Timeless Practices

INFANT - 3 YEARS
Ninety percent (90%) of the human brain has completed growth by age five. Engaged families develop the foundation for thinking & learning through play.
- Talk with your child as you hold & cuddle.
- Develop language through appropriate word-phrase exchanges.
- Read to your child each day.
- Introduce toys for your child to grasp & hold.
- Offer age appropriate choices.
- Introduce & share the sounds of music
- Encourage age appropriate independence-making choices.
- Vary the environment & call attention to the changes in routines
- Praise & acknowledge your child for exploring.
- Reward sharing & thoughtfulness.
PreK - KINDERGARTEN
Readiness - Prompt reasoning, literacy, & language development.
School readiness is a measure of how prepared a child is to succeed in school, cognitively, socially, & emotionally. Below are some inclusive suggestions for preparing PreK-Kindergarten learners for school.

- Read with your child each day.
- Ask age appropriate questions about materials read.
- Introduce new ideas-ask opinions.
- Motivate reasoning & problem solving.
- Praise and reward critical thinking and actions.
- Use voice & body language in response to questions and comments.
- Wait for an age appropriate amount of time to hear comments.
- Grow vocabulary. Child asks-What color is the dog? Parent responds the small dog is brown.
- Motivate decision making.
- Create opportunities to describe-increases vocabulary choices.

PreK - KINDERGARTEN
Readiness - Prompt reasoning, literacy, & language development.
School readiness is a measure of how prepared a child is to succeed in school, cognitively, socially, & emotionally. Below are some inclusive suggestions for preparing PreK-Kindergarten learners for school.
- Read with your child each day.
- Ask age appropriate questions about materials read.
- Introduce new ideas-ask opinions.
- Motivate reasoning & problem solving.
- Praise and reward critical thinking and actions.
- Use voice & body language in response to questions and comments.
- Wait for an age appropriate amount of time to hear comments.
- Grow vocabulary. Child asks-What color is the dog? Parent responds the small dog is brown.
- Motivate decision making.
- Create opportunities to describe-increases vocabulary choices.

FIRST - THIRD GRADE
Improve Understanding Boost Critical Thinking-Emphasize Literacy & Language Development
Critical Thinking is defined as the ability to think clearly & rationally about what to do or believe. Written below are some fundamental comments and questions that could be used to motivate and nurture cognitive development, literacy & language development.
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Read to-with your child each day.
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Ask your child to explain phrases, words, & expressions.
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Ask your child to retell the story-information read.
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Ask your child to make a prediction-say what they think will happen next.
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Have your child compare-how the story character is similar and/or different from you?
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Encourage looking ahead. We have a prediction for rain tomorrow if the rain is falling-which jacket will you choose to wear?
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Teach summarizing-ask what do you think might be a short way to retell the story-information read?
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Ask Why questions-accept age appropriate responses.
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Provide a variety of creative development materials-nurture creativity.
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Have high critical thinking-responding expectations for learners-raise the bar a reasonable distance each time you see growth.
