We have an ambitious pre-k program that prepares the kids for kindergarten both socially and academically. Through having a 5-day program the kids will be reading and writing confidentally by the end of the year. In having no more than 12 kids per class the children get the individual attention they need to progress academically, but we also get our two pre-k classes together for fun activities where they learn to be in the larger social groups that they will experience in Kindergarten.
Our curriculum covers and exceeds both the Kindergarten Individual Screening/Skills Test (KIST) assessment taken by every child before entry to kindergarten in the Chandler Unified School District (CUSD), and the DIBELS assessments used by CUSD during the Kindergarten and elementary years.
We have developed an integrated reading and writing program, founded upon current research guidance and best practices, that provides the kids with the tools and confidence to progress rapidly. For example, prior to teaching reading the kids will lean how to split words up into their constituent sounds (phoneme segmentation), and to blend letter sounds together to form words. Learning through fun is also part of our approach – the kids love playing hangman using words or sentences taken from their reading books. We teach Zaner-Bloser (ball and stick) handwriting, the same as taught by CUSD schools.
Kids learn more than counting and simple arithmetic, including learning about money, telling the time, tallying, graphing, and measuring – for example, the kids get to determine how big their classrooms are by laying themselves out end-to-end. We introduce kids to techniques they will learn about in Kindergarten, such as number bonds (how many different ways to make a number), part of the common core standards. Not only do the kids conduct a hands-on science experiment every week, in our pre-k classes they will learn about the steps scientists take to advance hypotheses – and that failure is part of the process!
