Curriculum & Assessment Tools

Curriculum Resources

Creative Curriculum:

http://teachingstrategies.com/curriculum/

The Creative Curriculum for Preschool® is an award-winning curriculum for preschool success. The Creative Curriculum for Preschool is fully aligned with the Illinois Early Learning Standard. The Creative Curriculum for Preschool enables children to develop confidence, creativity, and lifelong critical thinking skills.

The Creative Curriculum for Preschool:

  • is based on 38 objectives for development and learning, which are fully aligned with the Illinois Early Learning Standard and presents knowledge-building volumes and daily practice resources in tandem, giving every educator the “what,” “why” and “how” of early childhood education.

  • offers daily opportunities to individualize instruction, helping teachers meet the needs of every type of learner.

  • addresses all the important areas of learning, from social-emotional and math to technology and the arts, and incorporates them throughout every part of every day.

  • offers daily, built-in opportunities for observation, helping teachers and administrators clearly see the strong relationship between curriculum and assessment.

  • offers complete support for working with English- and dual-language learners, including detailed guidance that helps to build teachers’ knowledge about best practices.

  • contains guidance for working with all learners, including advanced learners and children with disabilities.

Zaner- Bloser Handwriting Readiness:

https://www.zaner-bloser.com/handwriting

Zaner-Blozer is a research-based foundational literacy skill curriculum that delivers high-quality, developmentally appropriate handwriting instruction. Zaner-Blozer Handwriting is a complete program that:

  • uses academic language and modeling with fewer, more specific stroke descriptions than other programs.

  • teaches a vertical manuscript alphabet that approximates the letterforms most widely used in environmental print, unlike other programs’ alphabets, to better promote literacy development.

  • provides instruction and tips for directing whole- and small-group instruction and guided independent practice of handwriting readiness skills

  • meets the needs of all students by teaching in the correct developmental sequence and allowing for differentiation, based on learning style, language acquisition, and motor development.

  • contains a variety of age-appropriate pre-writing, alphabet, and numeral activities specifically designed to develop fine-motor skills, handwriting skills, and phonemic awareness

Second Step Social Emotional Curriculum:

htp:/t/www.cfchildren.org/second-step/early-learning

The Second Step Curriculum helps the youngest learners benefit more from preschool and be better prepared for kindergarten with self-regulation and executive-function skills that help them pay attention, remember directions, and control their behavior.

See enclosed page or visit this link:

http://www.cfchildren.org/Portals/1/SS_EL/EL_DOC/EL_Program_at-a-Glance_SS.pdf

Michael Heggerty:

http://www.literacyresourcesinc.com/about-the-curriculum/

All versions of the phonemic awareness curricula are researched- based and developed by Dr. Heggerty.  The daily lessons in all versions contain the same ten skills: Letter Naming, Rhyming, Onset Fluency, Blending, Identifying Final and/or Medial Sounds, Segmenting, Adding Phonemes, Deleting Phonemes, Substituting Phonemes, and Language Awareness. Each curriculum is intended to be completed with a whole class group. There is sufficient research which supports the premise that all students at all ages, regardless of abilities, can benefit from explicit instruction in phonemic awareness (See Shaywitz, 1999).

Assessment Tools

ESGI 

ESGI is a set of preschool assessments for progress monitoring the growth and development of children on the pathway to Kindergarten in the areas of pre-literacy and foundational math skills. 

Teaching Strategies Gold:

http://teachingstrategies.com/

Teaching Strategies Gold is a comprehensive assessment is based on the latest research, proven to be valid and reliable, and are fully aligned with the Common Core State Standards and the Illinois Early Learning Standards

Seesaw- digitial portfolios:

http://web.seesaw.me/learn-more/

Seesaw for Schools ties together portfolios created in individual classrooms so that students, parents, and administrators can access a comprehensive portfolio of student work. Portfolios are maintained for the entire time allow teachers to demonstrate student progress over time.