Building Bridges Through Words

What's In This Kit?
This training kit helps teachers understand the power that their words have on all domains of children’s development. By reading this article and engaging in the experiences, teachers will become more intentional in using language to support children’s social-emotional, cognitive, and physical growth, as well as to develop relationships with children and families in the early childhood classroom.

This training program contains the following components:

• Expected training outcomes and learning objectives
• Training research, models, benchmarks
• Preparation and implementation steps
• Handouts
• The article “Building Bridges through Words” by Laura Mickley
• References and resources
• Training Certificate for Learner �" Certificate of Attendance and Participation

Who's the Target Audience?
The target audience for this kit is beginning teachers working with young children from birth to age 8. Teachers will learn about making effective classroom rules.

Teacher Skill Level

beginning intermediate advanced

Children's Age Level

infants toddlers preschoolers school-agers birth to 8

Kit Timeline:
Preparation time for this kit is estimated at 1.0 hour. Implementation and actual training time is
3.0 hours, which includes 1.5 hours of face-to-face training and 1.5 hours of independent study
and an applied activity project. There is a bonus activity in the Group Instruction face-to-face
training which can add as much as 1 hour to the training time.

Training Outcomes:

By the end of this training, Learners will be able to:

• Describe how words can support children in various developmental domains.
• Reflect on and become more intentional in how they use language in interactions with children.
• Use alternatives to general phrases such as “good job” or “nice” in responding to children to support their development.

These training outcomes address the following:

• Teachers work in partnership with families, establishing and maintaining regular, ongoing, two-way
  communication. (1.A.01)
• Teaching staff foster children’s emotional well-being by demonstrating respect for children and
  creating a positive emotional climate as reflected in behaviors such as frequent social
  conversations, joint laughter, and affection. (1.B.01)
• Teaching staff evaluate and change their responses based on individual needs. Teaching staff
  vary their interactions to be sensitive and responsive to differing abilities, temperaments, activity
  levels, cognitive and social development. (1.B.07)

Note: Downloadable PDFs are only available for download in pdf format. Directions for downloading follow immediately after purchase.