Pre-K Mathematics is a supplemental curriculum designed to develop informal mathematical knowledge and skills in preschool children. Specific mathematical concepts and skills from each unit are taught in the classroom through teacher-guided, small-group activities using concrete manipulatives. Take-home activities with materials that parallel the small-group classroom activities are designed to help caregivers support their children’s mathematical development at home.

World of Words is a supplementary curriculum used to help young children develop vocabulary, concept knowledge, and content knowledge in science. The curriculum includes intentional conversations and shared book readings of texts focused on science topics.

Class-Wide Function-Related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT) is a classroom management strategy designed to help teachers create a positive learning environment by decreasing disruptive behavior and improving social skills and prosocial behaviors among students.

Success for All (SFA®) is a whole-school reform model (that is, a model that integrates curriculum, school culture, family, and community supports) for students in prekindergarten through grade 8. SFA® includes a literacy program, quarterly assessments of student learning, a social-emotional development program, computer-assisted tutoring tools, family support teams for students’ parents, a facilitator who works with school personnel, and extensive training for all intervention teachers. The literacy program emphasizes phonics for beginning readers and comprehension for all students. Teachers provide reading instruction to students grouped by reading ability for 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week. In addition, certified teachers or paraprofessionals provide daily tutoring to students who have difficulty reading at the same level as their classmates.

Pre-K Mathematics is a supplemental curriculum designed to develop informal mathematical knowledge and skills in preschool children. Specific mathematical concepts and skills from each unit are taught in the classroom through teacher-guided, small-group activities using concrete manipulatives. Take-home activities with materials that parallel the small-group classroom activities are designed to help caregivers support their children’s mathematical development at home.

Literacy Express is a preschool curriculum designed for three- to five-year-old children. It is structured around units on oral language, emergent literacy, basic math, science, general knowledge, and socioemotional development. It can be used in half-or full-day programs with typically developing children and children with special needs. It provides professional development opportunities for staff; teaching materials; suggested activities; and recommendations for room arrangement, daily schedules, and classroom management.

Building Blocks is a mathematics curriculum that aims to develop preschool children’s knowledge of mathematics following early mathematics learning trajectories. The Building Blocks curriculum includes whole-group and small-group instruction, center activities, and computer activities, as well as activities for the children’s families to do at home to support classroom learning. The activities are intentionally sequenced based on the developmental progression of children’s mathematical learning.

A classroom-based, self-regulation intervention consisting of music- and movement-based circle time games designed to systematically increase in cognitive complexity.

Doors to Discovery™ is a preschool literacy curriculum that uses eight thematic units of activities to help children build fundamental early literacy skills in oral language, phonological awareness, concepts of print, alphabet knowledge, writing, and comprehension. The eight thematic units cover topics such as nature, friendship, communities, society, and health. Each unit is available as a kit that includes various teacher resources.

Head Start is a national, federally-funded program that provides services to promote school readiness for children from birth to age 5 from predominantly low-income families. These services are provided to both children and their families and include education, health and nutrition, family engagement, and other social services. Head Start program administrators are given the flexibility to design service delivery to be responsive to cultural, linguistic, and other contextual needs of local communities, leading to considerable variability in the services offered. Head Start service models also vary according to family needs, such that children and families may be served through center-based or family child care, home visits, or a combination of programs that operate full or half days for 8–12 months per year.

Bright Beginnings is an early childhood curriculum, based in part on High/Scope and Creative Curriculum, with an additional emphasis on literacy skills. The curriculum consists of nine thematic units designed to enhance children’s cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. Each unit includes concept maps, literacy lessons, early childhood center activities, and home activities. Special emphasis is placed on the development of early language and literacy skills. Parent involvement is a key component of the program.

Social skills training is not a specific curriculum, but rather a collection of practices that utilize a behavioral approach to teaching preschool children age-appropriate social skills and competencies, including communication, problem solving, decision making, self-management, and peer relations. Social skills training can occur in both regular and special education classrooms.

 

Phonological Awareness Training is a general practice aimed at enhancing young children’s phonological awareness abilities. Phonological awareness refers to the ability to detect or manipulate the sounds in words independent of meaning and is considered a precursor to reading. Phonological Awareness Training can involve various training activities that focus on teaching children to identify, detect, delete, segment, or blend segments of spoken words (i.e., words, syllables, onsets and rimes, phonemes) or that focus on teaching children to detect, identify, or produce rhyme or alliteration.

The Lovaas Model of Applied Behavior Analysis is a type of behavioral therapy that initially focuses on discrete trials: brief periods of one-on-one instruction, during which a teacher cues a behavior, prompts the appropriate response, and provides reinforcement to the child. Children in the program receive an average of 35–40 hours of intervention per week that consists of in-home one-to-one instruction, facilitated peer play, inclusion and support in regular education classrooms, and generalization activities for transfer of skills to natural environments. In addition, parents are trained in instructional techniques. The intervention generally lasts about 3 years.

Dialogic Reading is an interactive shared picture book reading practice designed to enhance young children’s language and literacy skills. During the shared reading practice, the adult and the child switch roles so that the child learns to become the storyteller with the assistance of the adult, who functions as an active listener and questioner.

Headsprout Early Reading is an online supplemental early literacy curriculum consisting of eighty 20-minute animated episodes. The episodes are designed to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The program adapts to a child’s responses, providing additional instruction and review if a child does not choose the correct answer. Teachers may use stories based on the episodes to reinforce instruction provided in the lessons.

Success for All (SFA®) is a whole-school reform model (that is, a model that integrates curriculum, school culture, family, and community supports) for students in prekindergarten through grade 8. SFA® includes a literacy program, quarterly assessments of student learning, a social-emotional development program, computer-assisted tutoring tools, family support teams for students’ parents, a facilitator who works with school personnel, and extensive training for all intervention teachers. The literacy program emphasizes phonics for beginning readers and comprehension for all students. Teachers provide reading instruction to students grouped by reading ability for 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week. In addition, certified teachers or paraprofessionals provide daily tutoring to students who have difficulty reading at the same level as their classmates.

Curiosity Corner is a comprehensive early childhood curriculum designed to help children at risk of school failure because of poverty. The program offers children experiences that develop the attitudes, skills, and knowledge necessary for later school success, with a special emphasis on children’s language and literacy skills. Curiosity Corner has two sets of 38 weekly thematic units, one set for 3-year-olds and one set for 4-year-olds. Each day, the program staff present children with learning experiences through sequential daily activities. The program provides training, support, and teaching materials for teaching staff and administrators. Parents are encouraged to participate in children’s learning through activities in and out of the classroom.

Ready, Set, Leap!® is a comprehensive preschool curriculum that focuses on early reading skills, such as phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and letter-sound correspondence using multi-sensory technology that incorporates touch, sight, and sound. Teachers may adopt either a theme-based or a literature-based teaching approach. For each approach, the curriculum provides lesson plans, learning objectives, and assessment tools.

Ladders to Literacy is a supplemental early literacy curriculum published in Ladders to Literacy: A Kindergarten Activity Book. The program targets children at different levels and from diverse cultural backgrounds. The activities are organized into three sections with about 20 activities each: print awareness, phonological awareness skills, and oral language skills.

Waterford Early Reading Level One™ is an emergent literacy curriculum that uses computer-based technology to prepare children for reading. It begins with a tutorial to familiarize the child with the computer and mouse and a reading placement evaluation to assess and determine whether a child should work on Level One objectives: capital letters, lowercase letters, or beginning decoding skills. The computerized instruction is supplemented by activities for phonological and phonemic awareness, letter recognition, knowledge of story and print concepts, and general readiness skills.

Building Blocks for Math is a supplemental mathematics curriculum designed to develop preschool children’s early mathematical knowledge through various individual and small- and large-group activities. It uses Building Blocks for Math PreK software, manipulatives, and print material. Building Blocks for Math embeds mathematical learning in children’s daily activities, ranging from designated math activities to circle and story time, with the goal of helping children relate their informal math knowledge to more formal mathematical concepts.

Dialogic Reading is an interactive shared picture book reading practice designed to enhance young children’s language and literacy skills. During the shared reading practice, the adult and the child switch roles so that the child learns to become the storyteller with the assistance of the adult, who functions as an active listener and questioner.

Phonological Awareness Training is a general practice aimed at enhancing young children’s phonological awareness abilities. Phonological awareness refers to the ability to detect or manipulate the sounds in words independent of meaning and is considered a precursor to reading. Phonological Awareness Training can involve various training activities that focus on teaching children to identify, detect, delete, segment, or blend segments of spoken words (i.e., words, syllables, onsets and rimes, phonemes) or that focus on teaching children to detect, identify, or produce rhyme or alliteration.

Phonological Awareness Training plus Letter Knowledge Training is a general practice aimed at enhancing young children’s phonological awareness, print awareness, and early reading abilities. Phonological awareness, the ability to detect or manipulate the sounds in words independent of meaning, is considered to be a precursor to reading. Phonological awareness training (without letter knowledge training) can involve various training activities that focus on teaching children to identify, detect, delete, segment, or blend segments of spoken words (i.e., words, syllables, onsets and rimes, phonemes) or that focus on teaching children to detect, identify, or produce rhyme or alliteration. The added letter knowledge training component includes teaching children the letters of the alphabet and making an explicit link between letters and sounds.

DaisyQuest is a software bundle that offers computer-assisted instruction in phonological awareness, targeting children 3–7 years old (or preschool to grade 2). The instructional activities, framed in a fairy tale involving a search for a friendly dragon named Daisy, teach children how to recognize words that rhyme; words that have the same beginning, middle, and ending sounds; and words that can be formed from a series of phonemes presented separately. Activities also teach children how to count the number of sounds in words.

DaisyQuest is a software bundle that offers computer-assisted instruction in phonological awareness, targeting children 3–7 years old (or preschool to grade 2). The instructional activities, framed in a fairy tale involving a search for a friendly dragon named Daisy, teach children how to recognize words that rhyme; words that have the same beginning, middle, and ending sounds; and words that can be formed from a series of phonemes presented separately. Activities also teach children how to count the number of sounds in words.

Pivotal response training (PRT) is an intervention designed for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. This practice focuses on pivotal (core) areas affected by autism, such as communication and responding to environmental stimuli. PRT sessions typically begin with a parent or teacher providing clear instructions to a child, having the child help choose a stimulus (such as a toy), and focusing the child’s attention. The parent or teacher then encourages the desired behavior (for example, asking for the toy or choosing “toy” from a list of words) by providing rewards if the child implements or attempts to implement the desired behavior. Parents and teachers often model the appropriate behavior or use the stimulus with the child. Activities that maintain existing behaviors are interspersed with activities eliciting new behaviors. The complexity of the required responses increases as training progresses. Parents, teachers, and peers collaboratively implement the practice at school, at home, and in the community. PRT can be used with autistic children aged 2–18. PRT is also known as Pivotal Response Therapy, Pivotal Response Treatment®, or Natural Language Paradigm.

TAP™ (formerly known as the Teacher Advancement Program) is a comprehensive educator effectiveness program that aims to improve student achievement through supports and incentives that attract, retain, develop, and motivate effective teachers. The program provides teachers with leadership opportunities and associated salary increases; ongoing, school-based professional development; rigorous evaluations; and annual performance bonuses based on a combination of teacher value added to student achievement and observations of their classroom teaching.

Shared Book Reading encompasses practices that adults can use when reading with young children to enhance language and literacy skills. During shared book reading, an adult reads a book to an individual child or to a group of children and uses one or more planned or structured interactive techniques to actively engage the children in the text. The adult may direct the children’s attention to illustrations, print, or word meanings. The adult may engage children in discussions focused on understanding the meaning or sequence of events in a story or on understanding an expository passage. Adults may ask children questions, give explanations, and draw connections between events in the text and those in the children’s own lives as a way of expanding on the text and scaffolding children’s learning experiences to support language development, emergent reading, and comprehension. Importantly, the adult engages in one or more interactive techniques to draw attention to aspects of the text being read.

Let’s Begin with the Letter People® is an early education curriculum that uses thematic units to develop children’s language and literacy skills. A major focus is phonological awareness, including rhyming, word play, alliteration, and segmentation. Children are encouraged to learn in individual, small group, and whole-class settings. Both cognitive and socio-emotional development are presented as keys to learning.

An early childhood curriculum that focuses on project-based investigations as a means for children to apply skills. It addresses four areas of development: social/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language.

Ladders to Literacy is a supplemental early literacy curriculum published in Ladders to Literacy: A Kindergarten Activity Book. The program targets children at different levels and from diverse cultural backgrounds. The activities are organized into three sections with about 20 activities each: print awareness, phonological awareness skills, and oral language skills.

Success for All (SFA®) is a whole-school reform model (that is, a model that integrates curriculum, school culture, family, and community supports) for students in prekindergarten through grade 8. SFA® includes a literacy program, quarterly assessments of student learning, a social-emotional development program, computer-assisted tutoring tools, family support teams for students’ parents, a facilitator who works with school personnel, and extensive training for all intervention teachers. The literacy program emphasizes phonics for beginning readers and comprehension for all students. Teachers provide reading instruction to students grouped by reading ability for 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week. In addition, certified teachers or paraprofessionals provide daily tutoring to students who have difficulty reading at the same level as their classmates.

Milieu teaching is a practice that involves manipulating or arranging stimuli in a preschool child’s natural environment to create a setting that encourages them to engage in a targeted behavior. For example, a teacher might place a desirable toy in a setting to encourage a child to request that toy (where requesting a toy is the desired target behavior). Typically, milieu teaching involves four strategies that a teacher will utilize to encourage a child to demonstrate a target behavior: modeling, mand-modeling, incidental teaching, and time-delay. Through adult modeling and functional consequences associated with child requests, targeted language behaviors can be improved in children who may have language delays or disabilities.

The Incredible Years is composed of training programs for children, parents, and teachers. The child program is designed for children (ages 0–12) with challenging behaviors and focuses on building social and emotional skills. Lessons can be delivered to children referred for difficult behavior or to an entire classroom as a preventative measure. The program consists of 20- to 30-minute lessons 2–3 times a week; these lessons are reinforced by small-group activities, practicing skills throughout the day, and communicating with parents. Lessons cover recognizing and understanding feelings, getting along with friends, anger management, problem solving, and behavior at school. Parent training programs focus on positive discipline, promoting learning and development, and involvement in children’s life at school.

The Incredible Years is composed of training programs for children, parents, and teachers. The child program is designed for children (ages 0–12) with challenging behaviors and focuses on building social and emotional skills. Lessons can be delivered to children referred for difficult behavior or to an entire classroom as a preventative measure. The program consists of 20- to 30-minute lessons 2–3 times a week; these lessons are reinforced by small-group activities, practicing skills throughout the day, and communicating with parents. Lessons cover recognizing and understanding feelings, getting along with friends, anger management, problem solving, and behavior at school. Parent training programs focus on positive discipline, promoting learning and development, and involvement in children’s life at school.

Tools of the Mind is an early childhood curriculum for preschool and kindergarten children. The curriculum is designed to foster children’s executive function, which involves developing self-regulation, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Many activities emphasize both executive functioning and academic skills.

Sound Foundations, a literacy curriculum designed to teach phonological awareness to preliterate children, focuses exclusively on phoneme identity (that is, different words can start and end with the same sound). It works from the principle that phonemic awareness is necessary but not sufficient to reading. The curriculum is self-contained and can be used by teachers, parents, or teaching assistants.

Headsprout Early Reading is an online supplemental early literacy curriculum consisting of eighty 20-minute animated episodes. The episodes are designed to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The program adapts to a child’s responses, providing additional instruction and review if a child does not choose the correct answer. Teachers may use stories based on the episodes to reinforce instruction provided in the lessons.

Headsprout Early Reading is an online supplemental early literacy curriculum consisting of eighty 20-minute animated episodes. The episodes are designed to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The program adapts to a child’s responses, providing additional instruction and review if a child does not choose the correct answer. Teachers may use stories based on the episodes to reinforce instruction provided in the lessons.

Direct Instruction refers to a family of interventions that includes all Direct Instruction products (DISTAR and Language for Learning), as well as to all versions past and present. Direct Instruction includes teaching techniques that are fast-paced, teacher-directed, and explicit with opportunities for student response and teacher reinforcement or correction.

Sound Foundations, a literacy curriculum designed to teach phonological awareness to preliterate children, focuses exclusively on phoneme identity (that is, different words can start and end with the same sound). It works from the principle that phonemic awareness is necessary but not sufficient to reading. The curriculum is self-contained and can be used by teachers, parents, or teaching assistants.

Words and Concepts is a computer software program that focuses on building oral language skills related to vocabulary, comprehension, word relationships, and other concepts. The program is comprised of six units—vocabulary, categorization, word identification by function, word association, concept of same, and concept of different. It can be used by adults and children with varying special needs, including language-learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, physical impairments, hearing and vision impairments, and autism.