It’s About Helping Every Child to Learn

This fall I began working with a local child care center that agreed to use the WoW Kits Terrific Topics curriculum materials to promote language and social skills in a small group of children with a variety of developmental delays. The group is made up of 8 children who are pulled from their regular classrooms to receive this extra support from 3 speech therapists. The group meets for 1/2 hour each week.

I recently sat with the teachers for our first review of the project. The feedback is exciting! When I asked the teachers what they liked best about the program, these are the responses I got:

• “It’s just so easy. The activity ideas are great”
• “I love the portfolios. We’ve never used them before and I love seeing them develop. We had a parent conference last week and I was able to pull out the portfolio to show the parents. It was great.”
• “I’ve been really surprised by what the kids are able to do and how quickly they are ‘getting’ things.”
• “I like sharing the ideas with classroom teachers. They really work!”
• “The kids love coming. I have no problem getting them to leave the classroom.”

I was concerned about introducing teachers to the concept of keeping portfolios while at the same time beginning this pilot program and learning to use the curriculum. I thought it might be too overwhelming. I was thrilled to hear that it was not.

The negative feedback did not come from any of the WoW materials. Some of the issues teachers identified included:

• “We’ve had a lot of absences lately and when kids are out they miss a lot”
• “The day of the week that we’ve chosen to do this program conflicts with holidays and some special events here at the school.”

I hope the enthusiasm continues as this project evolves. The goal is to gather some good data on the effectiveness of our activities with this important population of learners. I firmly believe that when teachers use Multiple Intelligences to guide them as they teach content and concepts, all children benefit. I want my curriculum to be proof of that point.