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How to Design Classroom Resources— for Teachers in Early Learning.

Mar 9, 2023 | Differentiated Instruction, Early Literacy, Holistic Learning, Resources

Creating effective classroom resources is essential for teachers in early learning. In this article, we will delve into the topic of designing classroom resources that cater to the needs of young students. 

Originally titled by Chris Hough, Sprig’s remarkable graphic designer and former primary teacher, we are revisiting this topic to provide updated information and insights. 

The aim is to assist teachers in crafting the best resources for their students in early childhood education.

These tips and tricks will equip you with the knowledge and skills you need to craft your own teaching tools and classroom resources.

 

Fonts Design Tips & Tricks for Teachers in Early Childhood Education

Fonts Design Tips & Tricks for Teachers in Early Childhood Education

Fonts are one of the most important elements to consider when designing resources for the classroom.

 

Why Is It So Important to Choose the Right Font?

Choosing the right font is absolutely essential when creating classroom tools and resources. The wrong font can result in children misunderstanding content, or in some cases, being unable to fully process or understand the information being presented to them.

Our first piece of advice is to resist the urge to choose cute, playful fonts. These fonts are most likely to confuse and trip up young learners. The ‘Disney’ font, for example, is adorable in appearance but would be terribly difficult for children at this age who are learning to both read and write.

Why Is It So Important to Choose the Right Font? 

 

One-Storey vs. Two-Storey Letters – What’s the Difference?

One-storey (or single-storey) letters are the ones we first learn to write as young children; they are most commonly used in handwriting, traditional calligraphy, and even in many italics. 

On the other hand, some letters have two-storey (double-storey,) versions used by almost all serif fonts (like Times New Roman), and many sans serif ones, too (like the one this blog is written in).

The best example to illustrate this is to look at the letter ‘g’. The letter ‘g’ comes in both single- and double-story variants, either coming with a loop, or tail. We are taught to write single-storey g’s as children because it’s most common in handwriting and is the easiest to replicate for early learners. The letter ‘a’ also looks significantly different when you compare the one-storey and two-storey versions.

Take a look at the visual below. Keep in mind that two-storey a’s are far more common than two-storey g’s. Keep an eye out for the tail on the letter ‘t’ as well – it could also be an issue depending on the font you choose.

One-Storey vs. Two-Storey Letters – What’s the Difference?

 

How Will I Know if a Font Is Going to Be Right for My Students?

It is recommended you start by typing out every letter of the alphabet, all of the numbers and all commonly used punctuation, using both uppercase and lowercase characters. Take a look at each character carefully and ask yourself if they could be difficult for a young child or someone with impaired vision to read. 

Tip: Create and save a text document on your computer that includes the full alphabet (upper and lower case), punctuation marks, numbers, and a few example sentences. 

From there, copy those and set them into a few different sizes and styles (italic, bold). You can also include a white version of the characters on a dark background to see how it looks reversed.

Here’s a comparison of two different fonts, one that is much easier to read than the other:

How Will I Know if a Font Is Going to Be Right for My Students?

The second font in this example (Freckle Face) is fun from a design standpoint, for sure – but it’s more likely to cause confusion with your students. 

To further illustrate this point, we tested out the font ‘Duper’ that we really liked here at Sprig, but ran into problems with the letters ‘a’ and ‘g’ presenting as two-storey (circled in red below).

How Will I Know if a Font Is Going to Be Right for My Students?

 

Once You’ve Settled on a Font That You’re Happy With, Ask Yourself These Questions Before Finalizing and Printing Out Your Classroom Resources:

  1. Are all the characters easy to recognize?
  2. Does this font include all of the characters that you need?
  3. How legible is it, especially at smaller sizes?
  4. Does it have a variety of styles?

 

Design Software Can Be Very Expensive – Do You Have Any Free Resources to Recommend?

There are a ton of free resources out there, and we’ve put together a quick list of our favourites that are easy to use with little to no experience required:

  • Google Fonts: A huge catalogue of free fonts you can download
  • Canva: Design tools and templates for creating resources, or for organizing the classroom (Canva Pro gives you access to more stock images and photography, as well as useful design tools – although it comes at a monthly cost);
  • Unsplash, Rawpixel, Pixabay: Free stock photography sites that also have a good selection of illustrations (more on copyright, fair use/fair dealing, and creative commons/attribution to come in a future post – stay tuned!)

 

Process & Execution Design Tips & Tricks for Teachers in Early Childhood Education

Process & Execution Design Tips & Tricks for Teachers in Early Childhood Education

While in the previous section, the focus was on fonts, Sprig will now shift the spotlight to the design process and execution.

To design effective classroom resources for early learning, it’s important to have a well-planned design process from start to finish. Chris will now cover the necessary steps to ensure your classroom resources are accessible, visually appealing, versatile, and functional. 

Chris will provide insights on how to create engaging resources, drawing inspiration from your own ideas or borrowing from online activities and adding your own personal touch.

 

Step 1 – Brainstorm Answers on Designing Classroom Resources

Start by asking yourself the following questions:

  • Have I come across any interesting ideas online recently that I’d like to put my own unique twist on?
  • Have I come up with any concepts or ideas that I may not have previously followed through on?
  • Is there something that myself, my students and/or other teachers could really benefit from having access to in the classroom? 

I usually start the creative process by grabbing screenshots of any ideas/inspiration I stumble upon while doing research online. I will either jot down ideas in a notebook or on my phone and use a Google Drive folder to save screenshots of ideas I come across. 

Tip: It is recommended to look into note-taking tools such as Notability or Evernote; they have been built with the purpose of helping you to organize notes and important information – making them easier to locate when you need to refer back to them.

Step 1 – Brainstorm Answers on Designing Classroom Resources 

 

Step 2 – Clarify your Design Purpose and Goals

Now, ask yourself a few questions that will help you to better understand your specific reasoning for deciding to create these resources in the first place:

  • What is the purpose of this resource? Why am I creating it?
  • Does something similar already exist, or will this fill the need for a resource that I’ve been looking for but haven’t been able to find?
  • What are the learning objectives associated with this resource/activity?

Once you’ve answered those questions, it is recommended that you do a bit of research into other teachers’ lessons and resources online to see what has successfully worked in other classrooms. It is one example of collaborative planning, which is a mark of differentiated instruction that fuels successful student outcomes.

You may also stumble upon insight or feedback about a specific activity/resource that will help you to extend or improve upon an idea that may have previously had issues/shortcomings.

 

Step 3 – Sketch It Out

It sounds obvious, but I always recommend starting designs/new ideas by sketching them out on paper. That way, I can quickly work out the basics of the resource, and any possible variations I might want to create.

It gives you a chance to figure out what goes where, and how much space it might take up in the final design. You don’t need to be a master illustrator to sketch out these concepts; just lay it out visually in whichever way feels right to you. 

Keep your sketches and ideas together in a sketchbook/folder, that way they’ll be handy when it comes time to review the process in planning to create the final product. 

Tip: keeping records of your thought process will really help to improve the quality of your future work/designs.

 

Step 4 – Time to Create

Once I’ve done enough research and have sketched out a rough concept, I start building the resource in my design program of choice. Depending on your comfort level, you can use free software like Canva or something more advanced like Adobe Suite/Creative Cloud. 

Always keep an eye out for new software or updates that expand the limits of what you can do, and how efficiently you can do it. For example, Pages has added features that let you create interactive books. The resources section in the Sprig Learning educator portal has a variety of image assets you can use for building digital or printable assets.

 

Step 5 – Review and Finalize

Revisit the goals you set in the beginning and make sure they have been met with your final design. 

Before you save and export your completed resources, it is recommended to walk through the following criteria (these are important points that I try to cover with each and every design I create):

 

Is it Accessible?

This is especially important for resources that are in full colour. Your text shouldn’t be too small, contrast should be high, text should be easy to read and photos should pop on top of coloured backgrounds, and colours should be always used in a thoughtful, meaningful way. It’s also very important to keep those who are colourblind in mind (potential or formally diagnosed).

Students have different learning styles, such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Designing resources that are accessible and cater to different learning styles can help to engage and accommodate a wider range of students. 

In fact, holistic learning is one of Sprig’s core tenets, and by capturing input from every student, the right classroom resources can be created and used to best serve the student. 

Here are a few examples to illustrate what accessible vs. inaccessible design looks like:

Colour contrast colour blindness

type size

Sim Daltonism (for Mac) is a free tool that lets you test whatever is visible on your screen using filters that simulate different types of colour blindness. Get it here: https://michelf.ca/projects/mac/sim-daltonism/

Here’s a look at Sim Daltonism in action:

Sim Daltonism

 

Is it Visual? 

If it isn’t specifically a reading/writing activity, keep instructions visual, or use simple, familiar language. Consistency helps a lot, both in terms of vocabulary and imagery.

 

Is it Versatile?

My aim is always to give teachers room to use the resources I create in a way that suits their goals and the individual goals of their students. It’s even better if a resource can be used repeatedly in a multitude of different ways. 

Unlike something found on Pinterest, resources that you’ve created yourself can be easily altered or adjusted to aid students who may require special accommodations, such as increased font size or an adjustment to the difficulty level.

 

Is it Simple?

Some free resources online clutter their designs with decorative elements or fancy fonts that aren’t especially legible. Fonts were covered in the last section.

A little goes a long way as they say; too much and you risk creating confusion that can interfere with the purpose of the resource and success rate of the activity itself.

busy backgrounds

 

Sample Resources

All About Me Sheet (Free to Download)

Berry Sorter

sample activity A berry sorter

 

Is it Effective?

Lastly, one of the final questions I ask myself before exporting my work – is the resource I’ve created effective? 

Does it cater to the goals/purpose I set at the beginning of the creation process? The answer to this may remain somewhat unclear until you’ve had a chance to test it out in a classroom setting. 

By creating your own resources this way, making edits or quick changes to an activity that you’ve created is easy.

 

Content Design Considerations for Teachers in Early Childhood Education

Content Design Considerations for Teachers in Early Childhood Education

As an early childhood education teacher, you now have a better understanding of which fonts to use and the design process required to create classroom resources that are both enjoyable and engaging for students.

There is one last remaining piece left in knowing how to best design classroom resources for teachers in early learning. Which is, what content should be designed?

Before embarking on the design process, it’s best to know 1) how the content aligns to the curriculum, and 2) who the content is for.

 

1: How the Content Aligns to the Curriculum

The content of the resources should align with the learning objectives and goals of the course or lesson. The learning objectives and goals should be outlined in the curriculum that is followed by the school. The resources should also cater to the developmental level and abilities of the students.

 

2:  Who the Content Is For

The font, process and content designs in the article thus far have been geared towards the early learners. It is the students who will interact with these classroom resources. But there is a whole category of classroom resources that are meant for use by the teacher. 

It can include feedback and assessment resources. Such resources should include ways for teachers to assess student progress and provide feedback. This can include quizzes, tests, or other assessments that help teachers gauge student understanding and adjust their teaching accordingly.

Another type of resource for teachers could be planning and organizational tools, such as lesson plans and schedules. These resources can help teachers stay on track and ensure that they cover all the necessary material within the given timeframe.

Sprig Learning has solutions which digitize such resources so teachers are more efficient in teaching their classrooms in line with evidence-based practices. 

These solutions also contain actual classroom resources that can be printed and used to teach various essential early learning concepts. 

This article however, covers the designing of content that is meant for students. It describes how to best design classroom resources for teachers to engage and teach their students. 

 

Right Font, Right Process, Right Content

In conclusion, designing effective classroom resources for early learning is an essential task for teachers. Choosing the right font is a crucial factor in creating such resources.

Additionally, having a well-planned design process is critical in ensuring that the resources are accessible, visually appealing, versatile, and functional. 

Finally, it is crucial to ensure that the content of the classroom resources aligns with the curriculum to maximize student outcomes; otherwise, all the effort put into the content design process would be in vain.

We hope this article helps to make the classroom resources design process more approachable and understandable.  Stay tuned to the Sprig Blog for more classroom resources focused content in the future!

—

Note: Sprig does not endorse nor receive any monetary rewards for including links to software, programs, and/or tools recommended within this blog post. 

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Need for Oral Language Development in Early Literacy

Feb 16, 2023 | Early Literacy, Holistic Learning

Oral language forms the bedrock of early literacy.

It is one of the greatest predictors of a child’s success in school.

Oral language development plays a critical role in early literacy because it provides the foundation for reading and writing. 

As children acquire more words and learn to use them in meaningful ways, they are better able to understand and use written language.

Beyond the foundational role of oral language, early language skills are in fact predictive of later reading comprehension development. 

Grade 5 students with poor reading comprehension despite adequate word-reading skills – showed weak language skills as early as 15 months of age. 

Studies show that children with unresolved specific language impairment in kindergarten are at a higher risk for reading difficulties, particularly in phonological processing and reading comprehension.

Given the crucial stature of phonological awareness and reading comprehension in evidence-based literacy, mastering oral language early on is key to reading successfully!

 

How is Oral Language Acquired?

How is Oral Language Acquired?

Babies begin to acquire language within months of being born and by age five, they can master basic sound system structures and grammar. 

Young children develop their oral language skills through conversations with their caregivers, exposure to a rich vocabulary, and opportunities to practice their language in different contexts. 

Thus, for the acquisition of oral language, It’s important to provide high-quality early learning experiences which contain such interactions, exposure and opportunities to practice. 

Oral Language is a skill practiced all the time with teachers, educators, parents, peers and members of the community. If well-supported properly, it encourages reading and writing.

Thus, there also needs to be a high-level of parental involvement and community participation, where adults in the child’s life are taking the time to speak to them and encouraging them to speak also. 

Cultural relevance can make a huge difference in strengthening early learning, especially in how it promotes oral language acquisition. Culturally responsive content helps students to see themselves in what they are learning. Connecting with words and concepts is easier, and learning is more fluid.

Having understood the need for oral language in early literacy and its acquisition process, how do the aforementioned practices translate into practice?

 

What Should your Early Literacy Program Look Like?

What Should your Early Literacy Program Look Like?

Since few children entering kindergarten can read words, early literacy programs should look at oral language skills that develop word recognition and/or decoding ability. 

When taught in combination with language comprehension, concepts such as communication and vocabulary leads to reading comprehension.

Thus, whether it’s a program for preschool, kindergarten, or the early elementary grades, it is very important that early literacy programs teach both word recognition and language comprehension. 

Besides the actual teaching content focusing on oral language, the following considerations should also be made for maximizing oral language growth. 

 

Holistic Learning for Constant Exposure to Oral Language

Early learners should be exposed to oral language activities holistically, in all aspects of life. 

It’s important that an early literacy program engages caregivers as well. Students that have caregivers actively engaged in their learning do better in overall educational outcomes, grades and academic achievement.

Holistic learning is a large topic which Sprig has covered previously in multiple blog posts. It should be used in early literacy where a child has more than one person to practice oral language skills with, and more than one environment where such practice can take place.

 

Early Assessments to Gauge Oral Language Requirements

Assessments of oral language skills are important to identify children who are likely to need more intensive instruction to achieve reading success.

By identifying and working with students across all literacy levels early, educators can be proactive in ensuring that students meet or exceed academic expectations.

Early and frequent assessment of children’s oral language abilities provides educators and caregivers with a clearer picture of student learning. 

Holistic learning also plays an important role in early assessments of skills which digs deep into each student’s needs, strengths and interests.

Such assessments conducted regularly early on as these traits are being formed, are called formative assessments. It’s another topic that is covered extensively by Sprig. Holistic formative assessments are great for assessing oral language skills early and frequently.

 

Making the Connection Between Oral Language and Other Foundational Reading Skills

Oral language is paramount for early literacy, not just on its own accord, but because it has such strong ties to other foundational reading skills that result in reading proficiency. 

For example,

Children learn to recognize and manipulate speech sounds through activities such as rhyming and segmenting words into individual sounds. 

This is phonological awareness, and its development can be encouraged by teachers by encouraging children to play with sounds in oral language.

Also, children develop comprehension skills through conversations, discussions, and storytelling, where they learn to understand and interpret the meaning of oral language. 

Teachers can support reading comprehension development by asking open-ended questions about the text  and encouraging children to make predictions about what will happen next. 

These language comprehension skills come in very handy for reading comprehension. 

Similarly for vocabulary acquisition, children build their vocabulary knowledge by being exposed to a variety of words and phrases in different contexts in oral language.

Teachers can support vocabulary acquisition by using rich and varied language in their own speech and reading aloud high-quality books that use sophisticated vocabulary.

 

How to Ensure Oral Language Development for Early Literacy

How to Ensure Oral Language Development for Early Literacy

Children who have strong oral language skills are more likely to develop strong reading and writing skills, while children who struggle with oral language development may experience difficulties with literacy. 

Therefore, it is important to provide young children with rich language experiences and opportunities to develop their oral language skills to support their early literacy development. 

Oral language development is an ongoing process that occurs over time, and it is best supported through a combination of explicit teaching, rich language experiences, and opportunities for children to engage in meaningful conversations and interactions.

Sprig Learning offers two solutions that deal with oral language development. 

Sprig Language does a deep dive on the fundamentals of oral language for Pre-K to Kindergarten students, working on things such as pragmatics and syntax. 

Sprig Reading also covers the fundamentals of oral language, but dovetails this one component of early learning with other foundational reading skills that are needed to turn a child into a confident and proficient reader by Grade 3. 

Go to Sprig Blog

Traditional Early Years Assessments VS Holistic Assessments

Feb 2, 2023 | Formative Assessment, Holistic Learning

Student assessment is one of the most critical aspects of early learning. So critical in fact, that Sprig has dedicated an article to just assessments in early childhood education.

Educators who consistently use formative assessment strategies are shown to double the speed of learning for students in their classroom. 

While the link between assessment and early learning is clear, there is a lot left to be desired with the data that is being collected.

Traditional assessments only capture two perspectives: the teacher and the student. This leaves a gap in our understanding of early learning that occurs outside of the classroom unidentified. 

They are also prone to bias which has a negative impact on learning during the formative early years of learning.

There are many key people supporting student learning outside of school, so how can these perspectives be included and understood?

How can the potential of biased data be mitigated?

Holistic learning provides an answer to both of these questions, by way of holistic formative assessments.

Holistic learning integrates multiple learning components in its thinking, focusing on the whole learner. It pays significant attention to experiential learning and aims to help students reach their maximum potential. 

Holistic assessment engages key actors and can inspire communities and caregivers to participate in a child’s learning so that children can reach their greatest potential. This benefits both students and educators by promoting caregiver and community participation.

 

What Does Holistic Assessment Mean for Future Learning?

What Does Holistic Assessment Mean for Future Learning?

A child’s early life experiences are proven to have a lasting impact on their development and future learning success. For this reason, early years assessment data needs to be collected accurately and holistically.

Every stakeholder in a child’s learning benefits from comprehensive assessments. 

Caregivers are empowered to help their children learn well, and instructors benefit from caregiver and community support while receiving access to better data that enhances instruction.

True personalized learning can finally be realized with improved data, an ambitious goal that education institutions throughout the world are aiming to meet. 

With personalized learning still in its early stages, a comprehensive approach to assessments can hasten its progress. 

In order for personalized learning to be effective, accurate and comprehensive information is required to define the needs of the learner. 

A holistic approach to assessment enables this in three ways.

 

Increased Breadth of Information

First, by broadening its scope to identify learning in the home, community, land (and school), holistic assessment always provides new insights into a child’s learning. New information emerges about each learner that may have never been asked or identified, and supports instruction in the classroom.

 

Mitigation of Bias

Second, a holistic assessment provides more accurate information through its more natural and formative approaches. Through the provision of culturally enabling tools and implementation, holistic assessments are able to break down explicit and implicit biases during the assessment, creating a more natural and supportive environment for students to demonstrate their skills and abilities.

 

Coverage of All Foundational Skills

Third, holistic assessments not only include learning from multiple places and from multiple perspectives, but it also focuses on the essential skills, which greatly enhance student performance. 

Literacy and numeracy, for example, are foundational; thus, holistic assessments look at all of the foundational skill sets that go into language, reading and math acquisition.

 

What Research Supports Holistic Education?

What Research Supports Holistic Education?

The holistic approach is rooted in Canadian First Nations teachings and the lifelong learning model – both products of research from the Canadian Council on Learning. 

Indigenous people in Canada have long understood the role that learning plays in building healthy, thriving communities and despite significant cultural and historical differences, Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis people share a vision of learning as a holistic, lifelong process.

 

“We have constantly measured the wrong things against a different paradigm — leading inevitably to an assessment of failure.” – Canadian Council on Learning

Though developed with and for Indigenous peoples in Canada, the holistic approach can be applied to students of all cultural backgrounds. 

 

In fact, two of the top performing education systems in the world thrive using aspects of the holistic approach and lifelong learning model. 

Education systems everywhere are teaching a lifelong learning mindset so students can keep up in a fast-paced, digital world. It’s perhaps time learning systems adopt the same mentality for early years assessment.

Technology is an important component in ensuring that a holistic approach to assessment and learning is applied effectively. Technology makes it simple for teachers, caregivers, and community members to stay up to date on where and how their students are learning. Assessment findings may be aggregated and curated by technology, making them conveniently available to all learning influencers.

Furthermore, from the standpoint of a student, connecting with technology in early assessment is critical to establishing the digital literacy that is necessary for future academic, social and economic success.

 

Why Should Teachers Advocate a Holistic Approach to Early Years Assessment?

Why Should Teachers Advocate a Holistic Approach to Early Years Assessment?

With more comprehensive and accurate information available, a holistic approach assists in identifying each student’s learning strengths. 

It encourages instructors to help students in using their talents to overcome their obstacles in various educational settings. This enables instructors to differentiate instruction for every child.

A holistic approach to assessment yields better results and distributes the responsibility of educators by engaging caregivers. 

In fact, the positive impact of caregiver involvement has long shown to produce higher student achievement. 

By connecting caregivers and the community to learning in the classroom, caregivers are able to complement the child’s learning path with community and home-based activities.

For more information about a holistic approach to assessment or holistic education, send us an email at letstalk@spriglearning.com.

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How to Create High-Quality Head Start Preschools for Early Learning

Jan 12, 2023 | Early Literacy, Equity in Education, Holistic Learning

Do high-quality preschools exist? Yes, but mostly for higher-income families. 

According to Emily Griffey, Policy Director of Voices for Virginia’s Children, there is a 19-point disparity between the percentages of high-income and low-income families that can afford preschool for their children.

There are many initiatives to expand accessibility to public Head Start preschools, but such accessibility has to be matched with quality, or there is a risk of perpetuating the cycle of inequity.

In this blog, Sprig argues the case for high-quality preschools, addresses the issue of accessibility, and then gives the indications and characteristics that would be required to create a high-quality public or private early learning program.

 

The Case for High-Quality Preschools

In her essay for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Taryn Morrissey narrows down the major reasons that warrant greater policy attention to early education.

To summarize, high-quality education:

  • promotes child development and learning, and reduces inequities for those in disadvantaged communities. 
  • helps parental employment by providing a safe and quality environment for learning for their kids. 
  • forms the necessary backbone of the economic infrastructure.

 

Thus, high-quality preschools have both a short-term and long-term impact on school children and their communities. 

The community is able to thrive knowing that the child is growing in a safe and excellent setting that is favourable to learning. 

As the child grows older, there is a net spillover effect, where they contribute to the larger economy.

A study of 22 longitudinal studies, conducted between 1960 and 2016, showed that the attendees of early childhood education programs were:

  • less likely to be placed in special education
  • less likely to be held back a grade
  • more likely to graduate from high school 

 

These positive outcomes demonstrate that, when available, high-quality preschools make a huge difference in early learning.

 

Are There Enough High-Quality Preschools?

It’s tough to say if there is a shortage of preschools. Invariably, every preschool classroom does not fill the capacity of the maximum of 20 children per two trained adults, as recommended by the Office of Child Care in the US. However, even when this happens, quality can be impacted as more children require increased teacher attention. 

In the US, state-funded preschool and Head Start programs serve less than 1 in 3 eligible early learners. 

The National Institute of Early Education Research (NIEER) says that the quality standards remain “far too low” for these programs, and were only exacerbated by the pandemic. As low-income families weigh their options, homeschooling or daycare may seem like better alternatives if the quality of preschools garners a bad reputation. 

Which prompts the question….

 

What Does High-Quality Early Childhood Education Look Like?

High-quality preschools are both academic and play-based. A high-quality curriculum is specifically designed to present skills and concepts to schoolchildren in an order that matches their level of development.

In the process, formative assessments are used to address achievement gaps in underperforming students. It increases student engagement and leads to greater teacher satisfaction.

Hence, high-quality preschools do not merely focus on providing the best early childhood education experience, but also have innate differentiated instruction to cater to the needs of every child in the classroom. 

 

High-Quality Indicators

There are scales available to measure the quality of preschools such as the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS).

The ECERS contains 35 items organized into 6 categories of Space and Furnishings, Personal Care Routines, Language and Literacy, Learning Activities, Interaction and Program Structure.

The focus is on building oral language as foundational literacy concepts and moving to reading when appropriate. 

The Language and Literacy category includes “helping children expand vocabulary”, “encouraging children to use language”, “encouraging children’s use of books” and  “becoming familiar with print”. 

Also, under Learning Activities, the promotion of diversity and the appropriate use of technology are suggested. Tools like Sprig Library combine these recommendations into one effective and culturally responsive learning experience.  The app offers interactive story books that support oral language development, while introducing Indigenous themes, illuminating diversity.

An equal mix of self-learning and group learning is ideal for high-quality preschool programs. 

As seen in the ECERS scale: to address self-learning, “space for privacy” appears under the Space and Furnishings category, and “individualized teaching and learning” appears under Interaction. 

To address group-learning, peer learning is recommended under Interaction, and “whole-group activities” is listed under Program Structure.

 

The High-Quality Checklist

The NIEER recommends the following considerations when building a high-quality preschool program. A high-quality preschool Head Start program must:

  • cultivate positive relationships between teachers and children.
  • adequately equip the classroom with sufficient materials and toys. 
  • ensure regular communication that involves mutual listening, responding and encouragement to use reasoning and problem solving.
  • offer opportunities for multiple kinds of play.
  • provide materials and activities to promote understanding of diversity.
  • nurture parental involvement in the program.

 

Additionally, The National Association for the Education of Young Children recommends a staff to child ratio of 1:10 for preschools, with a maximum class size of 20 students. 

Furthermore, the fair compensation and professional development for all teachers and staff are very important components of administering and maintaining a high-quality preschool program. 

Wherever they are not compensated adequately and on equal terms with K-12 educators, there is a higher risk of turnover. 

 

Need for Consistency and Assurance

 

Consistency of Early Educational Experience

Literacy assessment data from the US show that almost half of kindergartners were falling below grade-level benchmarks partway through the 2020-2021 year. The setbacks were more pronounced in marginalized communities. 

This is a case where the quality of preschools fell short of expectations. The data shows that preschoolers need consistent in-person interaction with educators.

Whenever this consistent learning environment is uprooted (due to any natural calamities or a global pandemic), it’s important to have a contingency plan in place that uses hybrid or remote learning, depending on how soon it’s safe to go back to school. 

 

Assurance of High-Quality

The rate of return on human capital investment is at its highest from birth to age 5. When children attend any sort of structural school system for the first time, it’s important that they receive the best education and are assured of continuing in the program.

There can be a trade-off sometimes between targeting skills and the whole child. While it’s true that targeting specific skills such as literacy and numeracy increases achievement in those areas, a whole child curriculum is often better at ensuring quality of classroom processes.

It doesn’t have to be either-or. With holistic learning, you tend to the whole child by involving their teachers, parents and the community to support their needs and safety. But you also focus on particular academic skills by offering leveled activities that are fun to do. 

 

Looking Ahead

There is help available to build high-quality Head Start preschools or transform existing preschools into a high-quality Head Start program. However, while there is more funding to increase accessibility, it must be matched with increased quality. 

Sprig believes that the indications, checklist, and considerations described in this article can be used to establish both new and upgraded high-quality preschools and head start programs.

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Early Literacy: Academic Return on Investment (ROI) For Schools

Jun 30, 2022 | Early Literacy, Holistic Learning

There are different types of returns when it comes to investing in early childhood education (ECE), which includes the early primary grades. A large part of ECE consists of teaching literacy in language and math, as they are fundamental subjects crucial for academic success. 

First, there is the societal return on investment (ROI).

ECE investment benefits the society at large. Professor Heckman, a Nobel Laureate and expert in the economics of human development, found that high-quality early learning investments can yield a 13% annual ROI per child, through better education, economic, health and social outcomes. 

After considering all benefits to health, education and development of young students, and the positive spillover effects to the society, such as increased employment and safety in the future, there is a 4 to 9 times ROI over the lifetime of the student. 

Almost 80% of prekindergarten and elementary schools in the US are public. By educating early learners, they do a lot of good for society.

But these schools are still compared against each other in student success metrics such as attendance, proficiency scores in assessments, and graduation rates. 

This is because, other than societal ROI, there is also the all important school ROI, which increases accountability on the part of publicly funded institutions. 

Education leaders do not seek a monetary return on their investments, but they do seek greater student learning and cost-efficiency. This is called the academic return on investment for schools. This article is about increasing the academic return on investment through early literacy initiatives. 

 

Correct Approach to Academic Return on Investment (ROI)

Correct Approach to Academic Return on Investment

It’s important to understand the expected return from any investment, because there is a limited budget and great opportunity cost for funds which could be used elsewhere to improve the school.

The academic ROI focuses ultimately on student and teacher benefit. 

Teachers instruct and manage students while they are at school, which is a huge factor in affecting academic performance.

Other major contributing factors to academic performance are the student’s learning environment and situation at home, and their unique characteristics as early learners. 

But even these two things can be shaped by teachers, by collaborating with parents and fairly assessing them at school respectively. 

Simply said, for high academic ROI, every dollar spent has to either benefit the student or teacher. 

Academic ROI seeks to maximize achievement for the greatest number of students. It is formulated by multiplying the learning gains for each student by the total number of students helped, and dividing this sum by the investment, or the total amount spent for the result. 

By calculating the academic rate of investment in this way, the former superintendent of Arlington Public Schools, reduced the number of K-5 students reading below grade level by 65%, and increased the proficiency rate of students with special needs by almost 25%.

When used correctly, the academic ROI equation leads to positive results. It makes school administrators take the following into account:

  1. The total academic gains by all students (gains maximization). 
  2. The total cost of such gains (cost-efficiency)

 

Adopting a Student-centered Viewpoint for Academic ROI by Improving Early Literacy Performance

Adopting a Student-Centered Viewpoint for Academic ROI by Impoving Early Literacy Performance

Often during ROI analysis, the district will evaluate and compare different initiatives such as professional development programs, investment in technology (e.g., iPads), and after school tutoring, etc.

This approach makes sense as administrators look to add and cut items from the budget at the end of the fiscal year. 

But it does not address the issue of academic return head-on. 

In order to do that, there needs to be a student-centered viewpoint which considers the overall impact on student academic gains and the associated costs. 

ER Strategies (ERS), the MA based non-profit partner to hundreds of school systems, recommends asking “which resources will meet this need”, instead of “which program is better”? 

The first step is the identification of the core need. 

In this case, because this article is about early literacy, the need is to improve student proficiency scores in language and math. These scores took a hit after the pandemic and are still in recovery mode. 

ERS encourages system-wide thinking that spans departmental boundaries.

By solely focusing on what will improve early literacy performance and its associated cost drivers, it is possible to come up with cost-efficient solutions that will maximize academic gains. 

 

Thinking About a Healthy Academic ROI

Healthy Academic ROI

In a study from small school districts, 7 superintendents unanimously said that the acceptance of out-of-district transfers was a strategy for maintaining the district’s financial well-being. 

Increasing the efficiency in personnel was another strategy everyone agreed upon. This was achieved via cutting and combining staff positions and recruiting and retaining high-quality employees. 

Adopting the student-centered view to ROI, and looking at the goals these initiatives are trying to achieve, we can come to the following conclusions.

  1. There is a need for enrolling more students. 
  2. There is a need for maintaining an efficient roster of teachers and staff that will deliver high-quality education to students. 

 

Having understood these goals, it’s now possible to think of alternate solutions, instead of only focusing on line items in the budget.

For example, the two goals can be summed up to ask, how can each teacher, staff and administrator be better equipped so they can handle the intake, management, instruction, assessment, and personalization of education for every student, old and new, that comes to the district?

There are many answers to the question, of course. 

This type of thinking allows the decision maker to consider the maximum benefit that can be achieved for the students with the smallest input. In other words, it’s very conducive for a healthy academic ROI. 

 

How to Increase Early Literacy Academic ROI

Increase Early Literacy Academic ROI

It helps when the core need of students is identified from the start. 

In the following case, one big public school district had already set out to improve academic ROI by increasing early literacy performance for their students. 

Philadelphia’s public school system posted among the largest gains in English and Math proficiency scores out of all the big urban school districts. 

They achieved this by standardizing the curriculum. All students would learn what was agreed to be the best curriculum at the time for early literacy success. 

Such wide-implementation of a standard curriculum also led to greater collaboration practices, whereby knowledge could be easily transferred between schools. 

Elementary school students doubled their time spent on English and Math, two hours on English and 90 minutes on math respectively. 

Benchmark testing was performed every six weeks to help teachers identify what subjects required more instruction time, or more advanced instruction. 

Class sizes were reduced in over 2,000 classrooms and over 200 academic coaches were added to the roster to handle deficiencies in literacy and numeracy.

Thus, by focusing on early literacy from the beginning, they were able to cost-efficiently invest in:

  1. standardizing the curriculum.
  2. increasing instruction time.
  3. instituting more benchmark testing.
  4. reducing class sizes.
  5. employing reading specialists.

 

Challenge question to you (the reader) to inspire student-centered academic ROI: Working with a tight budget, and having narrowed down these 5 investment items, is there a way to be more cost-efficient? 

 

Early Literacy Performance for Increasing Budget

Thus far, we have focused on cost-efficiency, and rightly so, as it’s one half of the academic ROI equation and is more short-term oriented. Schools have to work within the framework of budgets, which makes them super mindful about maximizing the benefit of every expense. 

When trying to seek the best improvements with a limited budget however, the question has to be asked, what type of investment will best yield long-term returns, such as expanding the size of the budget altogether? 

Improving student academic gains early on, such as raising the early literacy performance, is one of the ways to ensure both short-term and long-term gains to the school. 

The budget can be increased for a school district if there are more students, or if more people buy properties in that school district. But this influx of population into the area will not happen unless people see that the school is in fact renowned for delivering student success.

We already know that early literacy is the single biggest driver of student success in the early grades, but also throughout kindergarten to Grade 12. 

So it’s a matter of prioritizing early literacy initiatives in the budget.

Even for schools in low-income districts that receive federal grants, the goal should be to attract new residents in the community, because only 8% of a public school’s funding comes from federal programs like Title 1.   

 

Investing. Not Spending.

Investing.Not Spending.

 

To recap, there are many superintendents who favor an academic ROI approach to make decisions about spending. The three most important metrics stated are effects on student learning, number of students served, and cost per student. 

A study of 50 school districts showed that the dual goal of increasing student learning while also increasing cost-effectiveness is achievable. 

In early childhood and elementary education, calculating ROI is an essential step to increasing accountability for student success.

For private schools which are funded by tuition fees, there is a greater impetus to track where the money is being spent. In the public sector, however, there are many streams of funds at both the state and federal levels. So it can be overwhelming to do a proper ROI analysis that forecasts what results are to be expected.

At times, it can feel like just spending money, and not investing it for an expected return. But when the funds are invested specifically for a certain return, such as raising early literacy performances, it’s good for both short- and long-term student success as well as the district’s financial well-being.

Sprig Learning is a purpose-built company that develops holistic and inclusive early learning programs. Sprig Reading is currently being developed for teachers, which streamlines a Science of Reading based curriculum for easy teacher application. 

To discuss the cost-effectiveness and return potential of such a solution, please get in touch with us. 

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