Vermont FEL Training

A bunch of educators from our team just completed the Foundations for Early Learning (FEL) train the trainers this week. We are now ready to bring the research-based strategies from the Center for Early Literacy Learning (CELL) and the Center for Social Emotional Foundations of Early Learning (CSEFEL) back to our parents, classrooms, partner sites, and early intervention programs.

CELL will help us teach people who interact with young children as caregivers, teachers, and parents how to build literacy rich environments and play with infants, toddlers, and young children in a way that supports early language and literacy development. These strategies are both in the form of formal teaching and informal, routines-based ideas. The principles of CELL can be used in classrooms, home childcares, and by parents. The website looks at the entire continuum of language and literacy development and shows how it can be supported in practice guides for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

CSEFEL will help us give strategies to providers, parents, and teachers to promote social competence in young children. The emphasis is on how adults interact with children, rather than "fixing the child," and understanding that behavior is communication. It is based on a pyramid model. The base of the pyramid is about supportive relationships and environments. This is the prerequisite for the next step. The next tier is about systematic and intentional teaching strategies to support social-emotional growth in children. It emphasizes how to teach social skills in order to help children manage their own behavior.

We are excited to be working with the whole of the Franklin County/Grand Isle Region to come up with a plan to train as many early care providers and parents of young children in these wonderful research based models for supporting children's language, literacy, and social emotional development.