Academics

Emily Spong Preschool Center is currently implementing four outstanding programs for our young students: Brain Gym®, and Raising A Reader.

 

Brain Gym®

Brain Gym® is a program that promotes integration of the mind and body through movement. It is a series of activities that help individuals learn more quickly, manage behavior, attend, comprehend, and succeed.
Each teacher at Emily Spong Preschool Center has been thoroughly trained in Brain Gym® and we use it on a daily basis with our children. We believe that Brain Gym® supports learning and performance and helps to activate communication, comprehension and organizational skills.

Breakthrough To Literacy

The success of Breakthrough to Literacy includes:

  • Daily reading of shared story
  • Daily writing
  • Individualized software instruction
  • Engaging children's parents from home


Where Bright Futures Begin

Houghton Mifflin PreK, Where Bright Futures Begin is a comprehensive, integrated  program that incorporates strong literacy, math, science, and social studies activities into daily content instruction.  

Houghton Mifflin PreK consists of ten instructional themes.  Each three week theme includes engaging, award-winning literature in the Big Book format.   Each big book includes three content links that organizes the instruction for the weekly theme topic.    Daily instruction focuses on phonological awareness, oral language, comprehension, math concept development, letter knowledge, pre-writing activities, and social/emotional development.  Formal and informal assessment is included for the tracking of student progress.    A family involvement component is included to provide a connection between the home and school.

Features:
• Research-based instruction and activities to teach basic literacy and numeracy
• Daily phonological and print awareness activities
• Oral language development through songs, poems, and theme vocabulary
• Large and small group activities to meet the needs of every student
• Big Books that provide shared reading opportunities and promote print awareness
• Weekly Teacher Read-alouds that promote comprehension activities to build background knowledge and promote listening skills
• Integrated center activities that provide opportunities to practice new skills
• Daily letter and language activities to support the learning of letter names and formation
• Daily appropriate writing activities that connect the spoken word to print
• Weekly family newsletters
• Assessments for tracking student progress


Raising A Reader

Raising A Reader is a comprehensive strategy to strengthen the early literacy and language skills of young children through childcare provider training and parent education and involvement.

Emily Spong Preschool Center embraces Raising A Reader and it is an integral part of the total school program. 

Independent evaluations have demonstrated Raising A Reader improves school reading scores by increasing the number of families that daily read and share books with their preschool children.