A core component of a high-quality early education experience is that children are provided opportunities, experiences, and materials that allow them to engage deeply within developmental/early learning domains to build their school readiness skills. Virginia's Early Learning and Development Standards, Birth-Five Learning Guidelines articulate the skills and knowledge young children need to demonstrate by the end of preschool in order to be successful in kindergarten. Using effective curricula helps ensure that children are afforded the opportunities, activities and interactions within the classroom that support their learning and development of critical school readiness skills.
Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI)
The Virginia Preschool Initiative distributes state funds to schools and community-based organizations to provide quality preschool programs for at-risk four-year-olds unserved by the federal Head Start program. The purpose of the grant is to reduce disparities among young children upon formal school entry and to reduce or eliminate those risk factors that lead to early academic failure.
Head Start - New River Valley Community Action
Head Start is a federally-funded preschool program which offers comprehensive developmental services to children 3-5 years of age. Children with special needs comprise at least ten percent of the enrollment. The primary components of Head Start are education, social services, preventative health and nutrition. The program focuses on the entire family, and includes parent involvement as a fundamental part of Head Start.
Early Childhood Special Education Services
The long-term goal for preschool-aged children is for them to be as ready as possible to enter kindergarten. Preschool-aged children with a disability may be eligible for Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) services. Preschool-aged children from age two (whose birthday falls on or before September 30) through five with a disability may be eligible for Early Childhood Special Education services.
Heggerty
Heggerty is a Phonemic Awareness Curriculum that provides daily explicit and systematic phonological and phonemic awareness lessons with teacher modeling. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made up of individual sounds (phonemes). A child who is phonemically aware is able to isolate sounds, manipulate sounds, blend and segment the sounds into spoken and written words. Heggerty lessons are oral and auditory.
Creative Curriculum
The Creative Curriculum® for Preschool, Guided Edition is comprehensive, research-based curriculum that features inquiry, exploration, and discovery as the foundation of all learning. As a content-rich, developmentally appropriate curriculum, it delivers academic rigor alongside social-emotional learning and cognitive development. And, it brings meaningful interactions and learning to life in your child's classroom.
Al's Pals
The Al's Pals program is a social skills building program. It includes puppets, songs, and group names that teach children to: express feeling appropriately, use kind words, care about others, use self-control, think flexibly, accept differences, make friends, solve problems peacefully, cope in positive ways, make safe and healthy choices.
Reading Log-Make reading aloud part of your daily routine and complete the Weekly Reading Log and return to school.
School Readiness Activities-You are your child's first and most important teacher. As you work and play with your child, you are teaching them. Complete the weekly Homework for School Readiness activities.
Seesaw-Join your child's classroom account to received classroom and school announcements and stay connected and engaged in your child's learning.
Open House and Parent Teacher Conferences-Attend these important meetings to stay engaged in all your child is learning and doing.
End of Learning Celebrations (volunteer)
Attendance-Children need to attend preschool each day except in the case of illness or family emergency. Tardiness and early check-outs are interruptions to the instructional program and are discouraged.
Healthy Home Routines