Teacher's Guide for Read, Play, and Learn!?: Storybook Activities for Young Children

This detailed Teacher's Guide for the Read, Play, and Learn!® curriculum helps teachers and program directors in choosing materials, arranging their classrooms, using the curriculum to enhance children's skills, and identifying children's developmental levels so that appropriate modifications can be made. Key features include:

• Discussion of research on emergent literacy with specific suggestions on how teachers can use the activities in Read, Play, and Learn! to support learning and skill acquisition in their students. There are also guidelines on creating a literacy-rich environment in the classroom and creating opportunities for reading and writing. An appendix contains a list of suggested materials for each stage of literacy development.
• Descriptions of the three levels of learning—sensorimotor, functional, and symbolic—with guidelines on how teachers can identify a child's learning level and modify classroom activities to meet his or her individual needs. There are also suggestions on how teachers can use curriculum activities to encourage each child's cognitive, social-emotional, communication, and sensorimotor development, no matter their level of learning.
• An entire chapter devoted to ways you can involve families in their children's education. Aside from specific examples of ways to foster family involvement, the chapter also contains photocopiable handouts teachers can give to parents that describe the curriculum and ways parents can support their children's learning.
• Master planning sheets to help teachers plan activities for each center and learning area for an entire week.
• List of resources on accommodations and curricula for early childhood classrooms.
• Suggestions on how to get your classroom ready to use Read, Play, and Learn!, with descriptions of each of the centers and guidelines for arranging the classroom and planning a daily schedule.
• List of materials recommended for each center and learning area.
• Step-by-step instructions for teacher teams on planning and implementation of the curriculum.
• Chapters on adapting the curriculum for students with visual or hearing impairments.

This Teacher's Guide is part of Read, Play, and Learn!, an innovative, play-based curriculum for children 3–6 years of age that promotes general development and boosts cognitive, sensorimotor, communication/language, social, and emerging literacy skills.

Learn more about the complete Read, Play, and Learn! curriculum, and discover Toni Linder's play-based assessment and intervention system, TPBA2 and TPBI2.

See which domain of school readiness in the Head Start Child Development and Early Learning Framework this book addresses.

Dr. Toni Linder is Professor Emeritus in the Child, Family, and School Psychology Program at the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Linder has been a leader in the development of authentic assessment for young children and is known for her work on Transdisciplinary Play-Based Assessment and Transdisciplinary Play-Based Intervention (1990, 1993, 2008). In addition, she developed Read, Play, and Learn (1999), an inclusive, literature and play-based curriculum for preschool and kindergarten learning and development. She consults nationally and internationally on assessment, intervention, early childhood education, program development, and family involvement issues. Dr. Linder has conducted research on a variety of issues, including transdisciplinary influences on development, parent-child interaction, curriculum outcomes, and using technology for professional development in rural areas.

In 2012 Dr. Linder formed Early Learning Dynamics LLC to serve as a platform for her continuing consulting, curriculum development, and play-based assessments. Dr. Linder will use Early Learning Dynamics to serve children worldwide.

Regina Patsy Boughan, M.Ed., is an Early Intervention Specialist in the Early Intervention Division at Science Applications International Corporation in Ansbach, Germany.