Podcast: How AppleTree – an i3 Grant Winner – Assesses Preschoolers’ Needs

This summer, we wrote about the AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation as one of 49 grantees of the U.S. Department of Education’s i3 program—and as one of 13 grantees that included early learning as a priority in their project proposal.

The AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School (supported by the Institute) is a public charter school open to 3 and 4 year olds in the District of Columbia. The school employs a research-based instructional program (Every Child Ready) that is designed to support the development of young children’s language, literacy, and behavioral skills as well as their understanding of the world around them. There are three-person instructional teams in each classroom: a lead teacher and teaching fellow, both of whom have four-year degrees, and a teaching assistant. Currently there are four AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter Preschools in Washington, D.C.

AppleTree uses assessments of children’s progress — which are game-based, one-on-one moments with adults — to inform teachers about children’s progress in various school-readiness measures.  The results help the school implement Response to Intervention (RTI), an instructional program we wrote about recently that helps the school better assist children who do not make expected progress. Using its i3 grant funds, the Institute plans to expand its model for how to use assessment and data in preschool settings to other D.C. partner preschools.

For this podcast, we spoke with Lydia Carlis, Early Literacy Project Director, and Mary Anne Lesiak, Director of Education, from the AppleTree Institute. They explain how baseline and progress monitoring assessments, data and the RTI model play a significant role at AppleTree preschools.

Early Ed Watch podcast – November 16, 2010

With our guest Lydia Carlis, Early Literacy Project Director, and Mary Anne Lesiak, Director of Education, from the AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation

Interviewed by Laura Bornfreund for the Early Education Initiative at New America