Education

At home and in the classroom, Head Start/Early Head Start offers a culturally sensitive program designed to meet each child's individual needs and interests. Children participate in hands-on activities designed for their skill level, insuring each child experiences success and thus develops a love for learning. Children in the program will actively explore problems, learn to plan, make choices, and follow through on decisions. This active style of education has many benefits, including improving a child's memory and reasoning skills. Bilingual staff and community volunteers allow non-English speaking children to be fully included in all aspects of the program. The Head Start program's classroom instruction is based on the Creative Curriculum, a scientifically-based curriculum. For more information on the Creative Curriculum go to Teaching Strategies: TSI The Head Start/Early Head Start program ensures that children develop the following school readiness knowledge and skills. In the area of pre-reading the focus is on the development of phonological awareness, print awareness, writing and letter knowledge and interest in and appreciation of books In the area of language the focus is on the development of receptive and expressive vocabulary skills; narrative understanding; phonology; syntactic or grammatical knowledge; and oral communication and conversation skills in both English and their primary language In the area of math skills, the focus is on counting, one-to-one correspondence, geometry concepts; space, patterns, and measurement concepts and skills Children are provided with many opportunities to develop cognitive skills that include the ability to plan and problem-solve, the ability to pay attention and persist on challenging tasks, intellectual curiosity, task engagement, motivation and mastery The program promotes social and emotional competencies important for school success. These include the ability to relate to teachers and peers in positive ways, the ability to manage an array of feelings in an age-appropriate manner In addition to these skills, the children learn about health and nutrition. Food experiences and health-related activities are routinely included in lesson plans