A Focus on the Six Steps to Inclusive Preschool Curriculum

A Focus on the Six Steps to Inclusive Preschool Curriculum

Adapted from: Horn, E., Palmer, S., Lieber, J., Butera, G., Kang, J., Classen, A. & Friesen, A. (October, 2015). Children’s School Success: A framework for inclusive early education. Presented at the Division of Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) 31st Annual International Conference on Young Children with Special Needs and their Families. Atlanta, GA.

Six Steps to Inclusive Preschool Curriculum©2015 Brookes Publishing Co.

CSS+ Curriculum Framework• Children’s School Success Framework: Multi-tiered

instructional model for the purpose of supporting early childhood educators to deliver interesting, challenging, but also integrated curriculum content in inclusive settings.

• In order to develop and implement a coherent curriculum plan, educators within a program need a curriculum framework to guide decision-making for the teaching and learning process and maximize the likelihood that all children will achieve desired outcomes.


CSS+ Framework Foundation• Challenging curriculum addresses the whole child

including social-emotional development, approaches to learning such as curiosity and persistence, and language and communication development, as well as building content knowledge in literacy, math, and science.

• Decisions about “the what” of learning should view children’s learning and development as a continuum of what children can and should learn on their path to school success.


CSS+ Framework Components• Based on integrating specific content domains to provide

challenging curriculum content

• Levels of Instructional Support:– Universal Design for Learning– Differentiation– Individualization

• Critical Components– Progress Monitoring– Collaborative Teaming– Family–Professional Partnerships


CSS+ Framework Planning Process

Step 1• Develop/identify your scope and sequence

Step 2• Determine strategy for ensuring coherent and integrated format

Step 3• Develop activity plans addressing UDL principles for supporting all learners

Step 4• Review activity plans to address differentiation and individualization for children in

classroom

Step 5• Connect progress monitoring to the scope and sequences

Step 6• Reflect on implementation for future planning


Step 1: Develop/Identify Scope and Sequence

• Scope and Sequence: An overview of the concepts to be covered in a given period of time, as well as how those concepts build upon one another

• Tasks to Complete:– Outline curriculum content significant enough to teach– Determine curriculum content that is able to be

accomplished in a given year– Identify the order in which the material should be

taught


Step 2: Determine Strategy for Ensuring Coherent and Integrated Format

• Ensure that learning opportunities:– Address each of the critical domains and subdomains– Build in complexity across time– Allow for appropriate repetition without boredom– Move at a good pace with high expectations but without

creating “weak foundations”• Tasks to Complete:– Develop (modify or tailor to class needs) an “approximate”

calendar that aligns with your class/program calendar for each subdomain

– Monitoring children’s progress and response to learning. Adjust calendar as appropriate


Step 3: Develop Activity Plans Addressing UDL Principles for Supporting All Learners

• Universal Design for Learning (UDL): The philosophy of designing and creating products and environments to be accessible to the greatest extent possible, to the people who use them without the need for adaptation

• Tasks to Complete:– Develop plan for addressing UDL principles of

multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression


Essential Qualities of UDL

• Ensures instruction, questions, expectations, and learning opportunities are presented in a variety of formats and different levels of complexity to address a range of ability levels and sensory processing needs.

Representation

• Ensures that a range of strategies are used to arouse children’s attention, curiosity, and motivation, thus matching a range of child interests, preferences, and personal styles.

• Maintained by providing a range of levels of scaffolding, repetition, and appropriate challenges to support all children’s learning

Engagement

• Ensures that all children have a range of formats for responding, demonstrating what they know, and to express their ideas and preferences

• Children have a variety of options in the materials, toys, and resources that they use such that they reflect their individual practices and abilities

Expression


Step 4: Review Activity Plans to Address Differentiation and Individualization for

Children in Classroom

• Differentiation: A teaching approach that acknowledges and responds to the belief that each child is different and thus requires that instruction be varied and adapted for his/her individual approaches with a focus on child active participation and learning of the general curriculum content (Hall, 2002)


Components of Differentiation

• The early educator takes curricular goals and varies the complexity or difficulty by making adjustments in– Learning environments (types and levels of

learning support provided to the child)– Content (information the children need to learn)– Process (types and format of the activity in which

the children are engaged)


Individualization• Individualization: Indicates special instruction

to address the unique learning needs of an individual child

• Tasks to Complete:– Identify children in need of additional supports to

enhance learning and develop plan for differentiation

– Identify children in need of learning opportunities to meet their goals and develop a plan for individualization


Use of Embedded Learning Opportunities and Child-Focused Instructional Strategies• Embedded learning opportunities: Short, teaching

episodes within ongoing classroom activities and routines for the child’s individualized learning priorities

• Why?– Child has individual learning priorities that are not being fully

addressed in the curriculum• When to Implement?

– Child’s objective is unique– Child must learn skill or concept to take advantage of general

early childhood curriculum– Child is making very slow progress despite use of curriculum

modificationSix Steps to Inclusive Preschool Curriculum

©2015 Brookes Publishing Co.

Step 5: Connect Progress Monitoring to the Scope and Sequence

• Progress Monitoring: A continuous measuring and documenting of change or progress in child performance to determine children’s progress toward standards-based learning objectives

• Tasks to Complete:– Teachers need to determine

• When they will do the monitoring• Who will do the monitoring• What format to use for gathering data, and• Other details related to this type of assessment


Step 6: Reflect on Implementation for Future Planning

• Teachers can use progress monitoring to:– Obtain feedback about what children have and

have not learned– Create a continuous loop of planning, instruction,

and recurrent monitoring• Tasks to Complete (Approaches)– Use progress monitoring data to determine

progress and adjust strategies as needed


Progress Monitoring LoopCurriculum

Objectives & Child-Focused

Goals

Develop Instruction/Plan

Lessons

Teach LessonsMonitor Progress

as Ongoing Activity

Make Decisions about Follow-up

Instruction


Summing It Up


Six Steps to Inclusive Preschool Curriculum: A UDL-Based Framework for

Children’s School Success Eva M. Horn Ph.D., Susan B. Palmer, Ph.D.,

Gretchen D. Butera Ph.D., & Joan Lieber Ph.D.,


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A Focus on the Six Steps to Inclusive Preschool Curriculum