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DK Curriculum training starting
August 9th and 10th.
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What does School Readiness look like?
School Readiness is defined as “the ability to cope, learn, and achieve without undue stress.”
Memorizing a list of facts is not the same as having the developmental processing skills and maturation needed for success in school.
School Readiness and intellectual capacity (I.Q.)
do not necessarily correlate.
Each child is a unique human being who grows and develops at his/her own individual rate.
The decision as to when a child should enter the school system, either public or private, is one of the most important decisions a parent must make.
More insight to school readiness
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Many states and schools have an age requirement for school entrance that says a child must be five years of age on or before a specific date. Most states and private schools use a date that falls between June 1 and September 1. Recent legislation has changed California’s cut-off date to September 1. Many states, including California, have started to legislate performance standards for each grade level including Kindergarten, and have adopted the new Common Core Curriculum.
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Along with these standards, the elimination of social promotion has been legislated. Research has indicated that a child who has not begun reading by First Grade becomes at risk for learning at grade-level standards. There has also been new research about the importance of early intervention for children demonstrating delays in their processing skills. The observations of young children by their parents and extended caregivers become critical in helping to make decisions about the proper school setting and age at which to begin the formal learning process. Different types of curriculum and delivery require certain maturation levels in processing skills, attending maturity, and social-emotional maturity.
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Parents must be aware of the demands of the kindergarten curriculum in the school setting their child will be attending. Questions as to the expectations of reading, writing, and staying self-directed at a task are important. Class size is also essential to know, as all schools do not have a 20 to 1 ratio at the Kindergarten level. In reviewing the content standards for the State of California and also reviewing curriculum demands from many of the private schools in the United States.
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Chancy and Bruce has found that a child should be developmentally at the 5 1/2 years of developmental age (regardless of their chronological age) to be successful in school and to begin the reading process no later than first grade. Many schools expect reading to begin by the end of Kindergarten. Children who are demonstrating delays in their processing skills are best supported with appropriate intervention strategies. Developmentally young children do best in school when they are allowed to develop and mature in a setting that does not put undue stress on them.
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It is recognized that children grow at different stages and are on different developmental timetables, making the need for parent education in school readiness critical. Chancy and Bruce has assessed hundreds of thousands of students since 1982 and does longitudinal studies following children from Kindergarten through High School and four years post-high school.
How Children Learn
Children learn from choosing -to achieve a reliable sense of right and wrong.
Children must make choices.
Children learn from seeing, touching, and experiencing - to interpret reality, children must experience their surroundings through imagination and discovery.
Children learn from playing -
to enliven and integrate real and imaginary experiences, children participate in the process of play.
Rooted in the experiences of early childhood are the values that individuals will carve for themselves in later years, their capacity to live according to these values, and their attitudes toward themselves and the human community.
Children need unhurried periods to explore and experiment with objects, toys, and materials. To understand and affirm a true idea of freedom, children must have the security of loving, thoughtful, and appropriate restrictions.
9 Points To Understanding The Brain
Over the past two decades, research in neuroscience and related areas has provided significant new knowledge about the human brain and how it works.
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The average newborn brain weighs a mere 330 grams at birth. By the age of 2, brain weight will triple, and by the age of seven, its approximately 1,250 grams will represent 90% of adult weight.
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Parents are the first and most important teachers in their child's life. Staying involved and providing children with a supportive, nurturing environment will help to strengthen the learning process.
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Although there are optimal times for learning certain tasks, most "windows of opportunity" never close completely. However, when it appears that there is a delay in the learning pathways, early intervention is the key to future learning success.
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It is important that brain regions go through a process called myelination. Before this process is complete, there is evidence that the regions of the brain will not operate efficiently. According to Dr. Jane Healy, "trying to make children master academic skills for which they do not have the requisite maturation may result in mixed-up patterns for learning.
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The brain needs to be stimulated and challenged; however, activities and curriculum need to be considered in terms of what is "brain appropriate" or developmentally appropriate for this age level. No one knows if we can make "maturation" happen, but we know that impoverished environments and inadequate protein intake may stunt the brain's development.
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Studies indicate that being actively involved in the environment and socializing in the environment will stimulate growing brains in an appropriate way. An activity that engages interest and imagination and sparks the desire to seek out an answer, ponder a question, or create a response helps to enrich the brain's growing power.
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Children hurried from one activity to another may get a lot of sensory input but will be short-changed on the time-consuming process of forming association networks to understand and organize experiences meaningfully.
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Genes may set the outline of mental ability, but how children use their brains determines how their intelligence is expressed.
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Language helps to shape the brain, and teaching children to speak, according to Dr. Jerome Bruner, helps them not only organize words in a sentence but also helps organize their minds. Children need many types of language experiences, including being read with and conversation. Storytelling, nursery rhymes, and play-acting all enrich the language experience. Spending time with oral language activities is critical for a strong foundation in reading and spelling.
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Academic Component.
As schools introduce more academic rigor at younger ages, Chancy and Bruce is proud to announce the additional 10th pathway which assesses students in basic academic abilities. This pathway is just one slice of the entire process and helpful in determining school readiness.