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Productive Home/School Partnerships

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this is for a preschool age group, discuss these challenges relation to historical, societal, economic, cultural and linguistic factors.how to connect families and school in ways that are respectful of different life styles and individual needs? how to bond with families of students with disabilities and ESL families? references please and if you can could you send by attach file because my printer do not print out the right side of my paper. thanks

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I was a teaching assistant at VHCC in IL. It was a wonderful center that stressed community. The school was one big community, and then there were four villages within that community. They were named by the three primary colors and green. So we had the red, blue, yellow, and green village.
Each village was a community within a community. There were four to five classrooms in each village. There was also a village office for each. Each village wrote thier history and kept it in the posting place for each village. Each classroom had its own restrooms for the students, with small toilets and the appropriate sized sinks. Each village had red, green, yellow, or blue tiles leading to it so the children of that community could find their way to their village. The cafeteria made breakfast, lunch, and snack daily. They delivered the food to the classrooms at the correct time each day, and studnets ate at tabels familt style, thus continuing to build that sense of community. There was a large gathering place in the center of the building. Near the center of the building, there was also an indoor play area, the office, a parent room, and a meeting room. We also had an outdoor play area, with concrete sidewalks weaving all around for bikes, and trikes, and scooter, and wagons, which the school provided. At this age, there is also the physical development and dexterity to improve. Much of this is done during play. Having the funds to provide all of these items to help with this was due to the funds that were available in grants, in addition to the budgeted money from the school district. A lot of thought and effort went into this early childhood center. The school was designed and built to be functional in every way.

Parents had to sign a contract if they wanted their child to attend VHCC. If they didn't sign or if they broke the agreement, their child was no longer allowed to attend the facility. They had to agree to provide service to the school, and to be a part of their child's education by participating in meetings and events. Their was a parent liason whose only job was to work with the parents. If parents needed education they could get help through the parent liason and find resources in the parent room. There were also meetings to improve parent skills and to help parents find needed resources. Parents were expected to be respectful, responsible, and motivated toward improving their lives and therefore the lives of their children. Parents and children were held to a high standard. This parent component of the program was essential to its success.

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I am going to give you a lot of information and then I am going to share my own personal experience. I worked as a teaching assistant in an early childhood center in IL that was a brand new cutting edge concept. People from all over the US came to see what we were doing there.

* Preschool education or Infant education is education for children before the education that is required by law. Children are usually between the ages of zero and three or five, depending on where the child lives.
* In a British or English nursery school, "nursery" or playgroup is the usual term for preschool education, although the term preschool is also often used. In the United States preschool and Pre-K are used, while "nursery school" is an older term.
* Preschool work is organized within a framework that professional educators create. The framework includes structural organization (administration, class size, teacher-child ratio, services, etc.), process (quality of classroom environments, teacher-child interactions, etc.), and alignment (standards, curriculum, assessments) components that are associated with each individual unique child that has both social and academic outcomes.
At each age band or level, appropriate curriculum should be applied. For example, it would be normal to teach a child how to count 10 after 4 years old.

* The first pre-school institution was opened in 1816 by Robert Owen in New Lanark, Scotland.
* The Hungarian countess Theresa Brunszvik followed in 1828.
* In 1837, Friedrich Fröbel opened one in Germany, coining the term "kindergarten".
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Areas of Development

The areas of development which preschool education covers varies from country to country. However, the following main themes are represented in the majority of systems.
* Personal, social, economical, and emotional development
* Communication, including sign language, talking and listening
* Knowledge and understanding of the world
* Creative and aesthetic development
* Educational software
* Mathematical awareness and development
* Physical development
* Playing
* Teamwork
* Self-help skills
* Social skills

Allowing preschool aged children to discover and explore freely within each of these areas of development is the foundation for developmental learning. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association of Child Care Professionals (NACCP) have made tremendous strides in publicizing and promoting the idea of developmentally appropriate practice, although there is still much work to be done. It is widely recognized that although many preschool educators are aware of the guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice, putting this practice to work effectively in the classroom is more challenging. The NAEYC published that although 80% of Kindergarten classrooms claim to be developmentally appropriate, only 20% actually are.
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Age and Importance

* Preschool is generally considered appropriate for children between zero or three and five years of age, which is between the baby or toddler and school stages. During this stage of development, children learn and assimilate information rapidly, and express interest and fascination in each new discovery. They are extremely eager to learn.
* It is well established that the most important years of learning begin as soon as we are born. From birth, a child's brain is making connections that will last the rest of their life. During the preschool years, a human being is capable of absorbing more information at a time than they will ever be able to again. The environment of the young child influences the development of cognitive skills and emotional skills due to the rapid brain growth that occurs in these early years. Studies have shown that high quality preschools have both a short and long term effect in improving the outcomes of a child, especially a disadvantaged child. This is what led to the creation of Head Start. However, some more recent studies dispute the accuracy of the earlier results which cited benefits to preschool education, and actually point at preschool being detrimental to a child's cognitive and social development. A study by UC Berkeley and Stanford University on 14,000 Kindergarteners revealed that while there is a temporary cognitive boost in pre-reading and math, preschool holds detrimental effects on social development and cooperation. So, the debate continues.
* The Universal Preschool movement is an international effort to make access to preschool available to families in a similar way to required primary education. Different countries, states, and cities have different priorities for access, availability, and funding sources.
* See kindergarten for details of pre-school education in various countries. There has been a shift from preschools that operated primarily as controlled play groups to educational settings in which children learn basic skills and even more specific skils. It examines several different perspectives on teaching in kindergarten, including those of the developmentally appropriate practice, the academic approach, the child-centered approach, and the Montessori approach to the ...

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