Intentional Instruction What is its role in the Universal Prekindergarten Program?

What is intentional teaching? “An intentional teacher aims at clearly defined learning objectives for children, employs instructional strategies likely to help children achieve the objectives and continually assesses progress and adjusts the strategies based on that assessment.” (Epstein, 2007, P. 4)

Why is intentional instruction important? Some types of information can not be acquired by children unless an adult provides the information (examples: letter names, shapes, number names) Some skills need to be presented/modeled by an adult to facilitate learning (writing, graphing, charts, diagrams)

What are the requirements for intentional instruction in the UPK classroom? 1. Activities are learner-centered and designed and provided in a way that promotes the child’s total growth and development. The program provides: a balanced schedule of teacher- initiated and child-initiated learning activities; instructional materials and equipment arranged in learning centers, and focused instruction to meet differentiated learning styles. (Section 3602-e of Education Law and Subpart of the Regulations of the Commissioner)

When should intentional instruction occur? Intentional instruction should take place during the literacy circle, centers, gross motor activities, transitions and meal times. The art of teaching involves the skillful use of intentional instruction to provide a balance of teacher-directed and student-directed learning activities during the prek session.

What does intentional instruction look like? Intentional teaching involves: setting up the learning environment to support learning posing questions that lead students to investigate answers modeling/demonstrating a specific skill providing specific information in meaningful ways to children Scaffolding the learning for students to acquire new concepts

What are the UPK requirements for teaching emergent literacy skills? 1. The District ensures that all prekindergarten classrooms provide early literacy and emergent reading instruction based on effective, evidence- based practices. Such instruction includes the following components: background knowledge, phonological awareness, expressive and receptive language, vocabulary development and phonemic awareness. (Section 3602-e of Education Law and Subpart of the Regulations of the Commissioner)

Examples of Intentional Instruction of Emergent Literacy Skills: Background knowledge: Teacher discussion of specific elements of the context of a story (setting, characters) Phonological awareness: Teacher draws student attention to the sound structure of words including syllables, the initial sound (onset) and remaining sounds (rime) of a syllable. The teacher draws attention to the initial /c/ in “Corduroy” a character’s name and the title of the book.

Examples of Intentional Instruction of Emergent Literacy Skills: Expressive and Receptive Language Skills: Teachers encourage the development of expressive language skills through open- ended questions and probing questions to elicit expanded sentences. Receptive language skill development is addressed through teacher-initiated activities focused on following directions and developing/measuring comprehension.

Examples of Intentional Instruction of Emergent Literacy Skills: Vocabulary development is addressed through the planned introduction of specific vocabulary words in the context of a learning activity or as part of a literacy circle. New vocabulary should be introduced through pictures/objects, teacher modeling of the spoken word, practiced pronunciation, and print exposure to the new word in the context of the activity.

Examples of Intentional Instruction of Emergent Literacy Skills: Phonemic Awareness involves identifying the individual sounds heard in words. The teacher addresses this area by drawing student attention to the individual sounds in a word as it is pronounced during a learning activity. For example, before reading “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss the teacher might ask the students to identify the sounds they hear in the word cat and repeat the request using the word hat, emphasizing differences and similarities of the sounds in each word.

A master teacher incorporates intentional teaching into the learning activities and teachable moments each day presents in a naturalistic manner. Questions? Comments?