Skills Taught ‘SMART’ at Pre-K Center

Abraham Lincoln Pre-Kindergarten teachers have cooperatively developed a SMARTBoard program, allowing all Pre-K teachers to take full advantage of this relatively new interactive whiteboard technology. This is providing Deer Park’s youngest learners with an edge as they approach the critical years of their development.

Teacher Susan Ricciardelli employs SMARTBoard’s interactive features throughout the school day. Daily routines range from identifying the date, time, and seasonal weather characteristics using a calendar application, to working within the system’s language arts portal on developing literacy and phonics skills.

“I use SMARTBoard’s TeachSmart feature to enrich the teaching of letter recognition, formation and sound so that students can breakdown words and sentences and build upon basics,” said Ms. Ricciardelli, who worked with colleagues to develop fun and effective lessons that address differentiated levels of student progression, incorporating different system features and various computer applications,

Activities also teach youngsters rhyming and patterning. Students apply their knowledge of nursery rhymes and fables to identify key plot elements and coordinate sequential events.

Pre-Kindergarten teacher Bobbie Colby uses TeachSmart on the SMARTBoard to enhance mathematics skill development. A unique feature of the system allows students to vocally record and print problems they write on the board to solve math problems using a feature entitled “self-talk.” During these sessions, Ms. Colby records their work and plays it back for each student in order to reinforce previous activities. 

Lauren Oddo, a fellow pre-kindergarten teacher, utilizes TeachSmart to motivate pre-k students to effectively develop auditory, visual, and motor skills by integrating core subject areas with engaging “play” tasks. This has sparked student interest in a multitude of educational topics, while inspiring academic goal setting and increasing student success. The program helps teachers develop individual digital portfolios that track student growth and accomplishments and allows them to share this information with parents.