About the Program:

Portions of The Creative Curriculum for Preschool, a Developmental Curriculum for Ages 3-5(Dodge, Colker, and Heroman, 2001), is implemented in the Learning and Language Center Preschool Program. The curriculum addresses four areas of development including:

4 Areas of Focus:

1. Social/Emotional Development: Sense of Self, Responsibility for Self and Others, and Prosocial Behavior

2. Physical Development: Gross and Fine Motor Development

3. Cognitive Development: Learning and Problem Solving, Logical Thinking, and Representation and Symbolic Thinking

4. Language Development: Listening and Speaking and Reading and Writing

About Our Pre-Literacy Program:

Shared Storybook Reading, Building Young Children's Langauge and Emergent Literacy Skills (Helen Ezell and Laura Justice) is implemented in the Learning and Language Center Preschool Program. Shared Storybook Reading is a guide and resource for effective storybook book reading that promotes the development of oral reading and emergent ltieracy skills that are necessary for success in school.

Language Domains:

1. Semantics
2. Phonology
3. Syntax
4. Morphology
5. Pragmatics

LIteracy Skills Addressed:

1. Print Awareness
2. Differentiating Print from Pictures
3. Understands Print Directionality
4. Knows that Print Tells aStory
5. Identifies Top and Botom of a Page
6. Knows Some Letters of the Alphabet
7. Understands that Words are Made Up of Letters

 Phonological Awareness Addressed:

1. Recognizes Word Boundaries
2. Identifies Number of Syllables in Words
3. Rhymes Words by Changing Initial Sound
4. Identifies First Sounds of Words

The Learning and Language Center Preschool Program is open to children of students, staff, faculty and to families in the surrounding communities. The program is in session Monday through Thursday from 9:00 am to noon. A child must attend all four days of the program.

The Learning and Language Center Preschool is a laboratory school that is under the direct supervision of faculty in the Communication Disorders Program. Both graduate and undergraduate students complete a clinical practicum in the preschool and work directly with the children.

Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis for admission to the program both for fall (September-December) and spring (January-May) semesters. Fees are charged per term. A current fees schedule is available by contacting the department office at (724) 938-4175.

Children must have turned 3 and 1/2 by August and be no older than 5 years of age. Children also need to be potty trained.