Batavia Early Childhood Center outlines preschool program and supports for 3- to 5-year-olds

Paulette Ali, coordinator at the Batavia Early Childhood Center, described the center’s preschool program and supports for children ages 3 through 5.

Ali said the center serves children “with and without identified special needs” across five classrooms and uses a blended model that reserves slots for community students and for students who have identified special needs. She said the program uses multi-age classrooms and runs Monday through Thursday in two daily sessions, 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 12:40 p.m. to 3:10 p.m.

The center’s curriculum is teacher-created and theme-based and is aligned with the Illinois Early Learning Standards, Ali said. She described additional literacy supports the center uses, including Jolly Phonics and Heggerty Phonemic Awareness, and a read-aloud support program that uses visuals and actions to help children retell stories. The program’s math instruction covers numeral recognition, counting with one-to-one correspondence, use of ten-frames for grouping, and concepts of “more and less.”

Ali said the Early Childhood program uses Teaching Strategies GOLD to monitor student growth and developmental skill acquisition. She also said all early childhood teachers hold Illinois teaching licenses with an emphasis on early childhood development and that each classroom has two paraprofessionals who support children in the classroom.

Social-emotional learning is a stated focus. Ali described use of the Second Step curriculum to teach positive school behaviors and the Zones of Regulation framework to help children identify feelings and practice coping tools such as taking a break or deep breathing.

Ali closed by inviting families to the program and directing them to the district website for further information.