I have been following the Zero to Three website: http://www.zerotothree.org/
As I reviewed the the website this week I clicked on the Head Start Link and it took me to the Early Head Start National Resource Center. On this site it provided webinars on: Effective Child Care & Early Head Start Collaborations that promote high quality comprehensive care; web events for new EHS programs; Newsletter; EHS program staff Listerv to connect with other EHS located across the country; Training/Materials; News and media releases; Online lessons; Media Guide; and the website is provided in Spanish as well. There are also audio conferences and web casts.
On this site their were so information related to what we are reviewing at this time.
One article discussed bringing in home cultures and the best way to do this is through home visits to get to know the families and their culture. The teachers need to find different ways to be reflective and respectful of the families cultures; they can hang pictures; paintings, piece of fabric, stories and so forth.
However, what I really enjoyed reading about was the cultural responsiveness and dual language education project (CRADLE).
The CRADLE project goal is to assist EHS programs in deepening their relationship with parents and young children in the area of language acquisition in order to give the children the foundational support required for future success.
During the program training participating teams learned about current applicable theory in dual/second language acquisition and they participated in activities that helped the team apply their theory approach. They explored ways in which infants.toddlers learn and how dual language is acquired during infancy/toddler period. Last, they attended training that developed action plans to include parent involvement, staff development, and program/communication activities and through all of this the teams monitored their own program goals and progress. I thought this program was very interesting and is very beneficial to the EHS programs. I am interested in reading more about it and to see how well it is doing in certain programs.
I have learned that dual/second language is growing so fast and as professional we need to stay up to date on these changes and do our best to provide these children with the best education possible.
Britanie, when I first look at your blog and saw the word "cradle" I thought about a baby crib :-), but after reading I realized what CRADLE really meant. CRADLE is a Cultural Responsiveness and Dual Language Education project. It's a team leader that work with staff and support the home language and culture of children and families. Very interesting to read!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSound like the zero to three site has tons of information. It would be interesting to see how the CRADLE project impacts children's language skills before entering a formal ELL program in kindergarten.
ReplyDeleteVery informational posting, Britanie. CRADLE project sounds like an excellent strategy to promote dual language by encouraging preserving native language and develop excellent English. Our country is facing rapid growth in bilinigual and perhaps even multi-lingiual. It is essential to have a program such like CRADLE and ELL.
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