Early Childhood Division September 2005

Dear Early Childhood Parents,

We welcome all of you to our Saklan community. It has been a pleasure getting to meet and talk with all of our new and returning families. As director of our Early Childhood Education division here at Saklan, I wanted you to know that we believe that communication is one of the key factors in maintaining high quality programs. All of our teachers are available to meet with you and welcome your ideas, dialogue, and feedback throughout the year.

 

I also invite you to come and talk with me anytime. I am here Mondays through Fridays from 7:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. approximately. My e-mail address is blederman@saklan.org, and I can be reached by phone at (925) 376-9576. Your feedback is important and always welcome.

 I have attached a, “Help Me Get To Know Your Child Better” handout that we would like you to fill out and turn back in to your child’s’ teacher early next week. It should take only a few minutes, and your children can take an active part of helping you with this.

Though many of you are familiar with our curriculum, I would like to share with you more in-depth how our High-Scope, Child –Centered program is set up.

The High / Scope program is based on the theory that children need active involvement with people, materials, ideas, and events. It is a curriculum of "shared control" in which adults and children learn together.

 

Like Montessori, the core belief is that children learn best by pursuing their personal goals and interests. In High / Scope, however, children are encouraged to make their own choices about materials and activities — teachers are trained to support this independence and decision-making. The High / Scope approach is newer than the Montessori approach but has four decades of research proving its effectiveness in promoting children's development.

In the classroom
The High / Scope curriculum identifies 58 key experiences preschool children should have. The experiences are grouped into ten categories:

• Creative representation — Imitation, recognition, role playing

• Language and literacy — talking, describing, scribbling, dictating stories

• Initiative and social relations — making choices, problem-solving, relationship-building

• Movement — bending, running, dancing

• Music — singing, playing instruments

• Classification — describing shapes, sorting, matching

• Seriation — arranging things in order

• Numbers — Counting

• Space — Filling, emptying

• Time — Starting, stopping, sequencing

Learning centers are carefully arranged throughout the classroom that offer a wide series of opportunities in which children can feel empowered by making their own selection of choices. Computers are often a regular part of the High / Scope program; teachers select developmentally appropriate software for children to use when they want to.

The High / Scope program is a good fit for any child who needs individual attention. Today it is more widely used in a variety of preschool settings. I have had the chance to actively participate and view how our Early Childhood children transition into our Kindergarten and Elementary/Middle school during the past several years. It has been a joy to watch how smooth this move has been for them. Two years ago, as I attended Saklan’s 8th grade graduation ceremony, I was honored to see my past preschooler, who was now class president, graduate and get in Athenian, her first choice of high schools.

Sincerely,

Ben Lederman

Director of Early Childhood Education