Tools and How-to Guides

• Achieving School Readiness: A Guide for School Communities
  This manual guides local schools on "how to" design an Achieving School Readiness program. The importance of working with a young child's first three teachers is outlined and specific strategies and tips are provided.

• Communicating with Parents and Caregivers
  Find out how to begin the dialogue between elementary school staff, early care and educational professionals, and other community resources.

• Creating an Achieving School Readiness Advisory Council
  This guide provides the ins-and-outs of creating an Advisory Council.

• Developing Siblings Lists
  Increase your ability to conduct community outreach with parents of children birth to age 5 by creating sibling lists.

• Effective Transition Policies
  Examples of effective practices that promote smooth transitions for young children between home, early care environments, and public schools.

• School Readiness in Your Community: A Community Guide for Strategic Planning
  A helpful guide or famework for jurisdictional strategic planning efforts on school readiness. The model highlighted is a combination of the Smart Start model (North Carolina's early childhood initiative, the Maryland State Department of Education's model for school improvement, and Results Based Accountability Standards.

• What Works? Promising Practices for Improving the School Readiness of English Language Learners
  A compendium of promising practices and successful strategies from across the nation for improving the school readiness of children whose native language is not English.