Reexamining the Classroom Day to Promote School Readiness

Workshop Overview

Kindergarten classrooms are changing dramatically as schools respond to achievement gaps and to the call for greater accountability. Curently there are discontinuities in the prekindergarten learning experiences offered and the types of experineces children will encounter in kindergarten. As we learn more about what constitutes the design of an effective preschool classroom, we are asked to reexamine our practices surrounding how we help children prepare for kindergarten.

Reexamining our practices surrounding how we help children prepare for kindergarten starts with reexamining the classroom day. Participants will learn how they can create effective classroom routines that increase learning opportunities for preschool children. They will have the opportunity to look at their current preschool routines and expectations, and develop individual plans for creating productive learning times for their children. Participants in this workshop will:

      1. Examine the kindergarten day from national research and understand how that data compares to the Early Childhood    Center research done in Indiana in both kindergartens and prekindergarten programs.
     2. Learn what kindergarten teachers in Indiana expect of children within the first few weeks of school so that they can better prepare their children for the transition into kindergarten.
     3. Reexamine and redesign major instructional routines (whole-class instruction, small group instruction, individual work time).
     4. Look at how to integrate learning times into times during the daily schedule that are not formal instructional times.

Details

Susan Dixon, M.A., C.C.C., is the presenter of this workshop topic. Sue is a speech and language pathologist who, throughout her professional career, has maintained a private practice providing speech and language pathology services to individuals of all ages. She currently works for the Early Childhood Center at the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community where she is
involved in research, writing and training that encompasses topics such as helping all children get ready for school, the universal design of language and literacy instruction, and the use of behavior as communication. She also supports preschool and kindergarten-aged children in the Monroe County Community School Corporation.

Workshops:  All topics presented by the Early Childhood Center can be designed to meet your in-service needs. Topics can be presented as full- or half-day workshops.

Technical Assistance: We have recently been using two nationally validated classroom assessment measures to examine the quality of children's time in preschool and the quality of teacher-child interactions that children experience--the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) and the Emerging Academic Snapshot. We have used these tools to evaluate both individual classrooms and overall early education programs followed by more individualized inservice training. Talk to us about how we might bring these new resources to your program to improve the quality of your early learning environments.

How to Register

There are currently no workshops on this topic planned.