Overview of CKLA for PreK: Session 1 – Overview of
CKLA-PreK
Sequence of Sessions
Overarching Objectives of this February 2013 Network Team Institute
This session is the first training for CKLA-PreK. At the conclusion of this session,
1.
All participants will be able to accurately identify the instructional and support materials (e.g., cards, posters) required for
implementation of Preschool CKLA.
2.
Participants will be able to identify areas of the daily routine employed by CKLA-PreK.
a. Preschool educators will be able to identify adjustments / shifts that can be made to their current practices, routines, and
schedules to support Preschool CKLA.
b. Administrators will consider additional program level shift that will support classroom educators as they make
adjustments / shifts at the classroom level.
3.
All participants will learn and practice language stimulation and support strategies to support high-quality adult-child
interactions within implementation of Preschool CKLA.
High-Level Purpose of this Session

The purpose of this session is to orient partcipants to the CKLA-PreK materials, portions of the day, and best practices for implementation.
Related Learning Experiences

This is the first PD for the CKLA-PreK program. Participants can prepare for this session by viewing the CKLA-PreK Overview Webinar.
Session Outcomes
What do we want participants to be able to do as a result of this session?
Session Objective(s): Teachers
1. Participants will be able to describe language and knowledge as two important elements of
literacy support.
2. Participants will be able to identify and describe the purposes of the CKLA-PreK
components.
3. Participants will be able to describe the 3 cornerstone portions of the CKLA-PreK day.
How will we know that they are
able to do this?
In-session activities
Session Description: Participants will become familiar with the key reasons for and elements of oral
language support within CKLA. Participants will learn and practice a variety of Language Stimulation and
Support Techniques.
Session Overview
Section
Time
Framing
10 m
Materials
Walkthrough
15 m
Overview
Prepared Resources
] In this section, you will provide
an overview of the agenda, frame
the 2-day session, and take care of
housekeeping tasks.
OverviewOfCKLA-PreK.ppt
To facilitate the training activities,
we request that participants bring
their own copies of:
•
Preschool General Overview
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All
About Me Teacher Guide
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All
About Me Flip Book
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All
In this section, you will present a About Me Activity Pages
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All
walkthrough of the program
components.
About Me Image Cards
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All
About Me Transition and Learning
Center Cards
Additionally, we request that
participant bring a copy of their
personal classroom daily schedule
(if they are a PreK educator) or a
representative classroom daily
schedule (if they are an
administrator overseeing multiple
Facilitator Preparation
classrooms).
Parts of the Day
10 m
In this section, you will present the
3 portions of the day that are
OverviewOfCKLA-PreK.zip
utilized by CKLA-PreK and describe
ReflectionHandout.PDF
the purpose of each.
Session Roadmap
Section:
Time:
[10 minutes] In this section, you will provide an overview of the
agenda, frame the 2-day session, and take care of housekeeping
tasks.
Materials used include:
Time
Slide #/ Pic of Slide
Script/ Activity directions
Key Points:
1. CKLA-PreK is designed with two over-arching goals in mind: build knowledge and build
language to support literacy.
2. Over the next two-days we will dive into the materials to see how these goals are
accomplished.
3. Our agenda for the workshop is…
GROUP
Key Points:
1. Introduce facilitators.
2. Frame this as a first opportunity for many to learn about and see the CKLA-PreK
materials.
3. The goal is for participants to learn as much as they can about the product so that after
the session they can make informed decisions about what to adopt and what to adapt.
4. Frame the protocols to be used throughout the workshop for Q&A, breaks, etc.
Key Points:
1. Facilitator will read aloud a passage from Fish is Fish by Leo Lioni.
2. Read excerpt from Fish is Fish.
3. Ask: How might this story relate to our work with preschoolers?
4. CKLA-PreK addresses the importance of building knowledge and language for students
to inform their understanding of the world around them and support their emerging
literacy and later reading skills.
Section:
Time:
[15 minutes] In this section, you will present a walkthrough of the
program components.
Materials used include:
To facilitate the training activities, we request that participants bring their
own copies of:
•
Preschool General Overview
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All About Me Teacher Guide
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All About Me Flip Book
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All About Me Activity Pages
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All About Me Image Cards
•
Preschool: Domain 1 All About Me Transition and Learning Center
Cards
Additionally, we request that participant bring a copy of their personal
classroom daily schedule (if they are a PreK educator) or a representative
classroom daily schedule (if they are an administrator overseeing multiple
classrooms).
Key Points:
1. Throughout CKLA P – 2, the knowledge children have learned about particular topics in
early grade levels should is expanded and developed in subsequent grade levels to ensure
an increasingly deeper understanding of these topics (as called for by Common Core
Learning Standards, 2011, p. 43).
2. CKLA has an emphasis on knowledge. The rationale is that the CKLA program does not
assume any knowledge but explicitly and systematically builds knowledge. Let’s see how
this occurs…
Key Points:
1. CKLA is designed to coherently build, both within and across grades, a broad base of
background knowledge that students will continue to tap throughout their schooling and
beyond.
2. Show example of P – 2 domains and arrows indicating coherence and building.
3. You will notices that the topics covered in CKLA-PreK provide a foundation for building
additional knowledge through the early elementary grades.
4. It is important to note that the order of domains is intentional. Content in each domain
may make use of children’s understanding of content from prior domains.
5. In preschool, there are two domains that do not include Skills instruction and are taught
intermittently throughout the year. These domains, Classic Tales and Important People
take advantage of prior content and calendar events to reinforce and extend learning.
6. It is also helpful to remember how this content knowledge can support children’s
understanding of fiction. For instance, Fish is Fish – used at the beginning of the session
– will make more sense to children after (or during) the Animals domain, where they will
learn that fish always live in the water and that frogs start as tadpoles in the water, but
later move to land.
Key Points:
1. The CKLA-PreK program is comprised of a variety of classroom materials.
2. Let’s review the materials before we get started. (Point out which materials participants
should have with them).
3. CKLA-PreK includes:
• 7 Teacher Guides, 1 per domain
• 7 Flip Books, 1 per domain
• 7 sets of Image Cards, 1 per domain (story sequencing, vocabulary and concept
cards)
• 5 sets of Transition and Center Cards, one for each comprehensive domain
• 7 sets of Student Activity Pages, 1 per domain
• 1 set of Nursery Rhymes and Songs posters
• 1 Big Book, Classic Tales
Key Points:
1. CKLA-PreK is an aligned curriculum. It was created with the NYS P-12 Common Core
Learning Standards (CCLS) in mind.
2. Ask participants to locate the CCSS alignment chart in their materials on page vii.
3. The program comprehensively focuses on the PreK ELA aspects of the NYS P-12 CCLS.
Although it does incorporate some of the New York State Prekindergarten Learning
Standards, the primary focus is coverage of the ELA standards.
Key Points:
1. The materials also represent what National Association for Education of Young Children
(NAEYC) tells us about developmentally appropriate practice (DAP).
2. When we reference DAP in this workshop, we are specifically referencing
Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children
from Birth through Age 8 (3rd ed.) by Carol Copple and Sue Bredekamp. This is
NAEYC’s most recent publication regarding DAP.
3. On many of our slides, you will see a DAP icon in the upper right corner. This indicates
an aspect of the program that is particularly well aligned with NAEYC’s DAP.
4. The number in the icon represents the page number in the Copple & Bredekamp book on
which you will find a statement aligned with the message of the slide and or the CKLAPreK materials.
Section:
Time:
[10 minutes] In this section, you will present the 3 portions of the day Materials used include:
that are utilized by CKLA-PreK and describe the purpose of each.
OverviewOfCKLA-PreK.zip
Participants will reflect on their own daily schedule at the conclusion of
ReflectionHandout.PDF
this section.
Time
Slide #/ Pic of Slide
Script/ Activity directions
Key Points:
1. Join me on p. 45 of your All About Me Teacher Guide.
2. CKLA-PreK represents 45 minutes of instruction per day.
3. Every day, there is instruction that is designed to fit within existing classroom contexts
(circle, centers, small group, etc.).
4. In addition to providing guidance for classroom routines, CKLA-PreK includes 20
minutes for small group. Each group lasts 10 minutes; then, kids switch, and have
5. 25 minutes for read-aloud and related instruction (actual reading takes about 10 minutes).
GROUP
6. The CKLA-PreK materials work around a typical high quality preschool environment.
The materials include opportunities and supports for:
• Teacher - Child interaction
• Child - Child interaction
• Oral language
• Concept development
• Periods of High activity and low activity
• Whole group, small group
• Teacher facilitated, child choice (as in center times)
• Routines and consistency
DAP 154: “Teachers use a number of formats, including large and small groups, choice time and
routines. For any learning goal, teachers choose the format that seems best suited to that specific
purpose.”
Key Points:
1. You can see on p. 45 that there are 3 primary parts of the day utilized by CKLA-PreK.
2. During the “Starting the Day” portion of CKLA, guidance and activities are provided for
common classroom routines such as taking attendance and assigning jobs.
3. Additionally, a daily nursery rhyme is used to practice skills learned within the CKLAPreK program.
4. We will dive more deeply into Starting the Day routines in session 3.
Key Points:
1. Each day of Core Knowledge Language Arts Preschool instruction includes two tenminute Small Group activities. Small Groups are intended to be conducted
simultaneously with a teacher and a classroom aide each leading a different group.
Students participate in both small groups every day so that each student receives twenty
minutes of small-group instruction daily. Some teachers may prefer to lead both small
groups themselves, which would require a total of forty minutes of instruction for every
student to complete both activities.
2. Small Group instruction includes a range of activities that are designed to be conducted in
various areas of the classroom. Some Small Group activities could even be conducted
outside. When planning Small Group, it is important to consider the least restrictive area
where an activity might be conducted and to give students as much freedom of movement
as is reasonable. Many activities can be conducted with students standing on the rug or
moving around a Learning Center, rather than sitting at a table.
3. Additionally, while adults usually begin the activity by modeling and teaching skills
and/or concepts, the opportunity is provided in each Small Group activity for students to
explore and work independently with more limited teacher direction. Suggestions as to
how teachers might gradually release control of the activities to students are given in the
Teacher Guide, and we encourage teachers to think of additional ways to let students take
the lead during Small Group.
4. We will dive more deeply into Small Group Skills in session 4.
Key Points:
1. Listening & Learning uses read-alouds to provide students the experiences needed to
develop domain-specific language and content knowledge.
2. Each Teacher Guide contains support for conducting interactive, whole- group readalouds using both original texts and trade books.
3. Each interactive read-aloud is preceded by a brief introduction to the content that will be
addressed in the text. By intentionally introducing the read-aloud, teachers help students
make connections to things they already know, introduce words or ideas that might be
unfamiliar, and help students make predictions. Teachers always end the introduction by
giving students a specific purpose for listening to the read-aloud.
4. These preschool read-alouds are designed to be interactive—meaning that teachers
engage students in a conversation about the text, as the read-aloud is delivered. Teachers
conducting interactive read-alouds pause frequently to allow students to ‘interact’ with
the text by sharing their own ideas, answering questions, or moving their bodies.
Key Points:
1. There are many supports in the program to extend content and literacy learning beyond
the read-alouds.
2. The program includes guidance to support dramatic play learning centers, extension
activities, transitions, parent communications, and assessments that align with the domain
content.
3. We will dive more deeply into Listening and Learning in session 5 and other supports in
session 7.
Key Points:
1. As we mentioned earlier, our primary goal today is to build your knowledge of the
CKLA-PreK program so that you can make informed decisions about how you will use
the program.
2. Let’s take a break to reflect on your current daily schedule, shifts that may be required to
incorporate the elements of CKLA-PreK, and challenges or constraints to
implementation.
3. If you are an administrator, or preschool director, please approach this reflection from a
program level. What supports will you need to provide to allow your teachers’ schedules
to shift more easily to accommodate these elements?
Reflection Handout
Use the following icons in the script to indicate different learning modes.
Video
Reflect on a prompt
Turnkey Materials Provided

See handouts
Additional Suggested Resources

none
Active learning
Turn and talk