Create partnerships with early childhood educators
Collaboration is essential in order to ensure the positive, productive involvement of all IEP teams members. Early childhood educators and early childhood special educators must work together to create a personalized educational program for each child. Partnering together allows both teachers to contribute their vast personal and professional knowledge within the IEP process. Both share many roles in educating young children with disabilities: instructor, assessor, planner, trainer of support staff, parent educator, parent support, and coordinator of services. (Sandall et al., 2000) The early childhood educator has a deep understanding of the regular preschool curriculum and typical developmental progress. This teacher may also be best able to identify naturally occurring learning opportunities suitable for each child. The early childhood special educator brings to the partnership an extensive knowledge of atypical child progress and disability specific information. "Frequently the role of the special educator includes training of early childhood educators, care givers, and parents to modify the existing curriculum or environment in the classroom to allow for positive participation in daily activities." (CDE) As the early childhood educator and early childhood special education teacher partner together, both must establish and maintain relationships with the family to ensure that they, too, may be part of this successful collaboration.
Nancy Grant, Santa Barbara County Office of Education
Creating and maintaining good ongoing relationships with community preschools is key to developing placement options for children with special needs as well as involving typical preschool teachers in IEP development. Where there is a collaboration of Head Start, State Preschool, and community preschools, more teachers with a regular preschool education background are available.Next: Share information with early childhood educators »
