Topic: School Readiness, Emotional Competency, Social Competency
Target Population: Early Childhood, Infant/Toddlers
Sector: Community-Based
Military Sector: All Branches
This program is for children who are birth to 5 years old.
The Early Learning Matters (ELM) curriculum is designed to promote holistic child development, including physical and cognitive development, communication and language/literacy skills, self and cultural understanding, social and emotional learning, and self-regulation.
No peer-reviewed publications evaluating the effectiveness of this program were located.
There are two ELM curricula based on two different age groups: infant/toddler (birth to 3 years old) and preschool (3 to 5 years old). The infant/toddler curriculum is further separated into three age groupings: 10 to 12 months, 12 to 24 months, and 24 to 36 months. This curriculum contains lessons on communication and language, cognitive development, self-regulation, social-emotional development, and physical health development. The preschool curriculum contains lessons on language and literacy, mathematics, self-regulation, social-emotional development, social studies, creative expression, science, and physical/health development. Key components of both of the curricula include the following:
Lessons are intended to be sequential and build upon one another. If a child appears to need more practice with any particular topic, the curriculum provides guidance on how to support that child and his or her needs.
The ELM curriculum was developed by Purdue University for the U.S. Department of Defense Child Development Program and civilian early care and education programs.
This program is implemented by teachers and staff in child care centers. Facilitators are encouraged to become familiar with the User Guides. In addition, six online training lessons are available. Three of these lessons are for training curriculum specialists and managers, and three lessons are intended for direct care staff. User Guides and training lessons are available at https://www.virtuallabschool.org/elm-curriculum
Considerations for implementing this program include acquiring buy-in from teachers and staff in child care centers, ensuring they have time to familiarize themselves with the User Guides, and confirming they have access to a computer with internet access so they can complete the online training lessons.
The Clearinghouse can help address these considerations. Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email clearinghouse@psu.edu
If you are interested in implementing ELM, the Clearinghouse is interested in helping you! Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email clearinghouse@psu.edu
In the infant/toddler curriculum, there are 26 blocks, and each block is implemented in approximately 2 weeks. The preschool curriculum lasts 50 weeks, and each plan is implemented over 1 week.
The curriculum is available at no cost at https://www.virtuallabschool.org/elm-curriculum
To move ELM to the Promising category on the Clearinghouse Continuum of Evidence, at least one evaluation should be performed demonstrating positive effects lasting at least one year from the beginning of the program or at least six months from program completion.
The Clearinghouse can help you develop an evaluation plan to ensure the program components are meeting your goals. Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email clearinghouse@psu.edu
Contact the Clearinghouse with any questions regarding this program. Phone: 1-877-382-9185 Email: clearinghouse@psu.edu
You may also contact Virtual Lab School by email inquiries@virtuallabschool.org or visit https://www.virtuallabschool.org/elm-curriculum
