Early Childhood Program

What is a high-quality Early Childhood Program?

A high-quality Early Childhood Program provides a safe and nurturing environment while promoting the physical, social, emotional and intellectual development of young children.
In accredited programs you will see:

• Frequent, positive, warm interaction between teacher and children, planned learning activities suitable to the children's age e.g. building blocks, painting, reading stories and dressing up.
• Specially trained teachers and assistents, continuous professional development, various and suitable materials for each age.
• Respect for cultural diversity and individuality as well as a healthy and safe environment for the children.
• Regularly nutritious snacks.
• Communication with parents who are welcome to visit at all times.
• Effective administration, on-going systematic evaluation.

Seeing the smiling children come to school enthusiastically coming to school reflects how well our teachers nurture and educate our youngest students.

Learning to read and write are vital skills for children. All parents know this and want their children to master these skills. The advantage of this system is that it teaches children all the basic phonetics and to relate the sounds to the symbols and thus understand the alphabetic code used for reading and writing at an early age.

The aim is to teach children to read and write in English by means of an early systematic phonics program.
This means that the children are taught the 42 basic sounds of English, not just the alphabet sounds. With this knowledge, they are taken through the stages of blending sounds to form words and applying them to reading.
At the same time they are taught to write by identifying the sounds in words and relating the letters to those sounds.
The first year is spent learning the 42 letter sounds (one letter sound per week).
The multi-sensory and active approach is particularly suitable for young children. It can be used for a whole-school or whole-class approach as well as for small groups and individuals. Teachers using this method of teaching can be assured that their children will read and write independently much more faster.

The teaching has been divided into the 5 basic skills.

• If we view the results of the study "The Profile of Native Speaker/Second Language Learner" Interaction in the Preschool Classroom as a whole, we can obtain a profile of native speaker -second language learner interactions in the preschool classroom.
• From analysis of historical audio-taped language interactions in the context of the field notes, we see the ways in which native speakers and second language learners interact during typical non-structured preschool time.
• Rather than concentrating on non-native speakers' lack of social skills, it capitalizes on the native speakers as a primary language resource for second language learners. These native speakers have varying skills in engaging second language learners in interactions and should be trained in strategies that have specific benefits for second language acquisition.
• The data gathered about these interactions included the amount of time spent together, the rate of native peaker language initiation to second language learners, the rate of response that native speakers receive from second language learners, the number of turns in conversation, and the quantity of talk measured by utterances. Native speakers should be trained to interact with second language learners. This approach to conducting a classroom in which many languages are spoken views the interactional setting from a new perspective.
• These strategies include repetition, restatement, and request for clarification. We know that children have the ability to adjust their language to meet the needs of conversational partners with less linguistic proficiency , so we should expect that native speakers can be trained to be more optimal language partners for their peers who are learning English as a second language.

The program will be filled with stimulating and developing activities alternating between scheduled activity and free play.

During free play the children may explore one of the centers set up around the room. Building center (blocks and Lego)Reading corner (English children's books) Art table (coloring and work on crafts) Dress-up trunk (imaginitive play) Puzzles and Games.

Free play time gives the children a chance to choose what they want to do so that they don't feel overwhelmed. It also allows time for individual attention from the teacher.