Education & Child Development

At RWCFS Head Start and Early Head Start we know that parents are their child’s first and life-long teachers. Our goal is to involve parents in all aspects of their child’s programming to prepare children for their next school experience and create life-long learners.


Head Start

Screening:

Parents will complete the Ages and Stages Questionnaire to help staff know what base-line skills their children are coming to school with.

Curriculum/Lesson Planning:

Using the researched-based Creative Curriculum as a foundation curriculum and adding other curricula; our Play 2 Learn approach   guides children in making props, problem solving and role play to connect what they are learning to the real world. This is a play-based approach with an emphasis on helping children learn self regulation and early literacy and language, math and science skills along with arts, social studies and technology.


Supplemental approaches being integrated include:

  • Research-based approaches discussed in “Tools of the Mind,” and based on research done by Lev Vygotsky.
  • Jolly Phonics
  • Conscious Discipline
  • Second Step
  • Handwriting Without Tears
  • I Am Moving I Am Learning
  • Delta Dental’s Cavity Free Kids oral health curriculum
  • Food Friends

Play 2 Learn will support mature play which produces the greatest gains:

Immature Play is characterized by:

Mature Play is characterized by:

  • Repeat the same actions over and over
  • Use objects realistically and are unable to use objects as symbols or representations of something else
  • Use little language
  • No roles or limited roles limited to one or two actions with realistic toys or objects
  • Do not coordinate actions – parallel play
  • Children cannot describe their play in advance of beginning action
  • Children argue over props and roles
  • Children are unable to sustain play for longer than 5-10 minutes
  • Children take new actions using new vocabulary
  • Children play roles incorporating specific character related actions and incorporating rules for actions
  • Children talk to one another throughout play
  • Children coordinate multiple roles and themes
  • Children combine actions,  and ideas
  • Children solve disputes and disagreements and invent and make new props instead of arguing over them
  • Children become immersed in play and will sustain roles for at least 45 minutes and play can continue the next day or over several days to thoroughly explore and expand a pretend scenario that also connects children to what they experience in their lives away from school

Assessment

All children make progress according to their abilities. Teaching Strategies Gold, an online assessment system will support teachers in individualizing for children, making changes to their classroom environment or teaching practices to pursue improving quality and outcomes.

Teaching Strategies Gold reports also provide a wealth of information that will, support supervisors with monitoring, for professional development training decisions and program design decisions.

Input from parents supports teachers in analyzing data about children’s baseline skills, developing individual child goals, and assessing progress.

RWCFS also utilizes the Infant Toddler Environmental Rating Scale (ITERS) and the Early Childhood Environmental Rating scale (ECERS) to assess classroom environments and the Classroom Scoring Assessment (CLASS) system that measures quality of child-teacher interactions in order to continually improve services and meet the needs of young children.


Early Head Start

Screening:

EHS also uses the Ages and Stages Questionnaire to understand children’s baseline skills.


Curriculum/Lesson Planning:

Home Based – Partners for a Healthy Baby serves as the foundation curriculum for our home visiting program. Parents and Family advocates develop lesson plans together that address both parent and children’s learning. All learning domains are addressed. Bi-monthly socialization experiences for home based families bring families together and offer fun and educational opportunities.

Center Based – The Parent Infant Toddler Program serves as the foundation approach for Early Head Start in our centers. This approach recognizes the importance of secure and consistent relationships between children and caregivers, parents and caregivers and parents and children. Quarterly ongoing trainings for staff in the PITC approach ensure this concept remains constant. Other resources and approaches including the Creative Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers support developmentally appropriate practices.


Assessment:

Early Head Start uses Teaching Strategies Gold for assessment and individualizing (see above).

Need EHS classroom pictures (children playing in centers or doing group) and pictures of activities going on on home visit(s)

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