ECAP - Early Concepts About Print (McRae Hall)

'Mothergoose' is a licensed Ontario College of Teacher with over 20 years in the largest school board in Canada.

Early in her career as an early literacy instructional leader, she began training teachers to deliver targeted literacy strategies to children who were 2 years behind in order to catch them up to their same-age peers in 4 months.

As part of her PhD, she worked on developing a literacy program for preschoolers and re-envisioned a way for the youngest children to read and write English print.

The 3 Pillars of ECAP

Qualified and Experienced Literacy Teachers

All ECAP teachers are licensed Ontario College of Teachers with over 5 years of specialized early literacy training and experience.

While many teachers have a vast range of experiences, ECAP teachers are selected because they have specialty background training and must already be equipped with a wealth of knowledge around early literacy pedagogy and practices.

ECAP teachers draw on careful observation and use their knowledge of a wide range of procedures. They are trained to gather data on the child's strengths and skills and then to design the next steps that are age and developmentally appropriate.

The ECAP teacher gives each child the support they need to jumpstart their journey to early progress in reading and writing.

Personalized Literacy Instruction

Children will engage in one-to-one and pair-share lessons to build on their:

Alphabetic knowledge
Number concepts
Word and story concepts

Throughout instruction, observations of literacy knowledge are collected. The purpose of collecting these observations is to design a series of lessons that will build on what the child already knows.

Specialized Texts and Materials

Children participate in a borrow-a-book program. These texts and materials are specially designed for early reading progress and cannot be purchased in bookstores. Children will have access to these books for home practice in their special book bags.