Professional Development

| Workshops | Professional Reading | Professional Viewing | Grants |

  MELS Kindergarten Professional Development and training

• Intervention in the Kindergarten Class
  A series of workshops over a period of three years.  Access the workshop resources here.
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• Learning difficulties: Reference framework for intervention.
  This document aims to shed new light on how best to provide assistance to students with learning difficulties and facilitate the search for effective intervention measures that meet their needs. It concerns the kindergarten teacher because it examines what needs to be put in place in order to foster student success beginning in preschool.
  Abridged version or Complete version
  

• Grade Repetition: Myths, Beliefs and Alternatives
  Reflection Workshop on Grade Repetition
  Power Point presentation and Accompanying document
  75% of teachers still believe that grade repetition in kindergarten is an effective means of helping immature children catch up with the others. MEQ has put out a workshop and accompanying document to support discussion and reflection which exposes the beliefs, myths and facts.

Kindergarten Café Events

Professional Reading

• Should Kindergarten children be exposed to formal reading and writing teaching?
  Four articles from the BBC News online. They refer to research that deals with the concern that very young children are being introduced to formal reading and writing too soon. The research suggests that children do not begin to benefit from extensive formal teaching until about six or seven years old and that a play-based system is better for learning at a young age.
  More play, less 'work' for early years
  Call to raise school starting age
  Too much, too young for children
  Radical changes in child education   
• Children Have to Grow Up Too Fast (Edutopia)
  This article by a grade one teacher highlights the importance of "true" kindergarten learning through play to prepare children for grade one.  If you feel pushed to teach them their letters and numbers and start grade one in your kindergarten class, consider the Kindergarten Program and the results she describes when we forget it.
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• In Defense of Play-Based Education: the reassuring truth about three-year-old academics.
  Worried parents might think their preschool age child should come home with worksheets, not mixed-media art work. This article describes how preschool teachers encourage pre-literacy and math skills in all kinds of creative ways and with guided interactions.
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• The Playtime's the Thing
  A debate over the value of make-believe and other games in preschool classes is deepening as more states in the US fund programs.  An article in the Washington Post.
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• Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control
  Research has found that the ability of young children to control their emotional and cognitive impulses is a remarkably strong indicator of both short-term and long-term success, academic and otherwise. In some studies, self-regulation skills have been shown to predict academic achievement more reliably than I.Q. tests.  That's why researchers are now looking at ways to teach self-regulation.  The usual methods involving instructions and rewards do not work.  What does work is play, lots of play. But not any kind of play.
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• ReadNowBC: The Kindergarten Learning Project
  The Kindergarten Learning Project provides easy to use asssessment materials for tracking children's growth in early literacy throughtout the kindergarten year. The continuums address
• • Oral Language
  • Social Responsibility
  • Reading and Viewing
  • Writing and represneting
  • Numeracy
  • Student Portfolios
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• The Sooner The Better:  Developing Literacy in Kindergarten
  Tanya Paradis shares her experiences with her kindergarten students and their parents in establishing a home-supported Literacy Program.  Although most of her kindergarten students are second-language learners, she has created a meaning-based program in which reading and writing are integrated and firmly rooted in the conversations and experiences of the children.  Her program is a seamless tapestry in which all the elements of the English Language Arts program -- reading, writing, drawing, talking, and listening -- are woven at a level appropriate for young children.  Tanya believes in developing literacy right from the start of school and that second-language literacy is acquired in similar ways to mother-tongue literacy.
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Kindergarten Educator Blogs

Several early childhood educators are now using blogs to share their experience, knowledge and understanding. Reading their blogs pulls us into this vibrant community of dedicated teachers.  Here are a few to explore.  If you like something you've read, you can leave a comment.  Each blogger will often recommend others that he or she follows.  By exploring them, you can broaden your experience and your community. You can subscribe to someone's blog so you know when there is a new post to read.  If you need help doing that, contact us or your local RECIT animator.

• Room to Grow: Making Early Childhood Count!
  Tonya Wright has been in the field of early childhood education for twenty years and is a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and Phi Kappa Phi. She has mad it her mission to expose parents and teachers to valuable early childhood activities in the hope of enriching the lives of as many children as she can. Read the blog

Professional Viewing

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  NEW . This series is now available in a 2-DVD set free of charge.
  This video series illustrates how teachers make the QEP come alive in the Kindergarten classroom. Excellent tool for a parent night information session as well as for educators' own PD. 
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Professional Development Grants

Administered by the Secteur des services à la communauté anglophone - Direction des politiques et des projects (SSCA-DPP) of the Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport (MELS), this page provides answers and resources to teachers and administrators who are looking for ways to promote student achievement in Quebec's English schools.  Find out more