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PreK On My Way Case Study Report
3) Both Academically Rigorous and Developmentally Appropriate . Roughly half of the respondents valued how the PKOMW curriculum was both academically rigorous and developmentally appropriate. The PKOMW curriculum is academically rigorous, in that it is standards-based, rooted in research ideas, incorporates strategies to scaffo ld children’s language skill development, and fosters high expectations for PreK students while also integrating a play-based component and socioemotional supports.
“I like the rigor of the program and I know where they are going, and I know the expectation for K and 1st grade. I feel like the rigor will get the kids to where they need to be .” - District Staff
Area for Improvement
Although respondents listed many strengths of the PKOMW curriculum, they also shared one weakness: the read-alouds. A third of respondents ( n = 3) reported that some of the read-alouds were
too long, too advanced, or not developmentally appropriate for their children because they were too high-level for the beginning of the school year. As one district staff person reported, “The biggest feedback was that some of the read- alouds that were aligned with the curriculum weren’t the best. They weren’t the most r elatable read-alouds for the children. Some books were not the ideal in terms of the teaching points they were trying to focus on.” Specifically, teachers named the books Alma and How She Got Her Name and Imagine as too advanced and difficult for their children to relate to, despite being one of the first books in the curriculum in the early fall. One PreK teacher mentioned that she had to do some scaffolding to get the children to understand the concepts for the book Alma and How She Got Her Name because it was very advanced for a book at the beginning of the school year.
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