IRIS MEDIA INC — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of the proposed project, Teacher Educatio

Description

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of the proposed project, Teacher Education: Promoting Reading Readiness (TEPRR) is to give Head Start (HS) teachers access to evidence-based instructional approaches for teaching basic language and literacyskills through high quality, easily accessible, and innovative online multimedia professional development. HS focuses on serving children from low-income, at-risk families, who are less likely to have access to high quality early education, and are less likely to enter school prepared for school success. Head Start programs are experiencing a rapid increase in fixed costs and many centers have been forced to lay off staff and consolidate programs to save costs. Developing cost effective, accessible training for HS teachers is needed because programs have increasingly limited resources for training and coaching teachers, and traditional forms of professional development have had limited to mixed success in improving child language and literacy outcomes.