Increasing early childhood educators’ knowledge and skills in order to promote emergent literacy and language in Pascua Yaqui children.

Course Description
In the Pascua Yaqui – The Story Project: Language, Learning, and Literacy, a community of practice (CoP), Make Way for Books engages Pascua Yaqui Tribe Head Start teachers in developmentally appropriate practices that promote meaningful learning opportunities for the young children in their care. Through professional development, including coaching and workshops, members gain tools and skills to support appropriate instructional practices to support children’s emergent literacy and language development.

Community of Practice Philosophy:
Empowerment is the foundation for all of our work. Empowerment is about breaking down barriers, building on strengths, and creating opportunities from those strengths. It is that positive force that carries hope and opportunity and creates genuine possibility and results. Our vision is that all families and educators in our community provide meaningful literacy and language experiences for the young children in their lives. Through our work, we aspire to create opportunities where children, parents, and educators are empowered to be agents for positive change in the world. Through participation in the program, members understand their incredible power to impact their children’s literacy, love of learning, and success. Family by family, teacher by teacher, child by child, book by book, we believe that we can create lasting change in our community.

Learning Goals
Upon successful completion of the course, each member should be able to:
1. Study and reflect on how children acquire and develop emergent reading, writing and language skills.
2. Explore strategies to select high-quality, culturally diverse books and share them in developmentally appropriate ways to create opportunities for authentic conversations, facilitating the exchange of ideas, opinions and feelings.
3. Create an environment conducive to meaningful experiences and developmentally appropriate practices using a curriculum that meaningfully integrates emergent literacy concepts and skills.
4. Inform parents about their child’s cognitive, social-emotional, and physical development and provide parents with strategies that support children´s language and literacy development.
5. Understand their role in fostering children’s literacy and language development, and feel empowered to be agents for positive change in the community.

Contact Information

Rosa Lira

rosa@makewayforbooks.org

520-398-6451