Kinder-Ready

Pre-K Tutoring

The Developmental Learning Center offers an auxiliary program for tutoring to our Kinder-Ready classroom. Led by our Education Specialist and using the Spalding diagnostic teaching method, this tutoring program promotes the physical and mental well-being of our students. Spalding is a total language arts program in which students receive direct instruction in listening, speaking, spelling, writing, and reading.

Phonetic Awareness

This tutoring program starts with the foundation of phonemic awareness. The instructor will say all of the sounds in a word and the students have to say that word back to the instructor. This is a complex skill that takes a lot of repetition, but by focusing on teaching the letters and letter combinations that represent speech sounds (phonemes), we build the phonetic awareness

Systematic Phonics

Combining phonogram practice with handwriting promotes learning through four pathways to the brain: auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and tactile. This multi-sensory approach facilitates knowledge retention and enables students to decode any word and not just memorize sight words.

Handwriting Strategies

The correct pencil grip is very important and is emphasized daily in this program. Our instructor will also work on the proper sitting position for writing and learning. For handwriting strategies, we focus on all of the features of the letters and use unique Spalding techniques to teach handwriting. Using positions on an analog clock, our instructor teaches students how to properly write the eight clock letters, then how to write the line letters. These concepts are worked on throughout the entire year.

Literature & Dictation

When all the procedures are in place, the instructor will start dictating words in the student’s Spalding notebooks. They will learn a marking system in which they have to mark  the words a certain way. This will develop their higher-level thinking skills. The words dictated are the most commonly used words according to grade levels.

In teaching literature, they will learn the three types of writing: narrative, informative, and informative narrative. For the purposes of this program, we will focus primarily on narrative literature and the students will learn the different elements that make up a narrative story.