Infant and Toddler Seminar

In a partnership with Wheelock College professor Bobbi Rosenquest, Ready to Learn Providence offered teachers from six Providence child-care centers a series of literacy seminars that focused on children from infancy to 36 months of age.

Seminar participants developed innovative ways to create curriculum that uses children’s literature to nourish language development and which introduces the concept of the printed word to toddlers just learning to talk.

A total of forty teachers participated in the seminars. Twenty teachers met once a month from January to June 2004 at the Genesis Center and another twenty teachers met at R2LP between January and June 2005.  Rosenquest, who donated her time, conducted the seminars while R2LP supplied books, stipends and other resources.

The teachers worked together on the implementation of literacy and language activities suggested in the seminars and then reported back on their experiences in the next session. Rosenquest is using this feedback and other insight gained from the seminars to develop a curriculum guide for infant and toddler teachers across the country.