Six Steps to Inclusive Preschool Curriculum

Eva M. Horn, Susan B. Palmer, Gretchen D. Butera, Joan A. Lieber

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781598578027
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

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How can inclusive early educators plan and deliver challenging instructions to help all young learners succeed in kindergarten? This guide has authoritative answers from some of today's most renowned names in early childhood education. Presenting the Children's School Success+ (CSS+) framework, for building a UDL-based plan for inclusive preschool instruction, this book is a powerful tool for using your existing curriculum to address each child's unique learning needs. Through practical, evidence-based strategies and guidelines, you'll discover how to equalize access to curriculum content while giving learners multiple ways to access and possess new knowledge. Keep this resource at your fingertips to guide your curriculum and instruction—so all young children have the skills they need to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.

LEARN HOW TO

• Identify a developmentally appropriate scope and sequence for your students' learning objectives
• Ensure a coherent, engaging curriculum that continuously builds on the knowledge and skills your students acquire
• Develop UDL-based activity plans that support every child's learning
• Use differentiation and individualization strategies for students who need extra supports
• Select and implement successful progress monitoring strategies
• Improve your teaching through a continuous loop of planning, instruction, and monitoring
• Work and play well with your colleagues
• Engage in partnership with families to support their children's success

PRACTICAL MATERIALS: You'll get a wealth of downloadable online resources for implementing the framework, plus specific tips and strategies on addressing key topics such as behavior, classroom organization, and collaboration with families. You'll also see the framework in action, with recurring vignettes in diverse early childhood settings, including a public preschool, a Head Start classroom, and an early childhood special education classroom.

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SECTION I

Laying the Foundation

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

EVA M. HORN, SUSAN B. PALMER, GRETCHEN D. BUTERA, AND JOAN A. LIEBER

Six Steps to Inclusive Preschool Curriculum: A UDL-Based Framework for Children’s School Success describes an evidence-based curriculum framework that early educators can use to organize curriculum support for young children with and without disabilities in early childhood classrooms. This book is a natural extension of the work of the book’s and foreword’s authors and contributors, who have participated in multiple research projects within early childhood—particularly related to early childhood curriculum and early childhood special education (ECSE) services provided in classrooms within Head Start, publicly funded early childhood, ECSE with peer models, and community-based preschool programs. A more complete description of the evidence supporting the framework is provided in this chapter’s final section about research efficacy.

The book is primarily written to address the needs of the following two audiences. First, early educators such as those previously noted or in similar early childhood education or care settings will find this book useful in their curriculum planning, implementation, and progress monitoring efforts. Second, faculty in early childhood educator preparation programs, including ECSE, as well as professional development providers will find the book useful as they prepare and support early educators to teach all young children.

The purpose of this book is to describe the Children’s School Success Plus (CSS+) Curriculum framework for early childhood educators as a guide to plan and deliver instruction for all young children they serve. Too often, children with disabilities are less likely to be provided with the same high-quality curriculum as children without disabilities. The CSS+ Curriculum framework, however, offers guidance to provide equal access to interesting and integrated academic and social curriculum content while simultaneously addressing children’s unique learning needs. Strategies for providing challenging and universally designed curriculum content, differentiation through curricular modifications, individualization, and child progress monitoring procedures are provided.

Readers of this book will recognize many curricular elements, domains, and techniques for instruction discussed in early childhood education and ECSE, but the CSS+ Curriculum framework draws all of these together along with additional supports and strategies to include all children. Early educators can use the CSS+ Curriculum framework to embed expected outcomes as framed by local, state, or national early learning standards within any selected curricular content. Educators can use favorite themes or program-selected topics while integrating curricular domains with this evidence-based structure to support high-quality, effective instruction for all children, including children at risk for or identified with a developmental delay or disability.

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

A number of important concepts related to the CSS+ Curriculum framework will be referred to throughout the book. The following section briefly describes the concepts to provide context for how they are used throughout this book.

Including All Children

Inclusion is the term most often used to express the belief of including all children and the underlying philosophy that all children and their families have a right to opportunities to learn and a sense of belonging. Inclusion for young children has been defined in a joint position statement by the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) and National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC):

Early childhood inclusion embodies the values, policies, and practices that support the right of every infant and young child and his or her family, regardless of ability, to participate in a broad range of activities and context as full members of families, communities, and society. The desired results of inclusive experiences for children with and without disabilities and their families include a sense of belonging and membership, positive social relationships and friendships, and development and learning to reach their full potential. The defining features of inclusion that can be used to identify high quality early childhood programs and services are access, participation, and supports. (2009, p. 1)

We embrace this definition as well as the idea that adults must hold high expectations for each child to reach his or her full potential in order for inclusive services to achieve the desired results. Having high expectations means that professionals strive to support children with developmental delays or disabilities to engage in learning challenging curriculum content within the general education classroom, as opposed to assuming children cannot learn particular concepts because of disability or a delay in development. How does one determine the full potential of a child, and could this notion of full potential in the DEC/NAEYC (2009) definition limit high expectations? Teachers of young children must make it a point to regularly reflect on their philosophy and beliefs about teaching and learning. They should use their knowledge of child development to carefully observe children during various activities. Using this reflection and observation, instruction should be thoughtfully planned to support children’s learning. Teachers must hold high expectations for all children.

The phrase “access to the general curriculum,” which is used in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 (PL 108-446) to explain that each child should engage with and have access to the same instruction, activities, and experiences as all children; enjoy equal participation; and have the support to do so, if needed, is a simple way to describe inclusive services. Including every child in learning challenging curriculum content, having high expectations for all children, and providing the supports and instruction needed to achieve valuable learning outcomes are ways to ensure that all children have equal opportunities to gain access to what all young children experience.

Active Child Engagement

Preschool children are active, self-motivated learners who learn best from personalized, hands-on, real-world activities with opportunities to acquire knowledge and practice skills in a meaningful context. Vitiello, Booren, Downer, and Williford noted,

A child’s ability to get the most out of his or her classroom experiences, by engaging actively and positively with teachers, peers, and tasks and limiting negative or conflictual engagement, may maximize that child’s opportunities to learn and develop within the classroom. (2012, p. 211)

Young children construct knowledge by participating with others in activities that encourage choice making, experimenting, problem solving, and reflecting.

Integrated Curricular Content

Curriculum that presents information in a coherent and integrated format facilitates children’s learning. Children are more likely to understand concepts and make connections across content domains when curricular elements are integrated. Children are less likely to make sense of their experiences and may quickly forget what they learn when teachers provide fragmented, one-topic instructional content rather than connecting domains to increase meaning and possible generalization (NAEYC, 2009). According to Schickedanz (2008), “Increasing the integration of learning within multiple content domains and various instructional contexts can help us better manage our time and make our instruction more powerful—and learning more meaningful—for children” (p. 1).

Intentional Teaching

Intentional teachers teach with specific goals in mind for academic and social outcomes related to children’s development and learning (Epstein, 2014). An intentional teacher acts purposefully to infuse learning objectives, strategies, and plans into a carefully designed learning environment established for a particular learning activity. Opportunities for child-initiated activities are provided, but they are still guided by adults. Adult-guided activities, however, are designed to facilitate child engagement and choice. Intentional teachers frequently use both child-initiated and adult-directed interaction to set the stage for learning. Preschool children learn best with a blend of adult-directed and child-initiated activities, sensitive and warm interactions, and responsive feedback.

Collaboration

Collaboration is more than individuals working together. It is the process through which individuals with different areas of expertise, knowledge, experiences, and perspectives meet together as a team on a consistent basis. Specifically, the team comes together for the purpose of sharing information, identifying individual children who may need more support in accomplishing their learning goals, developing strategies to solve the problems or concerns, and reflecting on the results of their efforts. The following factors must be in place for effective collaboration to occur—sufficient time to meet, respect for all members’ contributions, trust, and effective communication.

Family as Partners

Recognizing the child’s family as the first and most important teacher in the lives of children is a central assumption that must be in place for any program that supports young children’s development and learning. Thus, ongoing family involvement in the program and developing partnerships with families is a critical aspect of high-quality care and educational programming in preschool (Horn & Kang, 2012). Family–professional partnerships lead to benefits for the child, the family, and the professionals. That is, the child benefits from bringing together multiple perspectives and resources, and the partners (families and professionals) benefit from the availability of multiple perspectives and resources for solving problems and providing for effective learning opportunities (Turnbull, Turnbull, Erwin, Soodak, & Shogren, 2015).

INTRODUCING THE EARLY EDUCATORS

The stories of four early educators and the children and families they serve enrich the presentation of the CSS+ Curriculum framework and are intended to support the reader’s understanding of how implementation can look within the real world of practice. The following terms will be used throughout the book to provide clarity about the role of each of the early childhood educators.

• Teacher refers to the educator who takes primary responsibility for planning the curriculum in a particular classroom.

• Assistant teacher refers to the educator who works alongside the teacher to provide instruction and support to all children in the classroom.

• Itinerant ECSE teacher refers to the educator who consults with the teacher about children with disabilities or who are at risk for developing a disability in programs such as Head Start, publicly funded preschool programs, and community-based child care programs.

• Related services providers refers t...