Articles of Interest
The Georgia Preschool Association is proud to support Dyslexia Awareness Month the month of October. Let's learn more about what it means for young learners.
Dyslexia is:
● A learning disability: Dyslexia primarily impacts reading and spelling skills.
● Language-based: Impacts phonological awareness, verbal memory, and processing speed.
● Common: Affects around 15-20% of the population.
● Not related to intelligence: People with dyslexia can be highly intelligent.
Dyslexia is not:
● A sign of laziness or lack of intelligence: Individuals with dyslexia are often highly intelligent.
● A visual problem: Dyslexia is primarily a language-based disorder.
● A barrier to success: Many successful people have dyslexia and have used their unique strengths to achieve their goals.
What can a teacher or parent do to help a child succeed with reading?
● The Georgia Preschool Association is a proud sponsor of the completely free phonological and phonemic awareness curriculum, Developing Sound Sense!
● This free curriculum will help prepare all students, including those with dyslexia, with a strong phonological and phonemic awareness foundation before they learn to read.
● Developing Sound Sense offers a structured, 12-module curriculum with video demonstrations and downloadable materials.
● It focuses on phonemic awareness, a crucial pre-reading skill that aids in decoding and phonics instruction. This instruction can begin as early as two years old.
● By teaching accurate sound-letter relationships and so much more, this program can benefit children of all backgrounds, especially those with dyslexia who require explicit and sequential instruction.
DECAL updates to Exemption Rules and Categories
Effective October 1, 2024, the Department for Early Care and Learning updated its rules and categories for Exempt Preschool Programs. Please see below for the changes.
What is Quality Rated Child Care?
According to the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning:
Quality Rated is Georgia’s system to determine, improve, and communicate the quality of programs that provide child care. Similar to rating systems for restaurants and hotels, Quality Rated assigns one, two or three stars to early education and school-age care programs that meet or exceed the minimum state requirements. By participating in Georgia’s voluntary Quality Rated program, programs make a commitment to work continuously to improve the quality of care they provide to children and families.
Quality Rated gives parents and families greater confidence in their child care choice because independent, credentialed experts in early education have assessed whether programs follow best practices, such as:
Employing qualified and well-trained teachers
Providing a safe, healthy and caring environment
Implementing individualized instruction
Offering a curriculum that prepares children for kindergarten
A focus on both active learning and social-emotional development
Engaging families
Providing a low teacher-student ratio
As stated above at the present time school participation in the process to be Quality Rated is voluntary. We congratulate our member schools who have achieved Quality rating for their schools.
The information above is provided by Bright From the Start at http://families.decal.ga.gov/ChildCare/QualityRated
