Illinois Early Learning Project

In this podcast, we interview Dr. Sarai Coba-Rodriguez from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In her research, she uses a family resilience perspective to learn about school readiness and family involvement among low-income Latino and African American families, including their beliefs and practices that promote young children’s successful transition to kindergarten. She joins us to share stories and insights from her research.

In this interview, we speak with Elise Proser, a speech language pathologist from the Urbana Early Childhood School in Urbana, IL. Ms. Proser received her bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing science and master’s degree in speech language pathology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has been working in the schools as a speech language pathologist for five years. She joins us to talk about supporting the language and literacy development of preschoolers and how IEPs (Individual Education Plans) are formed in early childhood programs. She also shares a bit about her journey to becoming a speech language pathologist and how students who are interested in speech pathology might explore this career.

In this podcast, we are joined by Ms. Crystal Vowels. Ms. Vowels is an experience leader in special education and principal of the Urbana Early Childhood School (UECS) in Urbana, IL. UECS recently received an award of excellence for their inclusion practices from Excelerate Illinois, the Quality Rating and Improvement Program for Early Care and Education for the state of Illinois. Ms. Vowels shares insights about how inclusive early childhood programs meet the needs of diverse young children with and without disabilities.

This podcast, based on a blog written by Dr. Rebecca Swartz, provides ideas for helping young children use mathematical thinking in everyday routines. She also highlights the Illinois Early Learning Project graphic tip sheets that contain more ideas that can help caregivers encourage children to use mathematical thinking:

https://illinoisearlylearning.org/tipsheets/counting/

https://illinoisearlylearning.org/tipsheets/shapes/

https://illinoisearlylearning.org/tipsheets/makingsense/

https://illinoisearlylearning.org/tipsheets/sort/

This podcast is an interview with Dr. Kathleen Gallagher. This interview was recorded during her visit to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Campus for the Child Development Laboratory's 75th anniversary lecture in November 2017. In this interview, she discusses her own story of becoming an early childhood educator and shares her perspectives on how high-quality early childhood education can transform the lives of young children.

This podcast, based on a blog written by Dr. Rebecca Swartz, provides information about how adults can help young children develop persistence to try and try again when then encounter everyday challenges.

This podcast contains an interview with Dr. Michaelene (Micki) Ostrosky about supporting young children's friendships. Dr. Ostrosky is the head of the Department of Special Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This podcast provides information about how young children learn to manage their feelings and gives strategies adults can use to help them learn to express their feelings appropriately.