Building a Professional Learning Community starts with initiatives such as interviewing professional colleagues in the field. The following individuals were part of an initial professional interview, and included a recent early childhood program director for an early learning center (0-5), and a state certified pre-primary early childhood teacher as participants of this interview.
The teacher expressed her most significant concern over the timeliness in which professionals integrate child assessment results in collaboration with Early Intervention Services, particularly because children age out of EI services at age 3, and it impedes the child's ability to receive the full benefit of intervention. Additionally, the child forfeits opportunities available to them during the critical zero-to-three window. The teacher said. "when children age out of these services, it makes it even more difficult to work within the bureaucracy of local school districts to gain the appropriate support services for them. The teacher seemed to be very passionate about the success of the child, and in helping to ensure that the child has the proper opportunities to grow and develop.
The director had several concerns, but her greatest concern centered on how extremely important it is for parents to understand that teaching begins at home, and that they are their child's first teacher, and it is critical for them to understand what implication this has on the overall academic results of the child. The Director said she continued to be concern over whether parents had the proper tools to act effectively as their child's first teacher -- particularly in the area of literacy, which she had been informed was the topic area of interest. She said "sometimes in economically oppressed areas, families have to learn how to break the cycles of the past, and this requires them to have the right tools and forums."
Both the teacher and the director both expressed how the knowledge of the classroom teacher, and continued professional development plays a critical role in establishing instructional and classroom management strategies that support the development of early literacy.
The teacher felt that sometimes administrator's views are very different from their own, especially if they are of the an older regime of educators. The teacher felt that in many cases creativity is stifled because some administrators insist on teaching based on older methodologies that research now shows is not effective, and discourage newer teacher's attempts to embrace the things they have learned in their degree programs.
Thank you so much for sharing! I personally have experience struggle with this “gap” between EI and public school preschool in the daycare setting that I currently work. I feel as though the specific child is lost in the system, meaning he needs more than just a half day 3 hour preschool program. The therapy that this child received during his EI was critical to his development and it literally just stopped on his third birthday. This has been very challenging for the daycare preschool teacher because in an environment where children have more freedom he is really struggling. The teacher does not have the education or man power to teach and support the child optimally. Anyway I think this is a great research paper topic and I can’t wait to hear more about your advocacy plan and what we can do to change this gap.
ReplyDeleteI have seen a lot of that when teachers that have been in the field for so long they are just stuck in the old way of teaching. They prefer you to stick with their teaching strategy that they have been using for so many years when their teaching strategies has been known now to be not effective like you say. I tend to challenge teachers like this and it seems to get under their skin especially when you have use a newer teaching style or method that is more current that tend to wonder. And yes they tend to discourage new teachers because they are becoming more extinct with their teachings but refuse to take time to get more current knowledge on how things are starting to operate now.
ReplyDeleteSherryl
ReplyDeleteTimeliness with the assessment process to support is my biggest pet peeve, especially with Response to Intervention. It seems as though RTI has taken the place of 'urgency' to give services, especially for the little ones, as soon as possible. In my school if you don't have mounds of documentation, with statistics and charts our psychologist refuses to test. We need to give support to these struggling kids and early intervention ASAP.
Sherrell,
ReplyDeleteI didn’t discuss how her referrals worked with her assessments but I do know that she does talk to the Birth to Three staff often so I m sure they discuss the children she refers. They work as a team and she attends meetings three times a year that involves all EC staff from the community. They discuss children, families, and what going on in programs, a lot of sharing goes on at these meetings. Teachers do there best to make the parents feel comfortable about the process of EI when needed and also about the next step. Some families are very proud and it’s not always easy for them to allow you in, they feel like they are being judge or that if their child has a problem then it might be their fault.
I like your comment about children not all developing at the same rates, some three olds may not do a lot of talking , but around five may be right were they need to be. But I do feel it’s better to intervene when a delay is noticed rather then wait for the child to catch up. Some children will develop later that’s true, but to give children the best start we need to use a predetermined set of milestones and development. The way that Montessori schools track progress by observation is great, observation is the first way teachers notice when children are on task or might be a behind. The Pre-K in my area are not giving children IEP even though they EI has been involved with them? We give them serves and then take them away when they go to Pre-k, and use what they call RTI (response to intervention) to monitor them , not so sure I agree with that for children who are clearly in need of extra serves. I believe any experienced preschool teacher knows if a child needs the services or not, but its usually up to other school officials if they get the services. This would be a great thing to advocate for. Parents often don’t understand or know what their rights are unless they are told, often they are giving a brochure that explains them, but its not that user friendly and really should be explained. I been through the IEP process myself with my son and I know that if I was told what my son rights were I would have made different decisions, once I got a parent advocate and she explained what they process was I was able to do so with her help.