Document 205394
A Briefing Paper for Funders, NonProfits & Policymakers September 2007 How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Authored by: Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Applied Survey Research Overview WHAT’S INSIDE: The Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness was founded to support the school readiness and success of local children, families, and schools. To best focus community investments, the Partnership first needed to determine what supports were needed, and so they commissioned a three‐year readiness assessment benchmark in 2004, 2005 and 2006 to better understand the school readiness of children entering kindergarten in Santa Clara County. Analysis revealed two pressing readiness needs among new kindergarten students: Although many children do enter schools ready to learn, more than one in four children have significant development needs in the areas of self‐regulation and/or language. Challenges in either language development or self‐regulation can lead to rocky transitions into kindergarten and can hinder later school success. The Partnership sought to give children a healthier start in school by directly addressing these two readiness needs. To determine how to best support the readiness of children, families, and schools, the Partnership impaneled two Awareness‐to‐Action Study Circles. The members – a working group of academic and practitioner experts – were guided by a simple goal: to provide the children in our community a better chance to develop the emotional, regulatory, and language skills that they need to be successful in school and life. RECOMMENDED STRATEGIES TO SUPPORT SCHOOL READINESS & SUCCESS OF CHILDREN, FAMILIES & SCHOOLS 1. Coach and support parents and caregivers to become healthy role models for children of all ages 2. Cultivate mentoring and peer support networks among early childhood professionals and among elementary teachers 3. Encourage dialogue across home, child care, preschool, elementary school, and health care communities 4. Improve the effectiveness and accessibility of screening for all children … and of intervention for children with developmental delays 5. Create an interactive resource library to support During the course of 5 these efforts working meetings, study 6. Evaluate the impact of county-wide efforts, inform circle members decided policy, and shape community values that enhancing school readiness and later school success requires a comprehensive approach involving parents, caregivers, educators, service providers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers. Efforts must guide families to optimally support their children’s education, while creating school systems that better serve the diversity of children who arrive. Approaches should not just focus on children the year prior to kindergarten entry. Rather, approaches must involve children from birth to age 8, 2 Overview | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools School Readiness Assessment in Santa Clara County …3 A Deeper Look at Two Pressing Readiness Needs…6 Moving From Awareness to Action …12 Recommended Strategies for Change …15 A Call-to-Action for Funders & Policymakers …19 Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities …21 Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness because the development of self‐regulation and language skills starts early and extends through elementary school. To improve school readiness and success, the Awareness‐to‐Action Study Circles offer six general strategies and a set of more specific activities that they believe will have high impact and are feasible given our local conditions. If funders and program leaders keep these approaches in mind when evaluating grant requests and possible services, all of our children – especially those most vulnerable – should have a healthier and more successful start to school and life. School Readiness Assessment in Santa Clara County Introducing the Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness In 2001, a group of public and private funders who focus on early childhood development formed the Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness. The Partnership’s focus is to: Help families, caregivers, and teachers support children as they develop the skills they need for school; Build systems to ensure that more of our children arrive at school “ready”; and Make sure that the schools are ready to support the diverse sets of skills that children actually bring to kindergarten. Before resources could be strategically targeted to accomplish these ends, a clear picture of children’s readiness skills in Santa Clara County was needed. As no quantitative information existed about the readiness of children at that time, the first step was to build a solid knowledge base. To determine the state of kindergarten readiness across the county, the Partnership launched a three‐year benchmark assessment beginning in Fall 2004.1 In collaboration with Applied Survey Research, the Partnership assessed the readiness of random samples of Santa Clara County kindergarten students in 2004, 2005 and 2006. The goal of these assessments was to understand just how ready children are for school – and where interventions may enhance the likelihood of school success. The Partnership for School Readiness conducted countywide assessments of children’s readiness for school in 2004, 2005, and 2006 After building a knowledge base, the Partnership is now working to support increased school readiness across the county Beginning as an engine to generate public awareness of school readiness in the county, the Partnership is now committed to determining the best ways to support children, families, and schools. To ensure children have the greatest chance for success in school and in life, the Partnership is working to: How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | School Readiness Assessment in Santa Clara County 3 Promote the strategic use of resources; Provide guidance to discussions of policy; and Inspire the creation of flagship systems that embody the coordinated efforts described herein. Are Children Ready For School? An Overview of the Best-Practice Methodology Since 2004, the readiness of over 2,000 children entering kindergarten in Santa Clara County has been assessed. After observing their students during the first few weeks of the school year, trained teachers rated their students’ proficiency across 20 readiness skills. The rigorous assessment methodology has furnished findings that generalize to all kindergarten students in Santa Clara County within a small margin of error.2,3 Since 2004, the kindergarten readiness of more than 2,000 children has been assessed Key Readiness Findings A thorough examination of all three years of assessment data revealed several key findings. For example, the Partnership learned that: Readiness in the county is best described by four dimensions that were analytically derived based on underlying patterns across the readiness skills. These Basic Building Blocks of school readiness emerged each year and include Self‐Care & Motor Skills, Self‐Regulation, Social Expression, and Kindergarten Academics. Four Basic Building Blocks of Readiness include: 1. Self-Care & Motor Skills 2. SelfRegulation K Academics Recog. colors Recog. letters Recog. shapes Counts 10 objects Engages with books Writes own first name Can recognize rhyming words SelfRegulation Comforts self Pays attention Controls impulses Follows directions Negotiates solutions Plays cooperatively Participates in circle time Social Expression 3. Social Expression 4. Kindergarten Academics Expresses empathy Relates well to adults Has expressive abilities Curious & eager to learn Expresses needs & wants Engages in symbolic play Self-Care & Motor Skills Use of small manipulatives Has general coordination Performs basic self-help / self-care tasks Basic Building Blocks of Readiness 4 School Readiness Assessment in Santa Clara County | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Discussions with teachers and experts have also revealed the importance of language development, which is integral to all four of these dimensions. Children sort into four possible “readiness portraits” based on their skill proficiency. Representing almost half of new kindergarten students, All Stars are ready for school across all dimensions. In contrast, between 10‐13% of children are Needs Prep students, with mastery in none of the readiness skills. The remaining two portraits present mixed patterns of readiness. Social Stars are prepared in the social and emotional dimensions of readiness but lack more academic preparedness (15‐19% of children), whereas Focused‐on‐the‐Facts children are well‐ prepared in academic dimensions, but still have social / emotional development needs (21%‐27% of new students). Readiness for kindergarten is associated with many factors. Across three years of data, greater readiness was most strongly associated with the following child and family factors: being older at kindergarten entry, being a girl, having no special needs, having attended preschool, being proficient in English, and being exposed to more frequent reading in the home. Assessment data also gave voice to teachers’ views and priorities about school readiness. Teachers sent a clear and concise message about what children need in order to succeed in kindergarten. Teachers consistently pointed to proficiency in Self‐Care & Motor Skills and Self‐ Regulation as most critical to a smooth transition into kindergarten. Indeed, analysis revealed that children who are skilled in these arenas and have Social Expression skills do experience a smoother transition into school, express more enjoyment for school, and are less anxious in the classroom. Teachers cared much less that children enter proficient in the “nuts and bolts” of Kindergarten Academics. Teachers view these skills as fairly easy to impact during the school year relative to other kinds of skills. Teachers worry that the curriculum they must teach to students does not match the developmental stage of new kindergarten students – especially those who are younger and those who struggle with controlling impulses and focusing attention. Teachers across the county face very different challenges because classrooms are composed of different mixes of students. Some teachers welcome students who are, with few exceptions, All Stars. In contrast, teachers at schools where children are least prepared have almost no All Stars and mixes of the other three profiles. In classrooms where so many children have development needs, teachers must spend much more time helping students catch up. Children sort into one of four Readiness Portraits based on their proficiency across 23 readiness skills: - All Stars - Needs Prep - Social Stars - Focused-on-theFacts Teachers prioritize proficiency in SelfCare & Motor Skills and Self-Regulation for a smooth transition into kindergarten Classrooms across the county are very diverse, some filled with All Stars and others filled with many children who have developmental needs How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | School Readiness Assessment in Santa Clara County 5 The Emergence of Two Clear Readiness Needs When children’s actual skill levels are compared to teachers’ desired levels of proficiency at kindergarten entry, about two‐thirds of children meet or exceed teachers’ expectations. Although many children do enter schools ready to learn, one‐ third falls short. Moreover, more than one in four new kindergarten students have significant development needs. Assessment data revealed that children need extra support in two critical areas of development: Self‐regulation skills, and Expressive and receptive language. More than 1 in 4 children have significant development needs in either selfregulation or language development … or both Data show that challenges with either self‐regulation or language lead to rockier transitions into kindergarten. Without early intervention, children who enter with needs in these areas will, most likely, face a difficult time being successful in school. A Deeper Look at Two Pressing Readiness Needs Before recommendations could be formulated to meet children’s self‐regulation and language development needs, study circle members first required a deep understanding of the problem. They delved into the basic processes of self‐regulation and language development, and they considered this information in light of the local context. In the following section, we outline the background that study circle participants reviewed in order to develop their key recommendations.4 Self-Regulation: Background and Local Context Self-regulation involves: - Controlling impulses - Focusing attention - Regulating emotions - Adhering to social norms - Displaying appropriate compliance What Is Self-Regulation? In kindergarten, teachers expect children to be able to pay attention, participate in circle time, follow two and three step directions, comfort themselves with adult guidance, control impulses, learn from mistakes, play cooperatively, and use imaginative play to develop solutions to problems with their classmates. In short, children’s ability to proactively control their behavior and regulate their emotional responses – their self‐regulation skills – are crucial developmental skills that help children adapt to the classroom environment and respond constructively to the structure of school. Teachers see that children with these skills are “more teachable” because they are less distractible, more positive, and have smoother transitions into school. When children struggle with these skills, their own transition into kindergarten can be quite rocky, and their difficulties can build ripple effects that disrupt their peers’ learning environments as well. 6 - Learning from mistakes A Deeper Look at Two Pressing Readiness Needs | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Role Models, Language, and Play are Building Blocks of Self-Regulation Children learn self‐regulation best when responsive, caring adults model effective behavior and guide children to learn from mistakes. Key ingredients to building healthy self‐regulation include substantial coaching and positive reinforcement, age‐ appropriate expectations, and numerous opportunities to practice skills in a safe, stable environment. As infants, children first learn “reactive” regulation. They take their cues from their parents and caregivers, they learn to regulate their sleeping and eating patterns, and they learn behaviors, such as sucking, to help themselves calm down. By their second year, children are learning to use their words. Their increased language skills help them to understand adults’ expectations. Children can begin to follow simple directives. They start to understand that other people might have different emotional states than their own, and they learn the words for these emotions. They begin responding to social expectations with much testing of limits. Toddlers begin to be able to resist impulses, but coping with frustration is still difficult, so tantrums escalate as children learn more about what they want but don’t quite understand why they can’t have it “now!” As children grow from toddlers to preschoolers, they more frequently use words to describe their feelings and start using private speech to guide their behavior during challenging tasks. Tantrums wane as children better understand what is expected and learn about delayed gratification. Adults help with this process by encouraging children to build new vocabulary to describe their wants and needs and talking with children about different approaches to problem‐solving. Imaginative play is critical for practicing and honing self‐regulation skills during this time. Imagination games – like playing dress‐up or school – help children role‐play and work through different social situations. By playing together, children learn to take turns, share, and respect each others’ feelings. Children teach and support each other as they learn the rules. As problems inevitably emerge, adult guidance helps children learn to listen to each other, think about alternative approaches, and resolve conflicts. Language becomes an increasingly important tool for sharing ideas, expressing emotions, and solving problems. As children approach school age, they continue to develop empathy and learn more about how to work within the social norms of the family and other settings. They begin to demonstrate effortful regulation – they consciously restrain their behavior, cooperate and focus attention on tasks. During the primary grades, attention continues to improve and become more selective and adaptable, and children rely more on language to help with social problem‐solving. The development of self-regulation starts early … and it is a necessary ingredient for success throughout life Children learn selfregulation best when responsive, caring adults model effective behavior A good way for children to practice self-regulation skills is through play As children approach school age, they become better at adhering to social norms, restraining behavior, and focusing attention There is a wide range of “normal” development of self‐regulation, and children’s behavior is certainly situational and highly variable. Self‐regulation is enhanced when How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | A Deeper Look at Two Pressing Readiness Needs 7 children have a predictable routine, but children also need opportunities to learn what to do when their routines are disrupted and when their goals conflict with those of the others around them. Play and adult guidance help to keep the transition from “baby” to “student” on track. What Can Go Wrong? The range of “normal” selfregulation development is wide All children have occasional self‐regulation lapses. Temper tantrums are common in 2‐ year olds. Even in 5 year olds, coping skills vary widely. Temperament and culture can also play a role in self‐regulation, both in terms of how they affect a child’s behavior and how that behavior is perceived. When there are concerns about a child’s self‐regulation, it is important for parents, caregivers, and teachers to work together to understand the underlying causes. Problems can be the result of environmental causes, such as overstimulation, stress from changes in the family circumstances, or lack of consistent expectations. Biological forces – including premature birth, brain injury, and pre‐natal exposure to drugs or alcohol – can also have an impact. Developmental delays in language and speech, learning disabilities like dyslexia, and challenges with hearing and vision can all cause frustration that is manifested in self‐regulation problems. Other sources of self‐regulation difficulties may stem from children’s adult role models. Adults who have self‐regulation challenges of their own may unwittingly pass on behavioral practices to children that are less than optimal. Ensuring that parents, caregivers, and teachers are knowledgeable about and are engaging in good self‐ regulation themselves is another avenue for fostering strong self‐regulation in children. How Our Schools Address (or Fail to Address) Self-Regulation Issues Data from the readiness assessment underscore the significance of healthy development of self‐regulation skills in children. Teachers point to self‐regulation skills – the ability to focus attention, control their impulses, and work cooperatively, for example – as being of critical importance to children’s readiness for school and their capacity for subsequent learning. For a smooth transition into kindergarten, teachers would like children to be near‐proficient on these skills. However, almost one in four children enters school significantly below where their teachers would like them to be. In some of the schools with the lowest readiness scores in the county – and those with younger kindergarten students – an even higher proportion of the class struggles with the basics of focused attention and impulse control. Such conditions lead to frequent breakdowns in self‐regulation and the accompanying classroom‐management challenges. In fact, classroom management is the aspect of teaching that causes teachers the greatest stress. When children lack self‐regulation abilities, teachers end up spending a large proportion of classroom time coping with self‐regulation breakdowns, and they are less able to teach the academic content that state standards require. Parents, caregivers, and teachers need to themselves have healthy selfregulation skills for effective rolemodeling Teachers point to self-regulation skills as critical to kindergarten entry … and they’d like children to be proficient 8 Consider the frequency, severity, and duration of selfregulation lapses when determining whether to seek guidance and help A Deeper Look at Two Pressing Readiness Needs | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Although Santa Clara County kindergarten teachers report using informal approaches and strategies to nurturing self‐regulation development, few have any formal curricula that address self‐regulation proficiency. Those curricula that are in use foster conflict resolution specifically and do not directly address the other important elements of self‐ regulation (e.g., focused attention). Though teachers lack structured approaches to nurture self‐regulation, effective practices do exist. Teachers have also expressed concern that the ways in which classrooms are structured do not take the self‐regulatory abilities of new kindergarten students into account. Teachers have said that the emphasis on academic standards means that children are no longer able to develop some very important social skills because “kindergarten is now absolutely academic.” Others feel as though they “must teach first grade material to students who are not ready developmentally for it.” Still others express concern that the standards‐based curricula may not be appropriate for children who are young entrants to school. All of these conditions shout the need to advocate for alignment between curricula, policy, and self‐regulation development. Language Development: Research Background and Local Context 1 in 4 children enter school significantly below teachers’ desired level of selfregulation proficiency Few structured approaches to guiding selfregulation development are in use Setting the Stage for Healthy Language Development Children’s language skills are of central importance to success in school – their ability to both understand language (receptive language skills) as well as to express their thoughts (expressive language). Learning language relies on rich and varied verbal interactions with parents, caregivers, and teachers. Although research has yet to answer many of the questions surrounding the conditions in which optimal language development occurs, we do know that both the sheer quantity of language exposure as well as the richness of the content are important. Many children are not getting the right kind of inputs for healthy language development, however. National studies show that 16‐22%5 of children have some sort of language or communication problem that will present a fundamental challenge for learning. Moreover, communication disorders and language impairment are prevalent among all populations of children – and Santa Clara County is likely no exception. School readiness assessment data show that 22% of local kindergarten students are significantly below their teachers’ desired levels of proficiency on basic expressive and receptive language skills when they start school. Some language “risk factors” have been identified by researchers of language development. The quantity and richness of language in the home environment is related to myriad factors, such as parental education, parental mental health, and fluency levels of the parents in the languages spoken at home. This research suggests that many – if not all – parents and caregivers will benefit from greater access to Healthy language development is fostered by exposure to a lot of language, rich in content More than 1 in 5 kindergarten students lack proficiency in the expressive and/or receptive language skills that teachers desire How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | A Deeper Look at Two Pressing Readiness Needs 9 information about how to cultivate healthy language development in their children – and why language is critical to success in school and life. Language Diversity in Santa Clara County: Moving Away from a “Deficits” Model Santa Clara County faces the additional benefit and challenge of a very large English Learner population. Forty‐five percent of incoming kindergarten students were classified as English Learners in 2005 – speaking 51 different languages – and over half of new kindergarten students have parents who were not born in the United States. This language diversity should be viewed as a community asset, as children who become proficient in more than one language will have an edge in our multi‐cultural, global society. A prosperous community in the global economy should appreciate and support the development of multi‐lingual children.6 Currently, however, we approach the issue of English Learners from a deficits perspective; rather than celebrating children’s proficiency in their home languages, we focus on the distance they must travel before English‐proficiency and before they can be successful in our English‐based school system. In so doing, we risk focusing on these children’s deficits in English rather than their abilities in other languages. We need to erase this deficit model, because it will likely lead to such an emphasis on English‐development that many of our children will lose their native language as they develop proficiency in English. When children lose their native language it can have a serious impact on the ability of parents (and extended family) to communicate with their children, which makes parenting increasingly difficult as the children get older. How Our Schools Respond (and Fail to Respond) to English Learners In Santa Clara County, 45% of students entering kindergarten in 2005 were English Learners, representing 51 different languages – this diversity must be valued English Learners are at risk of delayed diagnosis of actual language disorders … and misdiagnosis as special needs students when their development is actually on-track Although the ability to speak more than one language will likely serve English Learners well in later life, English Learners do face an extra set of challenges as they enter our primarily English school system. Of course, all of these children confront the linguistic challenge of learning a second language while trying to absorb academic content. Trying to learn English would be especially difficult for those English Learners who have developmental delays in their primary language, and national data would suggest that between one in eight and one in five of these children has some type of communication disorder. Because English Learners often do not share a common language with their elementary teachers, the diagnosis of these disorders can be delayed, making it difficult for children to get the support and intervention that they need in a timely fashion. In addition to delayed diagnosis of actual disorders, English Learners may also be the victims of an opposite problem – diagnosis as having special needs when none actually exist. Because they are not yet able to communicate well in English, the language development of English Learners may appear off‐track. As a result, teachers may send them for further screening and assessment. Under typical practices, English Learners are only assessed in one language (typically English). Assessing children in only one language provides a very limited picture of children’s acquisition of language because concepts are often present in one language but not the other. With the limited picture 10 Assessment in children’s primary languages as well as English is critical for a full picture of children’s development A Deeper Look at Two Pressing Readiness Needs | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness provided by a mono‐lingual assessment, English Learners can be misdiagnosed as having language impairments (or other learning disabilities) and inappropriately funneled into the special education system. To avoid this problem, assessments for English Learners must occur in English as well as in their primary language whenever possible so that a full picture of children’s development can be drawn. When assessment in children’s primary language is not possible, feedback from parents should be gathered to enrich the school’s understanding of a child’s language and cognitive development. In addition to the challenges of learning English, assessment data showed that English Learners do not enter school as ready as their English‐speaking peers. English Learners scored significantly lower across all Basic Building Blocks of readiness. These lower scores reflect the fact that English Learners – especially Latino English Learners, who comprise the largest segment of Santa Clara County’s English Learner population – are more likely to come from families with risk factors that are associated with lower readiness scores (e.g., lower maternal education, lower incomes, denser households). These data suggest that this population – whatever the root causes may be – should be the target of efforts to enhance their school readiness skills. Later student performance data reveal that our school systems are not meeting the needs of our English Learner students in other ways, as well. Performance gaps persist as children move toward standardized testing in later elementary grades, demonstrating that there is a significant problem in how we educate our English Learners – classroom practices are not optimized for English Learner success. Not only do standardized tests scores of English Learners lag, but Santa Clara County schools also do not teach these students strong English language skills; on average, they re‐ designate less than 11% of English Learners as English‐proficient.7 Expectations around how long it will take for English Learners to become proficient in English vary widely, from a matter of months in our most successful schools to a matter of years in other schools. Children learn English best when steeped in an environment with many proficient English‐speakers. However, in many neighborhoods, children’s exposure to English is delivered in a one‐teacher‐to‐twenty‐students classroom with little to no English spoken in more informal environments like the playground. Model programs to introduce more English‐speaking volunteers into the school setting so that children are encouraged to interact in English are happening in communities like East Palo Alto through a partnership with Stanford University. Attention must be paid to the outcomes of such programs so that successful ones can be replicated in other communities. English Learners enter kindergarten less proficient on readiness skills than their peers Performance gaps persist, according to standardized tests, as children enter later grades To learn the language, English Learners may need more exposure to English than the typical 1 teacher to 20 students the typical classroom allows How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | A Deeper Look at Two Pressing Readiness Needs 11 Parent-Teacher Communication: Another Target for Intervention Finally, parents do not see the same language problems that teachers see. Our assessment data indicate that parents and teachers perceive children’s language skills differently, with teachers seeing more development needs than do parents. There are many potential reasons for such findings. For example, parents see children from an individualistic perspective, while teachers view children from a group perspective. Parents may not track delays in language development for other reasons, as well; perhaps they have built ways of understanding their child that do not rely on expressed language, or perhaps they have less knowledge than do teachers about what is developmentally appropriate. In any case, recommendations need to address the gap between teacher and parent perceptions and find ways to create connections that promote optimal language development between home and school. Moving From Awareness to Action Local Data Mobilized the Creation of Two Awareness-to-Action Study Circles The Partnership for School Readiness began as an engine to gather readiness information and to build public awareness of the needs of children, families, and school systems in Santa Clara County. But the Partnership quickly became mobilized by the local assessment data and oriented toward action. In order to make a measurable difference in children’s readiness for school – and their subsequent school success – the Partnership realized it needed to develop specific recommendations to better support local children, families, and schools. To these ends, the Partnership impaneled two “Awareness‐to‐Action” study circles: One devoted to self‐regulation development, and the other focused on language development. A diverse group of academic and practitioner experts from relevant fields was recruited to participate in five working meetings. Early meetings were focused on developing a shared foundation of knowledge in each area (highlighted in the previous section), establishing a shared goal for change, and identifying core values (see below). In subsequent meetings members considered the factors that support and detract from readiness (summarized on page 14), uncovered pockets of local success, sleuthed out best practices, and prioritized recommended action steps (discussed on page 15). 12 Moving From Awareness to Action | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Parents and teachers do not see eye-to-eye when it comes their children’s language skills Awareness-toAction Study Circles were founded to translate readiness knowledge into recommendations for change The study circles established a shared goal: Through education and the strategic use of resources, the children in our community will develop the emotional, regulatory, and language skills that they need to be successful in school and life Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Developing A Shared Goal and Guiding Values In light of assessment data that indicated needs in self‐regulation and language development, the study circles developed the following goal to guide their planning efforts: Through education and the strategic use of resources, the children in our community will develop the emotional, regulatory, and language skills that they need to be successful in school and life. Before a coordinated set of recommendations could be developed to achieve this goal, study circle participants discussed what systems in the county were working well, and which needed adjustment. Through these conversations a set of core values emerged that gird the six recommended strategies and key activities outlined on pages 15‐18. The Awareness‐to‐Action Study Circles generally believe that: 1. Development of strong language and social‐emotional skills depends on the efforts of parents, caregivers, and teachers. These individuals must create the scaffolds to allow the transfer of learning between adults and children, home and school and between first and second languages. Development is a continuous, lifelong process, with parents, teachers and peers all playing roles in the healthy development of language and self‐ regulation in children. Healthy language and self‐regulation development are required for cognitive development, and each can certainly facilitate the development of the other. Both strong language and self‐regulation skills are necessary to achieve academic and personal success. All children can benefit from environments that focus on cultivating proficient language and strong self‐regulation skills. To achieve their potential, children need a rich language environment – with exposure to diverse vocabulary, lots of stories and books, and opportunities to develop their own expressive abilities. Because a solid foundation is important for the development of language and self‐regulation skills, the needs of children ages 0 to 3 in addition to the needs of children in preschool through 3rd grade must be addressed. Study circle values acknowledge that: - Development of strong language and social-emotional skills depends on parents, caregivers, and teachers - Cultural diversity, connected families, and a multi-lingual community should be actively valued 2. Cultural diversity, connected families, and a multi‐lingual community should be actively valued. The ability to speak more than one language is an asset. A prosperous community in the global economy appreciates and supports the development of multi‐lingual children. How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Moving From Awareness to Action 13 English proficiency and English literacy are clearly important for academic and economic success in this community. At the same time, a child’s first language is an important connection to family and culture; maintaining this connection is important to emotional health and parenting. Because cultural diversity is important, approaches to both self‐regulation and language development must be aligned with a variety of cultural traditions. Interventions and supports for language and self‐regulation development must be designed with children’s communities, parents, caregivers, peers, teachers, and schools in mind. o o Effective programs approach the child in the context of the family, build on strengths, and teach to each child’s potential. Approaches should leverage families’ strengths and bolster parents’ own social / emotional skills. Before creating recommendations, a study of the factors that support and detract from readiness was in order Readiness can be affected by child-, parent-, and system-level factors After building a foundation of knowledge about self‐regulation and language development – and after establishing a shared goal and guiding values – the Awareness‐to‐Action Study Circles studied several factors that support and detract from school readiness. A clear understanding of the “why’s” behind high‐ and low‐ readiness levels is clearly important before developing any plan for action. Probing Factors That Support and Detract From Readiness When considering how to increase readiness across the county, study circle members looked not only to the assessment data, but also to our experts to identify factors that likely support and detract from readiness.4 Child‐, family‐, and systems‐level factors can all impact readiness levels. For example, children’s gender, age, special needs status, preschool experience, basic intelligence, and temperament — as well as a number of biological vulnerabilities — are all child‐level factors that enhance or hinder school readiness. Among the family factors that can support and detract from readiness are parental reading, maternal education level, income, as well as myriad family stress factors (e.g., job loss, parental depression, drug and alcohol use, and domestic violence). Our experts also emphasized that non‐responsive parenting can result in attachment disruptions, delayed language development, and interference with self‐regulation development. Clearly, challenges presented by such conditions can make it more difficult for children to enter school ready to learn. In addition to these child‐ and family‐level correlates of readiness, study circle participants also scrutinized aspects of the systems in Santa Clara County. Members identified several issues that should be corrected or optimized. For example: 14 Moving From Awareness to Action | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Children’s age, gender, preschool experience, temperament, and basic intelligence are associated with readiness Family stressors, non-responsive parenting, parental depression, substance abuse, and family violence can hinder a child’s readiness for school Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Traditional parent‐education is not optimal. Traditional parent workshops have been widely used to provide parents with important information regarding parenting and child development. However, assessment data indicate that few parents have attended such workshops. A neighborhood‐based, peer‐to‐peer approach that involves demonstrating suggested practices would be a much more powerful way to guide and coach families. School and home environments are rarely integrated, leading to little reinforcement of school lessons at home … and vice versa. Connecting the school and home environments through increased parent involvement in the schools is one way of integrating school and home. Helping teachers to learn about their students’ family settings – and using that information to contextualize lessons – is another promising approach. The early education system and the K‐12 system need stronger linkages. There are surprisingly few connections between children’s preschools / other early education settings and the K‐12 system. Even when a child development center shares a campus with an elementary school, staffs do not mingle, share perspectives, or discuss what is being taught at the CDC and what is expected in kindergarten. Such lack of communication is a missed opportunity. Teachers tend to focus on the ages and stages of their current students, without taking a broader developmental perspective. Elementary school teachers would benefit from the child development perspective that preschool teachers have to share, whereas preschool teachers would benefit from an increased understanding of the skills children need to be successful in the K‐12 system. Current screening and assessment systems are fractured. A study conducted by the Santa Clara County Office of Education points to assessment tools that are not standardized, infrequent use of best practices, and a lack of communication between the healthcare and education systems. Such problems put some children who need assessment and intervention at risk. Recommended Strategies for Change When developing a set of recommended strategies for change, the Awareness‐to‐Action Study Circle members considered both the self‐regulation and language development needs of the county’s children, as well as the numerous factors that impact school readiness. They employed two screens when evaluating potential approaches: (1) Is this approach feasible? (2) Will it have high impact? All of the recommended strategies and key activities that follow have met these criteria, and all are designed to provide the tools and supports that children, families, teachers, and schools need for change. System-level problems include: Parent education that is less than powerful School and home environments that are rarely integrated Early education and K-12 systems that are not in conversation Screening and assessment systems that are fractured All recommended strategies and activities have been deemed feasible and likely to have high impact How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Recommended Strategies for Change 15 Although these recommendations were formulated for Santa Clara County and therefore reflect local strengths and conditions, the broader principles should apply to communities that also aim to support self‐regulation and language development. Six Recommended Strategies The Study Circles formulated the six recommended strategies for change listed below. RECOMMENDED STRATEGIES TO SUPPORT SCHOOL READINESS & SUCCESS OF CHILDREN, FAMILIES & SCHOOLS 1. Coach and support parents and caregivers to become healthy role models for children of all ages 2. Cultivate mentoring and peer support networks among early childhood professionals and among elementary teachers 3. Encourage dialogue across home, child care, preschool, elementary school, and health care communities 4. Improve the effectiveness and accessibility of screening for all children … and of intervention for children with developmental delays 5. Create an interactive resource library to support these efforts 6. Evaluate the impact of county-wide efforts, inform policy, and shape community values A List of Key Activities For each of these six strategies, the work groups generated and prioritized a list of key activities to provide more specific ideas and guidance on how the strategies should be implemented. An overview of the recommended activities for each strategy are listed below. Readers are also encouraged to refer to the appendix (see page 21) for additional, important detail regarding each activity. 1. Coach and support parents and caregivers to become healthy role models for children of all ages 1.1 Educate parents about self‐regulation and its connection to school success; provide tools to coach them on how to nurture self‐regulation. 1.2 Provide help to parents who need support developing their own self‐regulation and coping skills so that they can provide positive modeling. 1.3 Cultivate family practices to provide rich, home language environments. 16 Recommended Strategies for Change | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness 1.4 Support parents in deciding how to guide their children’s acquisition of a first and second language. 2. Cultivate mentoring and peer support networks among early childhood professionals and among elementary teachers 2.1 Educate teachers and administrators about children’s development of self‐ regulation and language, practices that support healthy development, and ways of identifying potential developmental delays. 2.2 Establish and reinforce mentoring / coaching / support systems for early care and education (ECE) professionals and elementary teachers. 2.3 Provide help to teachers who need support developing their own self‐regulation and coping skills so that they can provide positive modeling. 3. Encourage dialogue across home, child care, preschool, elementary school, and health care communities 3.1 Foster communication between parents and schools / caregivers / healthcare providers about how to support self‐regulation and language development. 3.2 Underscore the importance of developing skills in self‐regulation and language as a means to promoting success in school. 3.3 Develop parent‐professional discussion templates. 4. Improve the effectiveness and accessibility of screening for all children … and of intervention for children with developmental delays 4.1 Provide easy‐to‐understand “alert” information to parents, caregivers, and teachers that tells them when to ask for help and where to get it. 4.2 Ensure that the tools being used to identify delays in self‐regulation and language development are solid. 4.3 Identify and eliminate barriers to accessing developmental assessments. 5. Create an interactive resource library to support these efforts 5.1 Develop a shared definition of self‐regulation so that we can work with teachers, parents, peers, schools and the community to set developmentally‐appropriate expectations. 5.2 Identify markers of healthy language development when two languages are being learned. How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Recommended Strategies for Change 17 5.3 Facilitate opportunities to learn from the most effective local practices. Spotlight these success stories and include them in the resource library. 6. Evaluate the impact of county-wide efforts, inform policy, and shape community values 6.1 Establish a system that treats all efforts in the county as a “learning laboratory” for continual improvement. 6.2 Ensure that local policy is developmentally appropriate, respecting and supporting children’s self‐regulatory abilities. 6.3 Develop a shared appreciation of linguistic diversity, multi‐lingualism, and the impact that rich language experiences have on cognitive development and future success. 6.4 Educate policymakers and administrators so that policy and practice are aligned with current research in self‐regulation development and research in both first and second language acquisition. 6.5 Encourage the perspective that the entire community must invest in our children. What Is Different About This Set of Recommendations? There have been many efforts to improve school readiness, both in this county and nationwide. One might ask why the recommendations outlined in this paper will work when others have not met with notable success. We believe that these recommendations are distinctive because they emphasize: The use of “horizontal” (peer‐to‐peer) information‐sharing models, as opposed to “vertical” (expert teacher) models. Communicating information about children’s self‐regulatory and language abilities – and modeling effective ways of nurturing these skills – is much more effective when done from a mentoring / coaching / supporting perspective than from a traditional educator‐ student perspective. Thus, parents should be connected to peer coaches, early childhood professionals should be connected with appropriate mentors, and elementary teachers should be connected to more experienced teacher mentors. The use of a consistent set of information resources for all audiences. The common set of information and resources for parents, caregivers, educators, and service providers would encourage consistency and optimal practices among those who work with and care for children. Efforts to link all of children’s diverse learning environments. Importantly, the recommendations emphasize the importance of tying together all of children’s developmental contexts – their homes, communities, early child care settings, preschools, and elementary schools – so that children’s learning in each sphere can be supported and advanced in other spheres. Moreover, for such scaffolding to be 18 Recommended Strategies for Change | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools How are these approaches different? They emphasize: - Coaching and support - A shared and consistent library of information and resources - Improved communication and linkages across diverse learning environments - Improved communication across these contexts - Children’s development from birth through age 8 Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness successful, communication between and among these contexts – between parents and teachers, between parents and child care providers, between parents and the health care community, between teachers and service providers – is critical. Consideration of children’s development on a continuum from birth to grade three. Because development is a continual, incremental change process, efforts must address children across the ages, from birth to age three in children’s homes and community contexts, and from age three to grade three in children’s homes and learning environments. Because of these distinguishing elements, our recommendations for change should be more effective than previous approaches, resulting in a more powerful impact on children, families, and schools in our county. A Call-to-Action for Funders & Policymakers The Awareness‐to‐Action Study Circle recommendations were generated by the most informed, knowledgeable, and passionate early childhood and school readiness experts in Santa Clara County. They reflect sound local and national research findings, as well as contextualized information about our local schools, families, and communities. They have been developed to take into account challenges that have not been optimally addressed in previous efforts. In sum, the recommendations offer great potential to create positive change in our community. However, without further action from funders and policymakers, the recommendations will have very little impact. How can funders and policymakers make optimal use of these recommendations? The sections below offer some specific guidelines for how to best use these recommendations. What Should Funders Do? Local funders are in a powerful position to distribute resources to promising school‐ readiness‐related programs and services. We would urge funders to seek current programs – and to support the design of new systems, if necessary – that embody the strategies and key activities described in this paper. These recommendations represent what local experts currently believe are the highest‐priority needs among this county’s children. Funders can use this information as a guide when choosing which programs to support in the future. Funders should: - Support programs that pursue these recommended strategies and key activities - Contribute to the body of school readiness knowledge by evaluating the success of these programs - Advocate for the broader implementation of proven approaches Inherent in this process is an evaluation component as well. Funders can make a significant contribution to the body of school readiness knowledge by supporting (and How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | A Call-to-Action for Funders & Policymakers 19 archiving) research to evaluate the impact that programs have on children’s health and well‐being. As programs are implemented and then evaluated, we will be able to broaden the availability of successful interventions, while continuing our efforts to improve programs that do not yet demonstrate positive impact. In so doing, we will ensure that more children are able to thrive and that less of our limited resources are directed to programs that are ineffective. Funders should also play a key role in communicating the results of these investigations. After identifying practices that have a proven impact on school readiness and school success, funders should advocate for their broader implementation. Funders should actively shape community values that support these changes, and work to inform policymakers of the findings. What Should Policymakers Do? Policymakers are also in a powerful position, as the guidelines and policies they generate affect the lives of students, families, and teachers at all levels. We would urge policymakers to evaluate current policy using as a lens these recommendations. For example: Are there any existing policies that may hinder our ability to implement the recommendations in Santa Clara County? Are current policies well‐aligned with children’s developmental stages? How could policy be better aligned with the ways in which we know children develop and grow? Are school curricula respectful of children’s developmental stages? Do current policies facilitate mentoring among teachers in elementary and preschool settings? If not, how can they be improved? Can we spur policy change that brings school curricula more in line with what we know about children’s developmental stages? What systems changes might facilitate communication between home and school and between preschool and elementary settings? Having policies in our schools and county that allow the best programs and systems to be implemented and supported is crucial for the creation of a community in which all children enter kindergarten equipped with the skills necessary to succeed in school and beyond. 20 | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Policymakers should: - Evaluate the alignment of current policy with what is optimal for children’s selfregulation and language development - Remove any barriers to the adoption of systems and programs that embody these recommended approaches Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities On the following page we present a one‐page overview of Awareness‐to‐Action Study Circle recommended strategies and activities. More discussion and detail about these recommendations is offered on pages 23‐35. How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities 21 Awareness-to-Action Study Circle Recommended Strategies And Key Activities 1. Coach and support parents and caregivers to become healthy role models for children of all ages 1.1 Educate parents about self-regulation and its connection to school success; provide tools to coach them on how to nurture self-regulation. 1.2 Provide help to parents who need support developing their own self-regulation and coping skills so that they can provide positive modeling. 1.3 Cultivate family practices to provide rich, home language environments. 1.4 Support parents in deciding how to guide their children’s acquisition of a first and second language. 2. Cultivate mentoring and peer support networks among early childhood professionals and among elementary teachers 2.1 Educate teachers and administrators about children’s development of self-regulation and language, practices that support healthy development, and ways of identifying potential developmental delays. 2.2 Establish and reinforce mentoring / coaching / support systems for early care and education (ECE) professionals and elementary teachers. 2.3 Provide help to teachers who need support developing their own self-regulation and coping skills so that they can provide positive modeling. 3. Encourage dialogue across home, child care, preschool, elementary school, and health care communities 3.1 Foster communication between parents and schools / caregivers / healthcare providers about how to support self-regulation and language development. 3.2 Underscore the importance of developing skills in self-regulation and language as a means to promoting success in school. 3.3 Develop parent-professional discussion templates. 4. Improve the effectiveness and accessibility of screening for all children, … and of intervention for children with developmental delays 4.1 Provide easy-to-understand “alert” information to parents, caregivers, and teachers that tells them when to ask for help and where to get it. 4.2 Ensure that the tools being used to identify delays in self-regulation and language development are solid. 4.3 Identify and eliminate barriers to accessing developmental assessments. 5. Create an interactive resource library to support these efforts 5.1 Develop a shared definition of self-regulation so that we can work with teachers, parents, peers, schools, and the community to set developmentally-appropriate expectations. 5.2 Identify markers of healthy language development when two languages are being learned. 5.3 Facilitate opportunities to learn from the most effective local practices. Spotlight these success stories and include them in the interactive resource library so that they can be more widely adopted. 6. Evaluate the impact of county-wide efforts, inform policy, and shape community values 6.1 Establish a system that treats all efforts in the county as a “learning laboratory” for continual improvement. 6.2 Ensure that local policy is developmentally appropriate, respecting and supporting children’s self-regulatory abilities. 6.3 Develop a shared appreciation of linguistic diversity, multi-lingualism, and the impact that rich language experiences have on cognitive development and future success. 6.4 Educate policymakers and administrators so that policy and practice are aligned with current research in self-regulation development and research in both first and second language acquisition. 6.5 Encourage the perspective that the entire community must invest in our children. 22 Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness 1. Coach and support parents and caregivers to become healthy role models for children of all ages 1.1 Educate parents about self‐regulation and its connection to school success; provide tools to coach them on how to nurture self‐regulation. Efforts must focus on the home environment and involve parents of children aged 0 to 3. Create a parent‐friendly version of the self‐regulation model, including specific recommendations for supporting self‐regulation skill development. Develop channels for distribution of this information and training (e.g., participating CARES schools, family child care home networks, Back to School Nights, libraries, health care providers, First 5 parenting workshops). Develop other neighborhood‐based opportunities for sharing the content (e.g., farmers’ markets, flea markets, local stores, fairs, and festivals). Incorporate content with other evidence‐based interventions / programs, such as the Parents As Teachers curriculum used in some home visiting programs. Consider a teachers‐as‐trainers model, as teachers (including caregivers in family child care homes) may be an effective way to reach parents. Determine how to involve families in the classroom and ensure they model appropriate regulatory behavior. Grow informal parent networks and encourage the development of community leaders who can champion these issues. 1.2 Provide help to parents who need support developing their own self‐regulation and coping skills so that they can provide positive modeling for their children. Create, pilot test, and then teach culturally‐appropriate, consistent messages and materials to help parents role‐model positive self‐regulation. Use teachers as trainers who can provide parents with information about self‐ regulation and model good behavioral practices. Besides imparting important information about self‐regulation, this approach builds consistent messages across home and school environments, and it creates stronger communication channels between the two settings. Bring mental health consultants, maternity clinics and pediatricians together to increase efficient screening for parental or infant mental health issues and to establish readily available referral services. How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities 23 Strengthen the emotional support for parents in many of the other programs that may serve them, such as substance abuse or teen pregnancy programs. Create neighborhood‐based peer networks among parents to facilitate information‐sharing and support for maintaining newly‐learned self‐ regulation skills. 1.3 Cultivate family practices to provide rich, home language environments. Peer‐coaching should be used to deliver information about what a rich, home language environment is, and how it is created. Coaching should be conducted in families’ primary languages and should be based on strengths families already possess. Approaches should empower parents as their children’s first teachers. Approaches should be culturally‐sensitive and appropriate to be maximally effective. One example is the Knight Foundation’s Promotores program, which is focused on the Latino community. 1.4 Support parents in deciding how to guide their children’s acquisition of a first and second language. Parents need support in making informed choices about what mix of languages will be best for their child in child care and early education settings. Research shows that children who are exposed to both English and Spanish in preschool do acquire both languages at a faster pace. Providing information that takes into account parents’ own fluency levels and how different ECE settings support language development – can help parents choose the most appropriate early child care setting for their children. Communicate to parents that both English‐language and home language proficiency will benefit children. Parents who have this information may be more motivated to support their children’s maintenance and continued advancement in the home language. 2. Cultivate mentoring and peer support networks among early childhood professionals and among elementary teachers 2.1 Educate teachers and administrators about children’s development of self‐ regulation and language, practices that support healthy development, and ways of identifying potential developmental delays. 24 Create administrator‐friendly and teacher‐friendly versions of the self‐ regulation model, including specific recommendations for supporting self‐ regulation skill development in the classroom and school contexts. Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Create administrator‐friendly and teacher‐friendly information regarding language development and second‐language acquisition, including specific recommendations for supporting language development in the classroom. Identify and recommend a set of “universal” classroom practices that foster the development of self‐regulation and healthy language skills. Find forums for sharing ideas with administrators (both ECE and elementary school). Partner with higher education – the teachers of the teachers – so that course content for ECE teachers is appropriate and informed by the latest in research. Consider re‐implementing mandatory continuing education units for elementary teachers so that teachers’ skills and information stay honed and current. Couple these trainings with supports to ensure that learning is actually transferred back into the classroom. Focus on the developmental continuum from “age 3 to grade 3” to help teachers understand and work with the wide range of normative behaviors and abilities of children this young. 2.2 Establish and reinforce mentoring / coaching / support systems for early care and education (ECE) professionals and elementary teachers. Interview teachers to better understand the elements critical to making such a system a success. Teachers express a need for such peer support systems, but they do not yet exist on a broad basis. Implement teachers’ advice, creating teacher peer networks for sharing information, both within schools, among schools, and across districts. There are many experienced, wise, and successful teachers in Santa Clara County. Such teachers must be encouraged to share their proven techniques. Promote a climate of acceptance of constructive feedback. Develop partnerships between teacher training programs and targeted schools to hone best practices among teachers. These partnerships would create cross‐training opportunities for teachers between ECE settings and throughout the K‐12 system. Foster connections between preschools and elementary schools. Focusing on schools with on‐site preschools may be one convenient place to start. In any case, regular assessments of student progress and teacher approaches must be implemented so that feedback loops can inform continuous improvement. Track the utility of any mentoring / coaching / support systems that are created so that they can be replicated, if successful. How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities 25 2.3 Provide help to teachers who need support developing their own self‐regulation and coping skills so that they can provide positive modeling for students. Investigate approaches to encourage new and veteran teachers to reflect on classroom situations that trigger their own strengths and weaknesses. Initially focus on early childhood educators and then expand to teachers in the elementary system. Utilize a mental‐health consulting model, including screening and identification. Work within current systems (CARES, family child care home networks) to offer mental health supports for ECE teachers. 3. Encourage dialogue across home, child care, ECE, school, and health care communities In order to make a true impact on children’s self‐regulation skills and language development, all spheres of influence on children’s development need to be touched with consistent and coordinated messages. Not only must parents, caregivers, educators, and service providers “speak the same language” when it comes to self‐regulation and language development, but they need to communicate with one another in order to share information about the specific children in their care. Through a scaffolding of experiences and messages from home to child care settings, from child care to ECE settings, from ECE to school settings, and back to home, children will experience a true improvement in their self‐regulation and language development skills. These networks of dialogue must communicate an attitude that is strength‐based by valuing and respecting the diversity of inputs and practices that schools, caregivers, and families bring to bear on the county’s children. Just the creation of tools to share information between doctors and parents, parents and ECE teachers, and ECE teachers and elementary teachers recognizes the important roles that all of these individuals’ play in our children’s lives. 3.1 Foster communication between parents and schools / caregivers / healthcare providers about how to support self‐regulation and rich language development. 26 Early in the school year, parents / caregivers and teachers should meet and review each child’s self‐regulation development and ways parents and teachers can support each child’s optimal development. Teachers need information about the home context to better understand how to support their students. Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Early in the school year, parents / caregivers and teachers should also meet and review: (1) the status of each child’s language development, (2) languages used at home, and (3) ways parents and teachers can support each child’s optimal language development. Teachers need information about the home language context to better understand how to support English Learners, and parents need information about how their child is developing language vis à vis norms and school peers. Scripts and videos that model successful parent‐teacher conversations around these issues are needed to help teachers structure these conversations. Schools may also need materials in a variety of languages (for Santa Clara County, English, Spanish and Vietnamese at a minimum) that teachers can use during these conversations. 3.2 Underscore the importance of developing skills in self‐regulation and language as a means to promoting success in school. Guidance and coaching for parents / caregivers should be presented so that they see self‐regulation and language development skills as critical ingredients for success in school. 3.3 Develop parent‐professional discussion templates. Facilitate rich conversations between ECE teachers and parents. o Recommend structured ways for ECE teachers to communicate results of developmental assessments (e.g., the Desired Results Developmental Profile) to parents. Provide ECE teachers with information on how parents might better support their children’s development in areas of need. o Parent meeting materials should be developed along self‐regulation and language development themes. Not only should meeting content be developed, but suggestions regarding how to organize parent meetings should also be offered. o ECE teachers may also need materials in a variety of languages. Provide parents with lists of questions to ask pediatricians and lists of information to provide to pediatricians to better assess whether children have any unaddressed needs. Create and disseminate forms that ECE teachers can complete to inform kindergarten teachers about children’s strengths and needs. How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities 27 4. Improve the effectiveness and accessibility of screening for all children … and of intervention for children with developmental delays In 2005, the Santa Clara County Office of Education and First 5 Santa Clara County completed a study of screening and assessment services in Santa Clara County that revealed how easily children in need of services can fall through the cracks due to the lack of service coordination. That study provided a set of recommendations largely consistent with those offered below. Because significant problems with the system still remain, it is clear that more needs to be done to implement those recommendations and the ones that follow. 4.1 Provide easy‐to‐understand “alert” information to parents, caregivers, and teachers that tells them when to ask for help and where to get it. Because early screening and intervention are so important, parents need to get information as early as possible. Provide alert information to parents and caregivers – very concrete behaviors or lack of behaviors that flag a need for follow‐up with a pediatrician or other professional. These alerts should be given to parents when their children are quite young – perhaps via the pediatrician at children’s 12‐month check‐ups. Parents should be encouraged to follow their instincts, but it is important to insure that those instincts are guided by developmental norms. Parents or caregivers who suspect a developmental delay based on the alert information described above need to gain easy access to a system of assessment and intervention. A set of appropriate referrals must be collected and provided directly to parents, as well as to a wide range of educators and service providers with whom parents may interact. Develop train‐the‐trainer modules for parent educators. 4.2 Ensure that the tools being used to identify delays in self‐regulation and language development are solid. Identify typical assessment practices used in Santa Clara County, inventorying existing methods and their outcomes. Develop recommended methods to assess self‐regulation and language development. Develop screeners to assess development of Spanish and Vietnamese languages. Encourage healthcare providers to conduct developmental assessments of both self‐regulation and language development as a regular part of well‐child check‐ups. 28 Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Explore at‐home assessments that would give parents a better sense of whether their child is on track for self‐regulation and language development or whether a professional should be contacted. 4.3 Identify and eliminate barriers to accessing developmental assessments. Develop clear, accessible, and usable resources for screening that can be provided to parents, caregivers, and teachers who suspect a problem. Such resources would, of course, include referral lists for language professionals, early child mental health professionals, and parent coaches. Facilitate conversations between parents and doctors by providing scripts for how to ask healthcare providers about children’s developmental progress. Facilitate conversations between parents and teachers by creating tools to record and share children’s developmental assessments. 5. Create an interactive resource library to support these efforts It is critical that parents, caregivers, educators, service providers, and policymakers all have access to the same basic information regarding self‐regulation and language development. A comprehensive, interactive resource library must be created to support all of the recommended strategies and activities. This set of information and resources will evolve, but at the beginning it must include: A shared definition of self‐regulation so that we can work with teachers, parents, peers, schools and the community to set developmentally‐appropriate expectations; Markers of healthy language development, including information about second language acquisition; and Opportunities to learn from the most effective local practices. Each of these areas is described more specifically below. 5.1 Develop a shared definition of self‐regulation so that we can work with teachers, parents, peers, schools and the community to set developmentally‐ appropriate expectations. The resource library must contain a model of self‐regulation that will act as the basis for many of the educational and support resources that are offered in later recommendations. This model of self‐regulation must include: Developmental norms from birth through age 8; How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities 29 Recommended parent practices across the ages that support the development of self‐regulation skills; Recommended teacher practices that support the development of self‐ regulation across the ages; Information about the structure and attributes of classrooms, as well as recommendations around scheduling classroom activities, to ease friction points and self‐regulation breakdowns; Specific alert information so that parents, caregivers, and teachers know when to refer a child for assessment, coupled with referral resources; Recommended curricula / modifications to current curricula to better support children in need of self‐regulation development; Information that is tested for cultural sensitivity and can work within cultural traditions, norms, and languages to best connect with families; Information that is accessible to people of differing literacy levels, including video components; Lists of recommended readings and websites for parents and teachers; and Tools to facilitate communication between teachers and parents, ECE caregivers and parents, and parents and health care providers. 5.2 Identify markers of healthy language development when two languages are being learned. The resource library should also contain materials that describe the fundamentals of language development, with a special focus on the acquisition of a second language. Although much is known about the typical progression of language development when just one language is being learned, guidelines for children who are learning languages simultaneously are not well‐established. This information, however, would be critical to the professionals who work with children in our linguistically diverse community. Materials must include: Practical guidelines and “alerts” for parents and teachers about when to refer children to language specialists, coupled with resource and referral information; Screening and assessment tools that are culturally‐sensitive and in several languages (the highest priority being tools for children who speak Spanish and Vietnamese, as these are the most common languages spoken by children in Santa Clara County schools); Protocols for screening and referral at several potential points of entry, including classrooms, health care providers, the early care and education system, and parents; 30 Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Recommended practices for parents / caregivers and teachers to support healthy language development; Recommended curricula / modifications to current curricula to better support English Learners; Lists of recommended readings and websites for parents and teachers; Lists of parent and teacher coaches who can act as resources for advice and support; and Tools to facilitate communication between teachers and parents, ECE caregivers and parents, parents and health care providers. 5.3 Develop opportunities to learn from the most effective local practices. Spotlight these success stories and include them in the Interactive resource library so that they can be more widely adopted. There are numerous pockets of success at guiding self‐regulation behavior and fostering language development that should be spotlighted across San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The challenge is gathering these local success stories, determining whether they can be scaled, and breaking down barriers to their adoption. To guide the search for local best practice, first markers of success must be identified. For example, the Partnership for School Readiness is learning more about schools that “beat the odds”. McCollam Elementary school in the Alum Rock School District is one school that surely beats the odds – although children enter McCollam Elementary with fairly low readiness skills, the school system in concert with the families ensure that a huge percentage of children meet or exceed standards in math and language arts at third grade and beyond. McCollam Elementary also has a very good record at re‐designating English Learners at almost 1 ½ times the county average. Once standards for success are defined, a set of possible success stories and key informants must be identified. What preschools are using new or inventive curricula to encourage the development of self‐regulation? What local efforts to teach English or generally encourage language development seem to be successful? What specific teachers or caregivers have well‐recognized ways of fostering their students’ learning? Once a set of possible success stories has been identified, it will be important to observe teachers and staff in action. Acting as a participant‐observer can reveal basic elements of teacher behavior, classroom structure, and student interaction that are associated with positive outcomes. Once a set of successful local practices has been identified, they should be unveiled to the community. At that point, any barriers to their broad How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities 31 implementation should be identified and managed. Finally, strategies to take these practices county‐wide should be developed. Implementation could take a number of forms, including: Adding recommended tools and practices to the Interactive resource library; Advocating for the adoption of new curricula; Taking advantage of pre‐existing channels of parent or teacher education (e.g., home visiting programs, teacher training programs), weaving self‐regulation and language development content into existing content; and Meshing successful approaches into standards‐based curricula that are already being used so that academic content is communicated in a way that both respects and nurtures children’s development of self‐regulation and language skills. 6. Evaluate the impact of county-wide efforts, inform policy, and shape community values 6.1 Establish a system that treats all efforts in the county as a “learning laboratory” for continual improvement. For ultimate success, we must be engaged in an iterative process of seeking promising strategies, implementing those strategies, determining the impact of those efforts, and feeding information back into the system for continuous improvement. To this end: We must better leverage the expertise in our local colleges and universities. San Jose State University, Stanford University, Santa Clara University, and the community colleges – as well as neighboring institutions like University of California at Berkeley and Cañada College – have a focus on developing strong educators. We must forge partnerships with these institutions that also engage experts from existing community programs, the K‐12 system, and community‐ based organizations. These partnerships would likely yield “Learning Laboratories” in which new approaches to guiding self‐regulation and language development could be tested. An infrastructure and sounding board for advocacy and strategy development should also be established. Participating organizations and individuals, all focused on early childhood, should work together to: 32 Encourage and monitor county efforts to enhance self‐regulation, language development, and school readiness; Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Identify the gaps in services for children and build the relationships to meet these needs; Identify (and avoid) any duplication in investments; Provide information, strategic perspective, and collaboration that will facilitate the ability of participants to further the missions of their own organizations; Maintain and update the resource library; Foster the accountability that comes from goals and objectives shared by partners; Support the ongoing assessment of readiness across the county to see how and when efforts to improve the readiness and general well‐being of children pay off; and Develop a stronger, more credible voice for advocacy. 6.2 Ensure that local policy is developmentally‐appropriate, respecting and supporting children’s self‐regulatory abilities. Create relationships with administrators – demonstrate how local success stories are working, describe flagship projects, and wrap evaluation around projects to provide administrators with the solid data they need to make changes. Develop a checklist of classroom attributes and practices (e.g., school schedules, the physical set‐up of K‐3 classrooms) that school administrators can use to identify any friction points between their programs and conditions for healthy language and self‐regulation development. Provide recommendations to ease any friction points so that classroom and teacher practices are better aligned to children’s development. Develop an advocacy strategy – identify targets for change, the change that is needed, and key messages. 6.3 Develop a shared appreciation of linguistic diversity, multi‐lingualism, and the impact that rich language experiences have on cognitive development and future success. Encourage language instruction that results in additive bi‐lingualism. Children’s school instruction should be implemented so that growing proficiency in English is not associated with a loss of home language proficiency. How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities 33 Develop tools for parents and teachers so that they can help children transfer learning between the first and second languages, and between home and school. Engage business leadership to demonstrate the benefits of a multi‐lingual workforce. Encourage investments in programs to support multi‐lingualism in young children. 6.4 Educate policymakers and administrators so that policy and practice are aligned with current research in self‐regulation development and research in both first and second language acquisition. Credible materials should be developed that outline the fundamentals of language development, with a special focus on the development of secondary language. Information must be presented in an executive summary format, complete with pragmatic strategies / tactics, calls‐to‐action, clear and measurable improvement goals, and a healthy leavening of hope for the future. These materials must also: Feature localized research about how local policy impacts English Learners; Identify “friction points” between local practice and research‐supported language development practices. Investigation of what teachers, administrators, and policymakers are doing locally will help to identify needs for change, and it will also shine the spotlight on practices that are associated with success; Offer evidence‐based best practices that are feasible, given our local conditions; Provide recommendations for how classroom and teacher practices can be better aligned to children’s development, once these best practices have been subject to rigorous evaluation; and Make available complements and/or alternatives to standardized (e.g., STAR) testing in order to monitor the progress of children who are developing a second language. 6.5 Encourage the perspective that the entire community must invest in our children. o Programs should be explored and encouraged where businesses support the volunteer efforts of their employees with paid time off. o Businesses could also act as partners in message‐distribution, providing customers access to resources regarding early child development. 34 Encourage innovative ways of involving the business community. Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Create networks of volunteers to come into elementary classrooms. o Volunteers who speak different languages would increase English Learners’ exposure to quality English; it would also facilitate building a bridge between English and other languages. o Exposure to volunteers who speak other languages benefit English‐ proficient children, as well; such exposure would give these children an appreciation for their English‐Learner peers, as well as experience hearing languages they may acquire in the future. How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Appendix: A More Detailed Look at Recommended Strategies and Activities 35 Endnotes 1 These readiness assessments were informed by the efforts in neighboring San Mateo County, which had conducted readiness assessments since 2001. 2 A full summary of findings from each assessment year – and the best‐practices methodology – can be found at www.appliedsurveyresearch.org. 3 Teachers recorded their proficiency ratings on the Kindergarten Observation Form, a tool that has demonstrated good reliability and validity. Information was also gathered from children’s parents via the Parent Information Form. Finally, teachers were asked to complete a survey to record which readiness skills they believe are most critical for children’s smooth transition into school. These tools can be found in any of the assessment reports available from www.appliedsurveyresearch.org. 4 The Partnership is grateful to Kenji Hakuta, Lynn Huffman, Claire Kopp, Adrienne Lomangino, Virginia Marchman, Maureen Smith and Guadalupe Valdes for providing study circle members with a comprehensive introduction to self‐regulation and language development. To complete the picture, study circle members contributed their own wisdom and experience concerning local conditions and practices. 5 Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Metropolitan Atlanta Developmental Disabilities Surveillance Program, 2005. 6 According to the California Department of Education, English Learners “are those students for whom there is a report of a primary language other than English on the state‐approved Home Language Survey and who, on the basis of the state approved oral language (grades K‐12) assessment procedures and including literacy (grades 3‐12 only), have been determined to lack the clearly defined English language skills of listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing necessary to succeed in the schoolʹs regular instructional programs.” 7 English Learner students are re‐designated to Fluent‐English‐Proficient status according to the multiple criteria, standards, and procedures adopted by the county’s districts. Although there is not one standardized approach to determining when a student is re‐designated, students are assessed via the California English Language Development Test (CELDT). The CELDT is a required state test that must be given to students whose primary language is other than English. For re‐designation, students must demonstrate that they have an English language proficiency comparable to that of average native English speakers. According to the California Department of Education, the re‐designation rate is calculated by dividing the number of re‐designated students by the prior yearʹs English Learner count, then multiplying by 100. 36 Endnotes | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Awareness-to-Action Sponsors & Participants The Awareness‐to‐Action Study Circles were sponsored by the Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness and First 5 of Santa Clara County. The study circles would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of Loretta Burns, Director of the Partnership for School Readiness. In recruiting participants, facilitating meetings, garnering support from all sides, and rousing a true belief in change, Lori proved an effective and inspirational leader. Data analysis, research, and facilitation support was provided by Applied Survey Research. The following people and organizations participated in one or both of the two study circles, generously giving their time and expertise to develop the recommendations offered in this paper. Adrienne Lomangino – Bing Nursery School Akemi Flynn – First 5 Santa Clara County Amari Romero‐Thomas – United Way of Silicon Valley Ana Trujillo –Santa Clara County Office of Education Ann Skeet – American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley Audrey Munoz – Children’s Discovery Museum Becky Crowe‐Hill – Partners in School Innovation Bob Kirkwood – Bella Vista Foundation Carol Frost – San Jose Library Cathy Andrade – First 5 Santa Clara County Cathy Boettcher – Go Kids, Inc. Cindy Miller – Silicon Valley Community Foundation Claire B. Kopp – Consultant Dana Bunnett – Kids in Common Dawn Perry – San Jose Library Deanna Gomby – Deanna Gomby Consulting Deborah Turner – Kidango Erica Wood – Silicon Valley Community Foundation Erika Beltran – The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Evelina Du – E3 Institute How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools | Awareness-to-Action Sponsors & Participants 37 Fred Ferrer – Manzanita Solutions Gary Rummelhoff – United Way Silicon Valley Guadalupe Valdes – Stanford University Hadas Pade – Santa Clara County Office of Education Holly Kreider – Sociometrics Jan Stokley – Child Care Coordinating Council of San Mateo County Jeanne Cuffey Tatum – Silicon Valley Community Foundation Jennifer Moless – Partners in School Innovation Jolene Smith – First 5 Santa Clara County Judy Bugarin – Santa Clara County Office of Education Karen Grites – The Children’s Health Council Kelli Saito Martines – Family Service Agency of San Mateo County Kenji Hakuta – Stanford University Kristen Rouspil – SRI International Linda Aceves – Santa Clara County Office of Education Linda Verhulp – Morgan Family Foundation Lynda Green – Applied Materials Lynne Huffman – Stanford University Margarita Carrillo‐Gaitan – Santa Clara County Office of Education Maria Nevarez – San Jose Unified School District Maureen C. Smith – San Jose State University Mayra Cruz – DeAnza College Meera Mani – United Way Silicon Valley Michelle Fries – Silicon Valley Community Foundation Mike Hochleutner – Stanford Graduate School of Business Molly Fezell – First 5 Santa Clara County Nadene Wilkens – Santa Clara County Office of Education Nirmala Dillman – San Mateo County Office of Education Patsy Storie – San Jose Unified School District Peggy Pizzo – Stanford University School of Education Quyen Vuong – International Children Assistance Network Robin Carlson – David and Lucile Packard Foundation Ron Soto – First 5 Santa Clara County Sadhna Gupta – Santa Clara County Office of Education Sandy Baba – E3 Institute Sarah Wright – Bing Nursery Soodie Ansari – San Mateo County Office of Education 38 Awareness-to-Action Sponsors & Participants | How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness Tammy Moss – First 5 San Mateo County Terry Russell – Santa Clara County Office of Education Toby Librande – City of Milpitas Veronica Goei – Estrella Family Services Virginia Marchman – Stanford Psychology Department Vivian Eto –San Mateo County Office of Education Yolanda Garcia – E3 Institute List of Sources Information contained in the following literature and articles were seminal in the development of this paper. 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