The challenge that I have selected for my Course Project is
on what constitutes school readiness and how the characteristics of literacy
skills contribute to the development of those school readiness skills.
Not all children have access to a quality
preschool program. Therefore, these children suffer from a lack of school
readiness, which in general just means being prepared for school. As a result
of the lack of school readiness skills these children have due to the
unavailability of preschool to them, then their literacy skills are not up to
par as well. Therefore, as educators having strong partnerships established
with families and throughout the community are essential keys to children’s
school readiness and literacy development.
I have selected this topic because the lack of school readiness skills is something that I am seeing more and more in children when they enter my Head Start classroom. A lot of the children who come to me have not acquired or learned some of the basic information that they should know such as their name, age, birthday, colors, shapes, etc. I have also noticed that the literacy skills of these children are rather low in regards to their phonemic awareness and vocabulary development.
My goal with my Course Project is to identify ways in which as educators we can tackle and revamp some of the literacy skills that are needed to help children to be school ready.
Ke'Andrea,
ReplyDeleteI find your challenge to be very meaningful to me, because in kindergarten I see plenty of children that come in not knowing many of these basic skills as well. As an educator, it is my responsibility to reach these students where they are and provide them with rigorous, differentiated instruction. My question(s) to you are:
How do you determine your students readiness levels?
What strategies do you implement to catch these students up?
How do you communicate this lack of basic skills to parents and get parents to "buy in" to what you are doing in the classroom?
Colese,
DeleteWith my job, we administer the Brigance Screening Assessment within 45 days of the children entering school to see where they are. Even though we are only supposed to administer it just that once, I make extra copies and administer it a second time during the year to see how much the students have improved. Also, areas that the children do not do well on, I will work one on one with them for a few minutes on the concepts that they need. I also send home a weekly newsletter encouraging parents to help their children with these concepts.
Ke'Andrea,
ReplyDeleteSchool readiness remains a social justice issue as all children still do not have access to quality preschool. To be clear, you are looking at school readiness, with literacy skills being a component of readiness. My question is "how do you 'revamp' these skills?" Are you thinking about engaging parents in this effort?
Ke'Andrea,
ReplyDeleteSchool readiness remains a social justice issue as all children still do not have access to quality preschool. To be clear, you are looking at school readiness, with literacy skills being a component of readiness. My question is "how do you 'revamp' these skills?" Are you thinking about engaging parents in this effort?