The document outlines the philosophy and approach to early childhood education at the AS Early Childhood Education Center, which views children as innately curious learners best supported through collaborative learning communities. The center aims to ensure children's growth across all developmental domains in a safe, nurturing environment centered around families. Specific policies guide language usage, teaching styles, and the development of pre-k skills like phonological awareness.

1. Pre-K English 
Bronwen Morgan, Vania Silva, Anastasia Smirnova

2. Pre-K Culture
AS Early Childhood Education Center - Philosophy
 We believe that children are natural researchers who are innately
curious and intrinsically motivated to search for meaning by
wondering, exploring and interacting with the world around them and
engaging in relationships with others. We view children as authentic
and competent beings full of unique gifts and potential. They are
capable of constructing and representing their own understandings by
questioning and problem-solving, and through creative expression.
 We believe children learn best as part of a collaborative learning
community of families, peers and educators. We recognize that when
given the gifts of time to play, appropriate support and
challenges, and a provocative environment rich in materials and
possibilities, children can reach their full potential.
ASI Early Childhood Education Center Parent Handbook

3. Mission Head Start
 Ensures a safe, nurturing, fun and secure learning
environment.
 Provides experiences that support the continuum of
children’s growth and development, which includes
the physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive
development of each child.
 Family centered care.
San Francisco Head Start Student Intern Handbook

4. AS ECEC Pre K Rules
 Keep your body
safe.
 Keep your
friends safe.
 Keep your school
safe/clean.

5. Language Style
 Every school has
its own language.
 Important to ask
teachers and
observe what
language style is
used.

6. AS ECEC Language Style Examples
 Commands:
“Bring your body down,” rather than “Come down”.
 Lots of language surrounding expression
of feelings.
 Language around
projects/accomplishments.

7. Teaching Style
Guidance
based on philosophy of John Dewey
 When using guidance, teachers are firm when needed, but firm
and friendly, not firm and harsh.
 Teachers who use guidance do well to think of a child’s age in
terms of months rather than years. They understand that young
children are just beginning to learn difficult life skills that may take
a lifetime to master.
 A partnership between the teacher, the child, and the family is
necessary for guidance to be effective.
Teaching Young Children Vol 4 No 3

13. “Preschool children need a vault filled with
common words at the start of their journey
into language and literacy. That journey
begins when they learn the conventional
names of familiar objects, actions, and
attributes.”
Preschool Learning Foundations, Vol. 1

14. HOW DOES THE WAY ONE PRESENTS A
LINGUISTIC SIGNAL INFLUENCE THE
PROCESSING AND ACQUISITION OF
LANGUAGE?
What kinds of prosodic/gestural cues do you
use to help a child learn the meaning of a
word?

15. PROSODIC/GESTURAL CUES
• Reduced speaking rate
• Increased pause length
• Exaggerated stress
• Positioning of target word at beginning or
end of utterance
• Pointing
What do these cues do to support the learning
of new words?

16.  Reduce processing demands, ease constraints
in children with SLI in various ways
 Segmentation of auditory signal
 Increase amount of time child has to process
information
 Focus attention on new words
 May boost discovery of linguistic patterns
 May help with word memory

17. CUES COMP. NL PROD. NL COMP. SLI PROD. SLI
SPEAKING No effect No effect Accuracy Accuracy
RATE increases increases
with slowed with slowed
speaking speaking
rate rate
EMPHATIC Counter- No effect No effect Trend to
STRESS productive! more correct
Confusion production
regarding with
new info emphatic
stress
GESTURE Better with No effect Better with Effective for
accompanyin accompanyin a few
g gestures g gestures students

18. The amount of time children with SLI require
for sensory information processing is
orders of magnitude greater than that
required by NL children. Slowed speaking
rate seems to be generally effective.
BUT: Children respond to cues in very
different ways. They need to be tailored to
the needs of the individual.
When might cueing be counter-productive?

19.  In the WeismerHesketh study, NL children
were confused by emphatic stress, because it
contradicted their expectation of what the
important word in the sentence was.
 Dual processing of visual cues and auditory
information may detract from learning in
some children.

21.  Ellis Weismer, S.E.; Hesketh, L.J. (1993). The influence of prosodic and gestural cues on
novel word acquisition by children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech
and Hearing Research, 36, 1013-25.
 Kan, P. F., and Windsor, J. (2010).Word learning in children with primary language
impairment: A meta-analysis. Journal ofSpeech, Language, and Hearing Research,53:
739-756.
 Wallach, G.P. (2008). Language Intervention for School-Age Students. St. Louis, MO:
Mosby Elsevier
Preschool Learning Foundations, Vol. 1: a description of “the knowledge, skills, and
competencies that children typically attain at around 48 and 60 months of age when
they participate in a high-quality preschool program and with adequate support. “
 http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/psfoundations.asp
 http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/ -

23. LANGUAGE
 Listening and Speaking
1.0 Language use and conventions
2.0 Vocabulary
3.0 Grammar

24. LITERACY
 Reading
1.0 Concept about Print
2.0 Phonological Awareness
3.0 Alphabetics and Word/Print Recognition
4.0 Comprehension and Analysis of Age-
Appropriate Text
5.0 Literacy Interest and Response
 Writing
1.0 Writing Strategies

25. The vocabulary substrand is an important tool
for:
 accessing background knowledge,
 expressing ideas,
 acquiring new concepts.
Children with large vocabularies can acquire new words
more
easily, are more effective readers, and are more
proficient in
reading comprehension. Multiple experiences with
words
across a variety of contexts are critical for children’s
acquisition and extension of vocabulary.

26.  An important element of vocabulary
development is the attainment of an
increasing variety and specificity of accepted
words (words that are commonly used in the
children’s environment or community) for
objects, actions, and attributes used in both
real and symbolic contexts.

27. The vocabulary substrand includes three
interrelated foundations:
 age-appropriate vocabulary
 basic concepts
 vocabulary that describes relations between
objects

28. Vocabulary development also consists
of understanding and using accepted
words for categories of objects.
 At around 48 months of age, children
understand and use category names they
encounter frequently, such as toys, food,
clothes, or animals.
 As children near the age of 60 months,
their understanding and use of verbal
categories expands to ones they
encounter less often, such as reptiles,
vehicles, fruits, vegetables, and
furniture.

29.  Vocabulary undergoes rapid growth during
the preschool years. Vocabulary acquisition is
not merely adding new words in a serial
fashion to a static and established vocabulary
base. Learning new vocabulary is a more
complex process that involves altering and
refining the semantic representation of words
already in the children’s vocabulary base, as
well as relationship among them.

30.  Retrievalstrategies were designed to teach
the child to use the information that was
already known about target words (SLP
presented a series of retrieval cues related to
target words, such as the name of the
category-semantic cue and the sound the
word begins with- phonemic cue).

32.  McGregor, K.K., & Leonard, L.B. (1989).
Facilitating Word-Finding Skills of Language-
Impaired Children. Journal of Speech and
Hearing Disorders, 54, 141-147.
 http://www.lessonplanspage.com

34. “Phonological awareness is an important area
of early and later reading instruction”.
- California Department of Education,
2008.

35.  Unlike the foundations for all the other
substrands, those for phonological awareness
are written only for children between four and
five years of age (California Department of
Education, 2008).
 Kamhi states that “the perception and
manipulation of individual phonemes is an
abstract and difficult task, especially for
younger children and children with language
disorders” (as cited in Wallach, 2008, p. 112).

36. Preschoolers’ development of phonological
awareness depends to a great extent on the
amount and kind of support provided by the
teacher (California Department of
Education, 2008).
◦ Use of pictures, props, objects

37. What is phoneme awareness?
 One component of phonological awareness
 The latest component of phonological
awareness to be acquired, and the
component most closely related to early word
decoding and reading achievement.
 Requires the skill of isolating and
manipulating individual sounds

40. California Department of Education (2008). Preschool
learning foundations. Volume 1.
Schuele, C. M. and Boudreau, D. (2008). Phonological
awareness intervention: Beyond the basics. Language
Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 39(1), 3-20.
van Kleeck, A., Gillam, R. B., and McFadden, T. U. (1998). A
study of Classroom-Based phonological awareness
training for preschoolers with speech and/or language
disorders. Amrican Journal of Speech Language Pathology,
7(3), 65-76.
Wallach, G.P. (2008). Language Intervention for School-Age
Students. St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier