ALLC Partners with
Arizona Literacy & Learning
is named the
Get Ready to Read!
Southwest Regional Center
Because the early childhood years are the most critical time period for literacy development, NCLD developed the Get Ready to Read! (GRTR)Screening tool and program in 2001, and later demonstrated its effectiveness in a variety of early childhood centers. ALLC participated in the field testing of the tool in both English and Spanish. Demonstration results indicated that a remarkable 69% of children whose pre-schools or day care centers participated in the Get Ready to Read! Program had the key literacy skills they needed to enter Kindergarten. By comparison only 35% of the non-participating pre-school children entered Kindergarten ready to read and learn.
For more information on GRTR go to www.getreadytoread.org
Benefits to Parents, Care Givers,
Teachers, School, and Community
Get Ready to Read! Screenings offer a method of gaining insight into the need for a child’s enrichment or intervention for pre-literacy development skills in Print, Phonological, and Emergent Writing areas.
Correlate through collaborative problem solving other sensory, developmental, instructional, and/or environmental issues that may co-exist with pre-literacy difficulties. Parents whose children receive only GRTR may make appointments at ALLC offices to pursue additional developmental screening.
Instructional & Teacher Insight: Screening gives insight into a child’s need for intentional instruction. ALLC provided assistance to preschool children and teachers through the AZ State & US Departments of Education State Improvement Grant (2003-2007) and continued collaboration with NCLD, CISCO Learning, Pulliam and Tremaine Foundations, and the Frank Porter Graham Early Childhood Institute to develop and disseminate the “Get Ready to Read! Recognition & Response Early Childhood Model.” Educators who participated in training sessions and received instructional materials report that they have become more intentional about selecting and implementing appropriate early literacy activities while focusing greater attention on the skills and needs of individual children.
Parent Involvement training offers skill development through the “Readiness Basket – formerly known as the Learning Basket” program. Parents gain intentional skills to help their children develop language, listening, auditory processing, pre-literacy and behavioral skills. This program targets the AZ State Preschool Readiness Skills development. “Get Ready to Read!” activities are used to insure the recognition and response to a child’s identified pre-literacy needs.
ALLC’s Education Coaches were added to the Murphy & Cartwright preschools Parent Empowerment strategies with three 10 weeks, 2 hours weekly, Readiness (Learning) Basket Workshops. (100 parents, community liaisons & 150 children ages birth-5. involved.)
One parent from the training has been appointed as a member of the First Things First Southwest Regional Council. She has also worked with the ALLC Team to Train and hold Get Ready to Read! Screenings in the Murphy area. In addition, Jannelle Radoccia, the Director of ALLC’s Early Childhood Program was appointed to the First Things First Northwest Regional Council.