SPRAGUE EDUCATION
Consulting Services
Supporting High Quality, Inclusive, Educational Programs
To support schools, educators, and educational leaders in providing quality, equitable, and inclusive programming in the high-leverage yet complex arena of early childhood and primary education.
Mission:
Sprague Education envisions an early childhood educational landscape that provides high quality inclusive programming, ensuring positive outcomes for all students in the culturally and developmentally diverse populations we serve.
Vision:
Sprague Education provides professional development and coaching to educators at all levels of the system to develop and reform systems that support positive educational outcomes for all students in the preschool through primary grades. Our services incorporate a wide range of research-based practices, such as data-informed decision-making and developmentally appropriate teaching techniques that support schools as they design systems that best support a wide range of students at the beginnings of their educational journey.
What We Do:
Meet Sharon Sprague
Sharon Sprague is an educational leadership consultant, specializing in design and administration of early childhood and special education programming. In addition to her consulting work, she teaches in the Special Education Department at Northeastern Illinois University. Dr. Sprague has worked in the field of Education, Early Childhood Education, and Special Education as a classroom teacher and administrator for over 25 years, devoting much of her career to early childhood education in grades PreK-3rd. Prior to her current role, Dr. Sprague served as an administrator in Chicago Public Schools and most recently as the Director of Early Childhood programs for School District 65, at the Joseph E. Hill Early Education Center in Evanston, IL. She received her doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Master’s of Science in Early Childhood Education from The Erikson Institute.
Affiliations:
Star Net Region II (Support and Technical Assistance Regional Network)
Council for Exceptional Children, Division of Early Childhood
National Association for the Education of Young Children NAEYC
Illinois State Board of Education, Licensed Educator and Administrator
Professional Learning Offerings:
Professional development is one of the richest tools for providing ongoing continuous improvement in schools and to promote improved and equitable outcomes for our students. Our professional development offerings can be customized for your program and offered in-person or online.
Leveraging School-wide data to determine meaningful goals and professional learning cycles.
This 3 hour session will guide early childhood leadership teams through the process and practice of reviewing student data to identify areas of educational need within their student population, and how to utilize that data to inform the design of meaningful professional learning cycles for their educational staff that will support equitable outcomes for students. Participants will have the opportunity to review various data scenarios that include program demographics, as well as student data disaggregated across multiple demographic groups. Participants will develop a year-long professional learning cycle based on these data scenarios. As they return to their programs, participants will be able to apply these strategies to work with their leadership teams to develop meaningful professional learning cycles for their educational staff, cycles that will promote meaningful and equitable outcomes for the students in the programs they lead.
Differentiation of Instruction In the Inclusive Classroom.
Differentiation of instruction to meet the needs of all learners, including those with disabilities, is challenging for many educators and involves being intentional in the use of multiple practices to ensure our students can access learning experiences in the inclusive classroom. In this series, participants will explore different approaches to differentiating instruction for students with disabilities in the developmentally diverse classroom.
Book Studies Series:
These book studies offer opportunities for your early childhood staff to come together and do some in-depth learning about various topics that early childhood educators often face challenges in. Based on specific learning needs of your school and staff, choose from one of these topics that can be presented over the course of the school- year. The series can be offered in-person or online. The cost of the series includes one book for each participant and 4 1.5 hour sessions, times to be determined based on your professional development calendar.
Series 1 – Implementing and Sustaining Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs:
Anchor text: Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide to Change, for Change (Early Childhood Education Series), Second Edition, by Louise Derman-Sparks, Debbie LeeKeenan, et al. National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2017.
Through this study, we will explore the important and challenging intricacies of initiating and sustaining anti-bias education in programs for young children and their families, and will explore some related writings by racial-equity leaders such as Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings and Dr. Zaretta Hammond.
Series 2 – Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the Pre-K through 3rd Grade Classroom:
Anchor text: Universal Design for Learning in the Early Childhood Classroom: Teaching children of All Languages, Cultures and Abilities, Birth - 8 Years, Second Edition, by P. Brillante and K. Nameth, Routledge Publishing, 2022.
This study will guide participants to understand the principles of UDL, and how to intentionally design environments, instruction, and assessments in early childhood and primary grade classrooms to support all learners. We will explore what is needed to operationalize UDL at the school level in order to meet the needs of culturally and developmentally diverse students in inclusive classroom environments, leading to improved and more equitable outcomes for all students.
Series 3 – Opening the Doors to Higher Level Thinking in Early Learning:
Anchor text: Big Questions for Young Minds: Extending Children’s Thinking, J. Strasser and Mufson Bresson, National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2017.
In this book study we will go “meta" on the art of using questions of varying levels to engage students in learning, developing the students discourse skills, vocabulary, and higher order thinking skills. This book, using the Bloom's Taxonomy framework, helps teachers of students aged 3 - 6 develop questioning techniques to meet children at their own developmental levels and stretch their thinking to higher levels.
Series 4 – Authentic Approaches to Improving Math Instruction in Early Childhood Classrooms:
Anchor text: Big Ideas of Early Mathematics: What Teachers of Young Children Need to Know, by The Erikson Early Math Collaborative: J. Brownell, J. Chen, L. Genet, M. Hynes Berry, R. Itzkowich, D. Johnson, J. McCray, Pearson, 2014
Math is an often overlooked domain in the early childhood classroom, yet studies have shown that a child’s mathematical knowledge when they start kindergarten can predict later academic achievement better than early reading or attention skills. This book study will give educators a clear look at the foundational concepts and skills of early mathematics, giving concrete examples of how to implement them in their classrooms.
Contact us – we’d love to hear from you!
It all begins with a conversation. Please let me know how I can be helpful to you or your organization. I am happy to meet with you to discuss your ideas and challenges - just shoot me a note!