Description
Recent studies have found that a school readiness gap between at-risk dual language learners (DLL's) and Caucasian English-only children occurs prior to kindergarten; therefore, providing the necessary support for these children during the preschool years is imperative. Unfortunately, the needs of these children are seldom addressed in preschool programs for a variety of reasons, including the lack of education and training for preschool administrators and teacher on how best to meet the needs of DLLs and the limited research on the most effective approaches and strategies for working with DLL's. Many State and Federal preschool programs use a prescriptive teacher-directed curriculum; however, this approach fails to take into account the children's unique cultural backgrounds, experiences, interests, language, and developmental levels. Working under the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy, this exploratory mixed methods study followed the journey of one preschool director who worked to address this issue at her preschool by implementing a co-constructivist curriculum approach with a concentration on small group activities using the California Preschool Learning Foundations to build on the children's interests and developmental levels. This study assessed the effectiveness of this approach through pre- and post- kinder readiness assessments as well as through data compiled from the kindergarten entry assessments.
