The Kindergarten Center has many important educational tasks, none more important than giving our students the opportunities to become lifelong learners. Our comprehensive instructional programs focus on contemporary research, balanced instruction supported by adequate resources, interventions, and continual in-service training for teachers. As a district, we strive to integrate programs that reflect the best pedagogical approaches to instruction and are designed to meet the academic, social, physical, and emotional needs of our students.
The Kindergarten Center provides services for those that qualify including occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, ESL and access to a Student Assistance Counselor. The Kindergarten Center implements a Response to Intervention model for students not reaching their fullest potential. This RTI model allows the parents and teachers to focus on specific goals, document progress through data and then refine the goals as needed.
The Rutherford School District provides each child with their own Chromebook to support student’s learning in person and remotely. Interactive boards are used daily to enhance the overall learning experiences. Technology extends into all areas of the curriculum and supports the home-school connections.
Our classrooms are inviting learning centers where children receive positive reinforcement for their accomplishments, both privately and publicly. Teachers differentiate lessons to reach students in their learning modality and plan thematic units to show the integration of all disciplines. The Kindergarten Center teachers set high, but realistic expectations and consistently encourage children to attempt more challenging learning tasks. Teachers use student data to identify students’ reading levels and plan for improvement based on evidence of learning. They also use leveled books and guided reading to teach students at their instructional level. The use of guided reading has allowed our reading instruction to be differentiated for the many systems that children use when learning to read. We have some students who learn to read using more directed phonics instruction and others who are using text-to-text and text-to-world connections to foster comprehension. The teachers engage students in phonics by incorporating multi-sensory instructional strategies on a daily basis. Students are learning knowledge of how words are formed, syllable types and identifying the irregular words, which do not follow a spelling pattern rule. The students take diagnostic assessments of their phonemic awareness skills and this allows the school to monitor students who may be at a risk for dyslexia. Students explore numerical and mathematical concepts in a fun and engaging environment. Hands-on problem-based activities invite inquiry and discovery to promote a deep understanding of presented concepts.
The Kindergarten Center PTA is active within our school. Their goal is to provide opportunities to complement our curriculum. The Kindergarten Center encourages community involvement and recognizes the importance of giving back to those in need.
As people enter the Kindergarten Center, they immediately sense the warm and positive climate that permeates our halls and classrooms. The building hums with productive activity and evidence of the high value placed on children’s work and learning. It is also evident that we have made the critical connection between children’s academic and social needs and their need to feel safe, accepted and valued. We guide our students to being the best they can be for themselves and for our community by following three simple rules- Be safe. Be kind. Be Brave. Using these three rules to guide behaviors, it is obvious to all that the Kindergarten Center is a special place, where community, staff, and parents all work as one in order to make the educational process memorable and meaningful for our kindergarteners.