New York City Expands High-Quality Teaching and Learning Resources to Over 8,000 Early Childhood Education Classrooms and 140,000 Children

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Jul 19, 2023, 08:00 ET

As part of robust campaign to boost literacy, New York City partners with Teaching Strategies to ensure equitable access to research-based, high-quality early childhood curriculum, assessment, professional learning pathways, and family engagement tools

NEW YORK, July 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The New York City Department of Education is expanding its partnership with Teaching Strategies, the country's leading developer of early childhood education solutions, as part of a citywide campaign to dramatically strengthen literacy.

Through the expanded partnership, all New York City public school early childhood programs will have access to Teaching Strategies solutions, which bring together content, tools, data, and support aligned to research-based objectives to empower teachers to easily identify and respond to each child's needs.

"We are grateful for the support from Teaching Strategies to ensure all, not just some, of New York City Public Schools' early childhood education programs have access to the same research-supported, high-quality resources and tools on a single, easy-to-use digital platform," said Deputy Chancellor of Early Childhood Education Dr. Kara H. Ahmed. "This consistency will be key to ensuring rich learning experiences for every child and strong partnerships with families."

Starting in the 2023-2024 school year, educators in the city's more than 8,000 early childhood classrooms, which serve about 140,000 children birth to age 5, will all utilize the Teaching Strategies ecosystem. This ecosystem connects curriculum, observational assessment tools, family engagement content, and professional learning together in a seamless experience for teachers. The professional learning component gives educators a rapid onboarding program, on-demand support, coaching, embedded microlearning and job training, and a pathway to further credentials. Starting as early as birth, Teaching Strategies solutions cover all areas that research has shown to be critical for children's success, including the development of essential language and literacy skills and an innate love of reading, throughout a child's day through authentic play-based experiences.

"In order to ensure more children can become proficient readers and learners, we must ensure those closest to them–educators and families–are given intentional, meaningful support," said Teaching Strategies CEO John Olsen. "We are proud to expand our longstanding partnership with New York City to equip teachers and families with the tools and resources they need to translate developmentally appropriate practice into practical support in the classroom and at home."

The Creative Curriculum^® is a research-based, whole-child curriculum that serves children, from infancy through kindergarten. The curriculum is designed to help educators, at all levels of experience, plan and implement a developmentally appropriate, content-rich program that meets the unique needs of children. The approach to literacy in the curriculum includes all of the elements of the science of reading in order to help young children become competent and confident emerging readers through explicit, play-based experiences. It also leverages a smart, easy-to-use platform, The Creative Curriculum^® Cloud, that provides teachers with powerful planning tools, the flexibility to customize to meet the needs of all learners, access to all resources in one place, and a family mobile app with automated multimedia playlists, to seamlessly engage families in their child's learning at school and at home.

GOLD^®, Teaching Strategies' flagship assessment system, makes it easier for teachers to observe children's skills and behavior, document and analyze that data, and continually support students with informed, differentiated instruction across language and literacy, as well as all vital early learning domains. The platform allows educators to easily capture, organize, and store notes, photos, videos, and digital samples of children's work, in the moment, without disrupting instruction, to make observations authentic and easy to remember.

The new Professional Development Teacher Membership is a first-of-its-kind program that gives early childhood educators access to live and on-demand e-learning courses, self-paced pathways to earn and maintain key industry credentials, one-on-one coaching, an 8-week rapid onboarding program to get teachers up and running quickly, and a virtual community of early childhood educators eager to share best practices with each other.

The Creative Curriculum, GOLD, and Teacher Membership are all connected through the Teaching Strategies platform, creating an instantaneous and ongoing feedback loop of information to individualize learning.

About Teaching Strategies
Driven by research that shows a child's first eight years form a critical foundation for success in school and in life, Teaching Strategies has been an advocate for the early education community for over 40 years. Today, Teaching Strategies connects teachers, children and families to inspired teaching and learning experiences, informative data, stronger family partnerships, and professional learning through the leading early learning platform and resources. Its products, including the most widely-used curriculum and assessment solutions The Creative Curriculum® and GOLD®, are found in over 250,000 classrooms and more than 80 countries around the world and reach over 4 million children each year. To learn why thousands of early childhood programs and many states and countries choose to partner with Teaching Strategies to help ensure children's success in school and in life, visit teachingstrategies.com and follow us on Twitter @TeachStrategies.

SOURCE Teaching Strategies