Preschool Solutions
Quality Preschool Learning for All
Quality early childhood programs not only provide long-term impact on the social, emotional, and academic lives of the participating children, the impact is greatest for children identified as "at risk"-poor children, children with special education needs, English language learners, and children of color. Quality early childhood programs are defined by several factors. Chief among these are:
- Safe, nurturing, and intellectually stimulating environments
- A rich, language-based curriculum
- High-quality teachers
- Ongoing assessments of child learning and progress
Teachscape's Early Success solution builds the skills of early childhood teachers and leaders to identify, implement, and continuously improve the indicators of quality noted. Early Success combines web-based systems, services, and multimedia resources to teach to rigorous early childhood standards and expectations, monitor student progress, and develop teacher skills.
Develop Safe, Nurturing, and Intellectually Stimulating EnvironmentsQuality early childhood programs for preschoolers with special needs must ensure the physical environment will support the full range of abilities and disabilities of the children, enable easy access to centers, offer quiet places and space for physical activities, and provoke intellectual curiosity through stimulating and attractive centers and resources. Teachscape coaches will ensure the preschool special education programs offer this by:
- Understanding the essential elements of effective room arrangement through readings, discussions, analysis of best-practice videos, and expert commentary. Teachscape coaches will facilitate face-to-face and online learning informed by the Teachscape resources.
- Arranging the classroom space to accommodate the abilities and disabilities of the children. Working with the coaches, teachers will review the incoming children to determine their abilities and disabilities and use this information to inform their first draft of a classroom environment. Using the Teachscape system, teachers create and share drafts before finalizing the arrangement and actually setting up the classroom. To assess the classroom arrangement, the Teachscape system provides teachers and administrators with a checklist to identify components of the room that promote safety, provide nurturing, and enable intellectual stimulation, using this web-based tool as a final check before the children arrive.
All children need the support of a language-rich curriculum to ensure development of the early literacy skills that support reading and appropriate levels of social and emotional competence, including self-regulation. Teachscape works with teachers to promote practices most associated with success in school by:
- Offering web-based applications for aligning early childhood curriculum to state standards or expectations for early childhood as well as assessments for student progress. The alignment and lesson development tools provide teachers with access to Internet-based multimedia resources that promote a focus on phonemic awareness, read alouds, alphabet knowledge, early math, and on designing the classroom environment, including the rules and routines that will impact classroom-based interactions. The professional learning will be built around eCIRCLE learning resources, proven effective through three years of rigorous, scientific study of student knowledge and skills.
- Providing coherent and standards-focused coaching to enable Pre-K teachers to implement their curriculum effectively, incorporate research-based instructional practices, ensure cultural and linguistic appropriateness, and assess child development through district/state guidelines.
Teachers for preschool special education programs need to not only understand effective language and literacy-focused curricula and developmentally appropriate practices, but must inform this with a deep understanding of the special needs of the children they serve and the concerns of the children's parents. Teachscape coaches will ensure the quality of the teachers by:
- Providing differentiated professional learning to address the interests and needs of the classroom teachers. Topics may be curriculum focused or focused on social/emotional development. To ensure a good fit between the teacher's needs and the PD, Teachscape coaches will design an individual learning plan for each teacher.
- Offering coaching to apply the professional learning. As teachers develop the knowledge and skills necessary to become high-quality teachers, they must apply, review, and refine these practices in their own classrooms. Teachscape coaches will support this through at-elbow coaching.
- Providing tools and processes to guide walkthroughs of early childhood special education classrooms and capture data on classroom practices. The coaches will help the leaders analyze and apply instructional data to improve classroom environments and teaching practices.
Assessments that align with the curriculum and inform instructional practices form the critical core of teaching and learning. Teachscape coaches will work closely with the early childhood teachers and leaders to analyze the outcomes of assessments, use the information to inform their instruction, and develop learning histories to dig deeply into understanding the learning and progress of selected focus students. Teachscape coaches will enable this by:
- Providing a set of screening and observational assessments that focus on concepts about print, phonological awareness, early reading and writing behaviors, and numeracy skills. Using a laptop or netbook, teachers can administer the early childhood assessments with students and capture observations of academic and social behaviors based on state expectations.
- Helping teachers analyze assessment results to gain another perspective on student learning and progress. The web-based system provides teachers with graphically rich profiles of student performance and growth without having to query or run reports.
- Based on student performance data, the system automatically recommends lessons and activities to provide additional instruction targeted to areas of need. Coaches will work closely with the teachers to identify how this information can be used to inform teaching practices and/or modify the classroom environment to support improved achievement.
