Clovis schools expanding offerings for younger learners

Early childhood education has been around for quite some time now, becoming a category all its own.

Increasingly, general education has changed over the years, as have expectations, requiring students to learn more at an earlier age to be successful.

The Clovis Municipal Schools has focused on expanding the offerings for these little ones. Over the last couple of years our pre-K program (4-year-olds) has continued to expand with now pre-K classes at each of our 12 elementary school sites, and we anticipate serving approximately 300 pre-K students next year.

In addition to our cadre of amazing pre-K teachers and educational assistants, an incredibly valuable resource that’s advanced early literacy success is Waterford Early Learning, from the non-profit Waterford institute, founded decades ago. One of the underlying beliefs is that a targeted focus on early literacy acquisition sets students on a trajectory of sustained success.

The Waterford program uses uniquely engaging multi-media digital content - researched based — which is adaptive, addressing the individual needs of each student. It not only successfully engages the child, but the families as well (at-home activities), in targeting whatever the individual student needs.

These little ones do their Waterford sessions happily, on a laptop or a mobile device, ensuring mastery of foundational skills.

Since Waterford is customized to the individual needs of the student, it’s always at the ideal level. In fact, the students, unaware of the learning taking place; frequently ask “When do I get to play Waterford?” when awaiting their session turn.

More recently, Waterford has partnered with the New Mexico Public Education Department, making it available to preschoolers across the state, as many other states across the U.S. have done. Since CMS has been working with Waterford for a number of years now, we were invited to present at the recent state Kick-Off event in Santa Fe.

Pre-K Principal Corey Lucero, accompanied by assistant principal Melanie Stokes, traveled to Santa Fe to describe our success in using Waterford to visitors from school districts from around the state, along with state department officials.

Prior to the presentation in Santa Fe by Lucero, one of the deputy secretaries of education, Jennifer Duran-Sallee, had traveled to Clovis to observe our pre-K program in action. Dropping in on Jennifer Montoya’s pre-K classroom at Mesa Elementary the lively students were only too eager to share what they were learning.

What could be better than getting a solid early start?

Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy is the instructional technology coordinator for the Clovis Municipal Schools and can be reached at:

[email protected]