Curriculum and Assessment

Our curriculum aligns with Kentucky Early Childhood Standards.

https://kyecac.ky.gov/professionals/Early-Childhood-Standards/Getting-Started/Pages/Start-Here.aspx

Pre-Kindergarten Everyday Mathematics is designed to be flexible enough to adapt to a wide range of preschool classrooms, including classrooms with mixed ages and classrooms with a wide range of developmental levels. Many activities include suggestions to help modify the activity to make it accessible and interesting to children with varying needs, learning styles, or levels of proficiency or understanding.

The Everyday Math Curriculum emphasizes the following content, skills and concepts:

• Number and Numeration: Verbal counting up to beyond 10; rational counting with one to one correspondence; number recognition
• Operations and Computation: Exploring the meaning of addition and subtraction; developing and using concrete strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems
• Data and Chance: Collecting and organizing data; creating and analyzing concrete and pictorial graphs  
• Measurement and Reference Frames: Distinguishing and describing size attributes; comparing length, weight, and capacity or volume; becoming familiar with nonstandard and measuring tools and their uses; sequencing familiar events in time
• Geometry: Exploring 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional shapes; recognizing and describing the position and location of objects

Direct Instruction, also called DI, is a scripted instructional program that has been found to be highly effective in teaching learners at all levels. This program has been researched and used in classrooms across the country for over 30 years. DI teaches in a highly structured, direct manner.  Students are grouped according to their instructional needs. 

In preschool, we use two different Direct Instruction programs, Reading Mastery and Language for Learning. During the preschool day, we spend 15 uninterrupted minutes daily working with these reading programs.

Reading Mastery teaches alphabet sounds that are eventually blended together to make words. Students learn the basics of phonics in a very intentional and direct approach.

Language for Learning develops vocabulary and language skills for children. It also focuses on complete sentences.

Second Step is a program rooted in social-emotional learning (SEL) that helps transform schools into supportive, successful learning environments uniquely equipped to encourage children to thrive. More than just a classroom curriculum, Second Step’s holistic approach helps create a more empathetic society by providing education professionals, families, and the larger community with tools to enable them to take an active role in the social-emotional growth and safety of today’s children. It’s a difference you can feel the moment you step through the doors to a Second Step school: a sense of safety and respect grounded in the social-emotional health and well-being of the entire school community.

Footsteps2Brilliance® is a transformative pre-K through 3rd grade literacy solution that utilizes mobile technology to connect school, home, and the community for academic success. Its innovative Mobile Technology Platform allows comprehensive literacy apps to be accessed online or offline from any mobile device (Apple or Android) or traditional computer. This enables school districts, for the first time ever, to leverage the mobile devices that parents already own to create Model Innovation Cities.

http://www.footsteps2brilliance.com/

Upon enrollment, all students are given the Dial-4 screener which looks at: Physical Development: Gross and Fine Motor Skills, Language Development: Receptive and Expressive Language Skills, Academic Skills/Cognitive Development: Literacy and Mathematics Skills, Adaptive Behavior: Daily Living Skills, and Social and Emotional Development: Interpersonal and Self-regulatory Skills

Preschool students are assessed throughout the school year with the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System (AEPS). Data is collected on an ongoing basis and used to determine what skills need to be targeted with individual students in the areas of Adaptive, Cognitive, Motor (Fine and Gross), Social, and Communication. All students will receive a progress report three times a year. Preschoolers, who have an Individual Education Plan (IEP), will receive the regular preschool progress report along with a progress report on their IEP goals and benchmarks.