support, respect and responsibility. They encourage the participation of adults in student learning by providing health services and other supports, such as nutrition and housing assistance, as well as academic tutoring and mentoring.

They also promote sharing power by identifying what barriers prevent people’s full participation and systematically removing them. The approach also cultivates leadership and relationships that facilitate greater civic involvement, so parents and community members can advocate for broader community goals or challenge negative local interventions (e.g., a toxic use of land or the demolition of a culturally significant building). They also help their students become advocates and decisionmakers in their own lives.

For many students, kindergarten is their first experience in a classroom without the presence of parents or guardians. A high-quality kindergarten helps children become independent and comfortable with new situations and experiences.

They learn to follow a schedule and to understand classroom requirements. They experiment, discover and document their learning.

Social and Emotional Development

The phrase ‘kindergarten readiness’ occupies many news articles and keeps many parents up at night, worrying their kids aren’t ready to enter the classroom. But teachers tell EdSurge that getting kids ready for school goes beyond teaching them ABCs and 123s; it also includes preparing children to follow instructions, get along with others and manage their emotions in a structured environment.

These skills are vital to learning because they help students understand and follow rules, respond to adults’ questions, build meaningful relationships with peers and collaborate in groups. They can also support kids’ ability to recognize and manage their emotions, control impulses and communicate clearly. These social-emotional skills are referred to as SEL. They include:

Language and Literacy Development

In kindergarten, children’s language and literacy development become more closely connected. Literacy is the ability to read and write, while language refers to a person’s understanding of speech and symbols.

Research shows that the development of language and literacy is related to a child’s cognitive abilities. Language and literacy skills are essential for learning new information, and they also help improve memory and attention spans.

Friedrich Froebel envisioned the kindergarten as a garden for children and named it that because he believed that a child should be allowed to grow and develop freely, just as plants do in a garden. In the UK, kindergarten is more often referred to as nursery and reception classes. These stages are considered to form the foundation for primary school.

Creative Arts

Creative arts offer a space for exploration, self-expression, and imagination. They speak a universal language regardless of linguistic or cultural barriers, capturing memories and sentiments that span generations and communities.

The creativity, problem-solving, and collaborative skills learned in creative arts activities help children develop across all domains of development. For example, the ability to hold a crayon and make a mark promotes fine motor development while creating a theater or puppet play fosters social-emotional development and verbal communication.

Moreover, participating in visual art, music, dance, and drama promotes both logical thinking and verbal and nonverbal communication. At the elementary school level, taking arts classes outside of school has been linked with higher math, science, and reading scores (Copple and Bredekamp 2009).

Technology

Technology development is a key aspect of high-quality early education. Thoughtfully integrating technology into learning experiences allows for greater engagement and collaboration, while developing essential skills for the digital age such as problem-solving and creativity. This includes interactive whiteboards, tablets, educational software, and a range of age-appropriate online resources.

Kindergarten educators are tasked with integrating instructional practices and assessment in play-based contexts to achieve curricular and developmental goals. However, many studies have cited concerns that new technologies may erode traditional teaching practices and promote an unbalanced emphasis on academic performance (Lynch & Redpath, 2014).

Introducing children to technology at an early age encourages their critical thinking and creativity. Educational games, digital storytelling apps and basic coding programs develop cognitive skills while preparing them for future educational endeavours and daily life in the ever-evolving digital world.

Social Studies

Early childhood educators need to be well-prepared in social studies instruction. Unfortunately, many teacher-prep programs give little instruction on this subject, leaving classroom teachers with little confidence in their ability to teach it well (Strasser & Bresson, 2017).

Young children are naturally curious about the world around them. Educators can capitalize on this learning by offering extended investigations of topics that capture students’ interest and foster classroom communities based on inclusive, democratic values.

Teachers can also help young children understand the larger community and the world in which they live by focusing on family structures, languages, and cultural traditions and through the use of literature genre that illustrates the various family and ethnic cultures that comprise their own community (Catalino & Meyer, 2016; Mindes, 2015). Additionally, parents can help support children’s social studies development by sharing their own family history and culture with them and encouraging them to engage in civic responsibilities at home and in the community.

Reading intervention is an intensive instructional program that helps students build core components of reading, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency and comprehension. These programs use explicit, structured instruction and offer student practice with corrective feedback and aligned student materials.

Teachers begin by administering a universal screener and then give diagnostic assessments to identify skills that need to be retaught. Students are placed into small groups to receive individualized reading intervention instruction.

Group Reading Interventions

Intensive small-group reading interventions offer multiple benefits to students. These include increased opportunities for practice and high quality instruction. Moreover, these interventions can help to promote collaboration and peer interaction among students.

Studies reported reading and behavioral/social skill outcomes for students in Grades K-12. Interventions included phonics, PA and phonics, phonics and fluency, and multicomponent comprehension. Improvements in reading measures were consistent, but improvements in behavioral/social skills were not.

The most effective group reading interventions were those targeted to a specific skill or deficit, like decoding inventories and fluency screeners. This type of targeted approach can ensure that weaker readers have access to grade-level text, which can build their content knowledge and improve their ability to comprehend what they read. Another option is pairing weaker and stronger readers to read together, as supported by experimental studies. This can provide a model of what strong readers do and encourage weaker readers to practice with more experienced peers.

Individual Reading Interventions

Students who are far below grade level often require supplemental and intensive reading interventions to improve their skills. These individualized instruction strategies are typically delivered by reading specialists or teachers who have undergone extensive training to help them understand the programs and methods they will use with students.

Reading intervention programs build components of the reading process, including phonological awareness, alphabetic principle or phonics, decoding practice, building vocabulary, and comprehension skills. These programs typically involve small groups of students receiving instruction in a classroom or lab setting and are usually conducted at the lowest possible grade levels.

Educators serve as facilitators for independent reading, encouraging children to explore literature on their own terms and developing a deep connection to it that fosters curiosity and nurtures lifelong learning. In addition, educators model independent reading behaviors, such as selecting books from a class library or choosing from a bag of choices, and come alongside students to support their thinking through brief conferences.

Assessments

The assessment of learning, a critical intersection between teaching and reading instruction, includes evaluating how students have progressed over time. It’s also the process through which educators gain insights into teaching efficacy and exam design.

Some common assessments include pre-assessments and standardized tests. These are often administered at the beginning of a course, unit or academic year and are designed to establish a baseline for student performance.

Other assessments are designed to measure student knowledge and skills. These are known as diagnostic or standards-referenced assessments and may take the form of a standardized test or a teacher-developed assessment. These are designed to evaluate whether or not a student has successfully learned the specific knowledge and skills described in local, state or national learning standards.

Teaching Strategies

To implement reading intervention effectively, teachers need to use the strategies that are proven effective. These can include structured literacy lessons, which provide direct instruction in the five components of reading identified by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle or phonics, fluency and vocabulary.

Using a variety of methods, structured literacy lessons focus on the relationship between letters and sounds. They teach students to rhyming, segment and blend letter sounds, as well as to sound out words. These skills are important for decoding and spelling.

In addition, they can also focus on high-frequency words and teaching students how to break down words into syllables to improve their reading fluency. Finally, they can help build comprehension by teaching students how to make inferences, visualize stories and think about the meaning behind what they read. To assess student progress, teachers give formative assessments and diagnostic assessments. These can be standardized, like the universal screener, or teacher-created, such as a word list that students read.