How to Help Your Children Learn

Strategies for Successful Learning

This is the third and final installment in a three-part series that looks at the learning process. Previous features included “Part One: Create a Safe and Nurturing Environment” and “Part Two: Enable Children to Lead Lessons.”

Part Three: Monitoring Your Child’s Progress

During each stage of your child’s development, our teachers closely follow his or her progress in key areas such as cognitive development, language development, social and emotional development, large and small muscle development. We assess whether your child is already demonstrating comprehension and ability in these areas, whether certain skills are still emerging, and what your child is ready to learn next.

For the past few years, we’ve also been working with the Galileo online preschool assessment tool, developed by Assessment Technology, Inc., to evaluate the progress of thousands of children enrolled in our Pre-K classrooms from the beginning of the school year to the end. The information collected from these assessments is used to enhance our curriculum, as well as demonstrate to our families that our children are learning at our schools. This allows us to evaluate our image as the premiere preschool provider in the markets we serve.

The results from these studies show that children enrolled in our schools are making substantial gains in their learning and development, and have the educational skills needed for a successful transition into kindergarten. The data indicates a substantial magnitude of gains in early math, language and literacy for children in this group.

The study also enables teachers – and parents – to track the progress of individual children throughout the school year. Reports can show all of the capabilities that a child is ready to learn next. Working with teachers, parents are able to take advantage of home activities specifically designed to support their child’s learning, and that are based on their child’s individual development. In addition, we find that sharing such knowledge with families helps gives them developmentally appropriate expectations of their children. At La Petite Academy, we realize the importance of forming partnerships between teachers and families to support children’s learning and development.

For more information, visit: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/52483-learning-care-group-literacy-winter-enrollment/