Kindergarten

Primary program elements:
  1. Encourage and enable families to read aloud with their children at home at least 15 minutes daily. Provide books and parent training as needed. Establish system to track student participation.
    1. http://memfox.com
    2. http://www.trelease-on-reading.com
  2. Introduce students and families to the online Reading Kingdom Program the last month of school. Require students to continue training during the summer so they enter first grade better prepared. Minimum training requirement is 15-20 minutes daily five days per week. Students can train more to advance more quickly. If students are sufficiently mature and computer savvy, students can be started earlier in the year for in-school training or at home.
    1. https://www.readingkingdom.com
    2. Video introduction, under the resources tab
    3. Please note there is a version of Reading Kingdom designed to serve students with developmental delays and who have been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. (http://www.asdreading.com​) Please request special licenses as needed.
    4. Easy to set up an account and register students. Little supervision required, but it is important to ensure students are training consistently.
    5. Students can train at home, after school, or during school as the schedule permits.
    6. Recruit a volunteer or staff to monitor student progress over the summer and contact parents as needed to keep students on track.
    7. Provide an incentive program to reward students in the fall who meet training goals.

Optional program elements, especially for Response to Intervention needs:
Implement as needed. Can also start in first grade if there is insufficient time during kindergarten or if the children are not ready.
  1. Evaluate visual processing skills; train as needed
    1. Go to the Eye Can Learn website (http://eyecanlearn.com) and explore the various exercises.
    2. In particular, you can use the tracking number saccades exercise to evaluate fixation, tracking, and saccades.
      1. Go to http://eyecanlearn.com/tracking/saccades/, scroll down to the number saccades exercise.
      2. Start with the slow speed and work up to the fast speed. Ask students to call out the numbers as they appear on the screen. Also tests and trains Rapid Automatic Naming (http://www.balancedreading.com/doubledeficit.html).
      3. If a student struggles to do this, ask them to practice this exercise 5-10 minutes daily until it becomes easier for them.
    3. Processing Speed / Rapid Pattern Recognition Exercise
      1. Link to exercise, http://ulppr.org/PRE/PRE
      2. Set for letters, numbers or both under options.
      3. Set for one character per group then increase up to four as students improve.
      4. Have students go as fast as possible accurately.
      5. Train 5-10 minutes daily until students can do this exercise easily, accurately, and quickly.
  2. Evaluate auditory processing skills; train as needed
    1. Set up a CogRead account. Contact your account executive for a demonstration and to set up an account.
    2. A letter sound test and exercise is available to train the simple codes/sounds for the 26 letters of the alphabet.
    3. Train phonemic awareness as needed.
    4. Evaluate and train sight words as needed.
  3. Introduce staff and parents to mindset and social emotional learning concepts and provide guidance on how parents can help their children achieve a growth mindset. May need to set up parent training seminars. Can also send materials home.
    1. Review website, https://www.mindsetworks.com
    2. Videos
      1. i.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElVUqv0v1EE
        ii.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_oqghnxBmY
        iii.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC82Il2cjqA&list=PL4111402B45D10AFC
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