{"id":1490,"date":"2017-03-22T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T11:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wilsonlanguage.com\/knowledge-library\/success-story\/early-learners-rise-and-shine\/"},"modified":"2024-08-28T17:05:55","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T17:05:55","slug":"early-learners-rise-and-shine","status":"publish","type":"success_stories","link":"https:\/\/www.wilsonlanguage.com\/knowledge-library\/success-story\/early-learners-rise-and-shine\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Learners Rise and Shine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>For five minutes every weekday morning, Nancy Close is upstaged in her pre-kindergarten classroom by a tiny owl puppet perched on the end of a ruler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBaby Echo is much higher in stature than I am,\u201d the veteran early education teacher confided about the prop that came with her Fundations\u00ae Pre-K Activity Set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But she doesn\u2019t mind. It means her class of energetic four-year-olds at Hunter Elementary School in Greensboro, NC,&nbsp;is eager to learn how to read and write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than seeing a child learn how to spell and write their name like the big kids do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Title I elementary school, along with 74 other pre-kindergarten classes throughout Greensboro\u2019s sprawling Guilford County school district, served as a pilot site for the Fundations Pre-K Activity Set during the 2014-2015 school year.&nbsp;The district has been using it ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After piloting the Fundations pre-k set for a year at schools in North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York, Wilson Language Training<sup>\u00ae<\/sup> rolled out the set nationally during the 2015\u20132016 school year. The activities are designed to help prepare students for kindergarten by providing a multisensory \u201cpre-dose\u201d of letter-sound association and writing skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI love this program,\u201d said Nancy, whose class of 18 students includes nine English language learners. \u201cIt\u2019s developmentally appropriate and doesn\u2019t take away from other instruction time. It complements everything that we\u2019re doing. It\u2019s so easy to work with and it\u2019s so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to supporting emerging language arts skills, the Fundations pre-k&nbsp;curriculum ties in with the goals of North Carolina\u2019s model kindergarten readiness initiative, known as&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/ncchildcare.dhhs.state.nc.us\/general\/mb_ncprek.asp\">NC Pre-K<\/a>, explained Amy Pendergrass, Guilford County Schools\u2019 Pre-K Director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a recent National Public Radio segment on&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/ed\/2016\/11\/17\/502299963\/a-lesson-for-preschools-when-its-done-right-the-benefits-last\">the lasting benefits of quality pre-school education<\/a>, research shows that high-quality early childhood programs in North Carolina has resulted in higher test scores, a lower chance of being held back in a grade, and fewer children in need of special education placements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Guilford County Schools\u2019 pre-k program currently serves more than 1,200 students in 75 classrooms at 51 elementary schools. In addition to the Fundations pre-k set, the district provides Fundations K\u20133 in all 69 of its elementary schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen we pulled data to look at children who did attend pre-k classrooms with Fundations, we found they are being very successful when they get to kindergarten in terms of phonemic awareness and early phonics skills,\u201d explained Amy Geer, one of the district\u2019s school psychologists and a certified Fundations Facilitator. \u201cKindergarten teachers are reporting the strengths that those students have with letters and sounds as they come into their classrooms. We really feel it\u2019s having a great impact on our children,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not asking too much of these four-year-olds, but they do love the structure of&nbsp;it and the consistency from day to day. They know what to expect when their teacher gets up to teach Fundations and it\u2019s a comfortable learning environment for children. I\u2019ve also seen children love it so much that during play time, they pretend to be the Fundations teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For five minutes every weekday morning, Nancy Close is upstaged in her pre-kindergarten classroom by a tiny owl puppet perched on the end of a ruler. \u201cBaby Echo is much higher in stature than I am,\u201d the veteran early education teacher confided about the prop that came with her Fundations\u00ae Pre-K Activity Set. But she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1491,"template":"","success-story-cats":[],"success-story-tags":[],"class_list":["post-1490","success_stories","type-success_stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Early Learners Rise and Shine - Wilson Language Training Knowledge Library<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wilsonlanguage.com\/knowledge-library\/success-story\/early-learners-rise-and-shine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Early Learners Rise and Shine - Wilson Language Training Knowledge Library\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For five minutes every weekday morning, Nancy Close is upstaged in her pre-kindergarten classroom by a tiny owl puppet perched on the end of a ruler. \u201cBaby Echo is much higher in stature than I am,\u201d the veteran early education teacher confided about the prop that came with her Fundations\u00ae Pre-K Activity Set. 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