|
|
FAIRFIELD KINDERGARTEN CENTER PROGRAMS
|
On this page you will find...
|
| A. Behavior - Responsive Classroom, Character Education, Bus Safety |
| B. Academic - LIPS, DIBELS, ESL |
| C. Other - Preschool Information |
|
| BEHAVIOR |
Responsive Classroom
The Responsive Classroom® is an approach to teaching
and learning that fosters safe, challenging, and joyful
classrooms and schools, kindergarten through eighth grade.
Developed by classroom teachers, it consists of practical
strategies for bringing together social and academic learning
throughout the school day.
Since 1981, thousands of classroom teachers and hundreds
of schools and school districts have used the Responsive
Classroom® approach to help create learning environments
where children thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.
In urban, rural, and suburban settings nationwide, educators
using these strategies report increases in student investment,
responsibility, and learning, and decreases in problem
behaviors.
The Responsive Classroom® approach is informed by the
work of many great educational theorists as well as the
experiences of exemplary classroom teachers. There are
seven basic principles underlying this approach:
|
| The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum. |
| How children learn is as important as what they learn: process and content go hand in hand. |
| The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction. |
| There is a set of social skills children need in order to be successful academically and socially: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control. |
| Knowing
the children we teach–individually, culturally, and developmentally–is
as important as knowing the content we teach. |
| Knowing the families of the children we teach and inviting their participation is essential to children's education. |
| How the adults at school work together is as important as individual competence: Lasting change begins with the adult community. |
|
| CHARACTER EDUCATION |
| This year Fairfield Schools have teamed up with Joe Nuxhall and the Character Education Fund to energize our dedication to not only building academically strong students, but also well-rounded children as well. There are 9 character qualities we will be focusing on this year. |
|
| BUS SAFETY |
Bus safety is a very important issue at the Kindergarten Center. At the beginning of the year students are trained on proper bus behavior and how to stay safe entering and exiting the bus. Parents are encouraged to reinforce the five bus rules:
|
| Listen to the driver |
| Sit down |
| Take care of your hands |
| Use quiet voices |
| No eating on the bus |
|
| ACADEMIC |
ESL (English as a Second Language)
Our students who are just learning English work with tutors and assistants to help them become more fluent and successful. |
|
| LIPS PROGRAM |
Estimates indicate that 20-30% of the school population experience moderate to severe reading dysfunction. The primary factor in problems in the decoding aspect of reading or dyslexia has been documented to be a difficulty in segmenting phonemes within spoken syllables and words. The National Institute of Health has recognized that the lack of phonemic awareness is the primary cause of dyslexia.
In order to stimulate students’phonemic awareness
skills, two problems need to be addressed. The first
problem is making associations between letter name, letter
form, and speech sound. These students have difficulty
remembering the names of letters, remembering how letters
are written, and remembering what sound a particular
letter represents. The second problem is integrating
sensory information. LiPS integrates visual, auditory,
and oral-motor (kinesthetic) feedback. This allows the
sensory integration of hearing, seeing, and feeling.
The LiPS Program is based on the coordination of auditory
elements of speech which are connected to the basic oral-motor
activity that produces the sounds. The program progresses
from sound in isolation, to sequences of sounds in pseudo
words, sequences of sounds in real words, to real words
in context, to reading for meaning.
The Lindamood Program develops phonemic awareness as a base for accurate reading and spelling. This program develops the ability to perceive and compare phonemes and sequence sounds in spoken syllables which is highly correlated with reading and spelling abilities.
Students are helped to discover the articulatory and motor
features of phonemes. Students are introduced to consonant
and vowel sounds. They learn to “track” sounds within the spech stream. Tracking directly stimulates the awareness of the identity, number, and order of phonemes in a syllable. It develops segmentation and blending as well as the ability to add, delete, substitute, and shift phonemes in a syllable or word. Students who can “track”phonemes
successfully in spoken syllables are then led to discover
the connection between this process and decoding and spelling.
Children move from simple to complex syllables to multi-syllable
levels.
Phonetic processing, sight words, vocabulary, and use of
context are necessary for competent paragraph decoding.
Some case studies of hyperlexic students who have phenomenal
decoding skills show that these same individuals exhibit
weak comprehension skills. These students can decode; however,
they do not get the main idea, draw conclusions, or make
inferences. What they are lacking is considered to be concept
imagery - which is the ability to form relevant connected
mental images. Lindamoods’Visualizing and Verbalizing
for Language Comprehension and Thinking Program addresses
this issue in the reading process. Visualizing and Verbalizing
develops the Gestalt - the recognition of comprehension
and the development of vocabulary in a categorical manner.
In summary, the LiPS program offers a multi-sensory, cognitive
based approach in increasing students’ phonological awareness skills, in teaching children phonemic processing skills, decoding, and encoding, and ultimately, in teaching children how to read and comprehend what they have read. All of the materials requested in this project will support students of grades K - 6, as well as our staff in reaching our school’s
main objective of having proficient readers. |
| (Directly from www.teacher.ops.org) |
|
| DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) |
The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy development. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of pre-reading and early reading skills.
The measures were developed upon the essential early literacy domains discussed in both the National Reading Panel (2000) and National Research Council (1998) reports to assess student development of phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding, and automaticity and fluency with the code. Each measure has been thoroughly researched and demonstrated to be reliable and valid indicators of early literacy development and predictive of later reading proficiency to aid in the early identification of students who are not progressing as expected. When used as recommended, the results can be used to evaluate individual student development as well as provide grade-level feedback toward validated instructional objectives. |
|
| OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST |
The Fairfield Preschool
The Fairfield Kindergarten center houses a preschool program for children with special needs. A child, who is three to five years old, can be eligible for the Preschool Program if the child is found to have a disability or delay by the psychologist from the family's school district.
Children undergo a screening to determine abilities in the following areas:
|
| Communication |
| Social/Emotional |
| Motor |
| Vision |
| Hearing |
| Adaptive (Self Help and Self Care) |
| Cognitive (Thinking and Learning Skills) |
The classes include activities that promote learning through exploration and interaction. Preschool programs are open to eligible children with developmental disabilities and children who are typically developing.
Preschool classes meet 2 1/2 hours a day Monday through Thursday located in public school districts around the county.
Call the Kindergarten Center if you have any questions about the preschool program.
|
Public Preschool
The Fairfield Kindergarten Center houses a head start program on its campus. Head Start and Early Head Start are comprehensive child development programs which serve children from birth to age 5, pregnant women, and their families. They are child-focused programs and have the overall goal of increasing the school readiness of young children in low-income families.
The Head Start program is administered by the Head Start Bureau, the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
Grants are awarded by the ACF Regional Offices and the Head Start Bureau's American Indian, Alaska Native and Migrant and Seasonal Program Branches directly to local public agencies, private organizations, Indian Tribes and school systems for the purpose of operating Head Start programs at the community level.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb
|
|
|
|
|
Upcoming Events
Key Dates
|
First Day of School - Thursday, Aug. 28
|
No School - Monday, Sept. 1 (Labor Day)
|
| |
Keep Fairfield Schools Safe!
Report any unsafe or threatening activity 24/7 by calling the "Speak Up" anonymous tip line...
513-896-8200
|
|
|
