It is the philosophy of our Early Childhood Education Department that School Readiness Goals are now and always have been an integral part of our program’s daily operations. It is our belief that the way to prepare a child for school entry is to first look at the whole child. We also believe that a child will not be as well prepared unless we enlist the cooperation of the child’s family. This is done with the understanding that until a child feels safe and secure and is in good health these objectives will be difficult to meet.
Our program provides a strong educational foundation that promotes school readiness by focusing on the Head Start Child Development and Early Learning Framework. This foundation includes the essential domains of cognition and general knowledge, physical health and development, social and emotional development, language and literacy and approaches to learning. We consider a child’s social emotional growth extremely important as well. The way in which we reach these goals is to individualize our activities for each child. Our staff incorporates the child’s interests, input from the family and information gained from assessing children when developing Individual School Readiness Plans. The information that has been gathered is then used for daily lesson planning.
Our classroom environment is also specifically set up to enhance school readiness goals. Our classrooms are print and literacy rich. We provide numeracy and other mathematical activities throughout the entire day. Opportunities to investigate the world, problem solve, create and be physically active are also part of each day’s routine.
Early Head Start Home visits are designed to incorporate these same principals in the family’s home environment with special emphasis on emotional security and trust. The role of the home visitor is to facilitate the education of the family as the child’s first teacher.
We believe children who are given all of these tools, feel secure in their environment and have families that are involved and informed are well on their way to a successful educational experience.