Module 3

I interacted with K.M the education coordinator for children 3-5 years old.  She is responsible for monitoring teachers. She monitors their physical environment and the social environment. She is also responsible for making sure teachers complete developmentally appropriate lesson plans, also making sure teachers create Reggio inspired and Reggio inspired documentation. She monitors 25 teachers at 3 different work sites. At each site she has a space where she works and other monitors.  She communicates with the teachers, CPS staff and site directors. Her immediate supervisor is the program director.

As I observed with her today she worked at her home site.  She rearranged a classroom with a new teacher. She wanted the new teacher to have a place where she is more comfortable, organized and fits her teaching style. She was also there to monitor one of the teachers. She monitored the teacher during circle time and I also monitored. She was looking for the interactions between the teachers and children and making sure she was engaged in developmentally appropriate practices. After the observation I reviewed her notes and she made a note about the length of circle time. She thought it was lengthy but the children were well engaged.  As a question for review she asked the teachers how they got their circle time to be so well engaged and lengthy. She was really impressed because the children that weren’t engaged were allowed to leave and work in another part of the classroom.   She was impressed because the teacher did a variety of literacy activities: letter sounds, alphabet recognition, read a story and did an activity about alliteration. In my own observation she didn’t do as much mathematics as she did literacy.

I asked K. M her thoughts about the amount of early mathematics skills the children are engaged in. She replied  

“there are so many programs we participate in that promote early literacy and decree this is the key to school readiness. The latest push is for school readiness and connecting the families. As educator coordinators we must create binders first to emphasize early literacy skills. The binders are at each site and teachers must use them during home visits and parent teacher conferences. There are a vareity of activities parents can do to help promote literacy development.

I asked her does she feel mathematics deserve the same amount of time and effort as literacy.

She replied “mathematics and literacy development are two skills children will continue to develop throughout their life. It is important for children to get these experiences however I must follow the orders of my superiors