HEAR in NH - Kindergarten

Kindergarten

Kindergarten Program: HEAR in New Hampshire’s Kindergarten program services children from 5 to 7 years of age, Monday through Friday from 8:30 - 11:30 AM. Small group activities and independent work are emphasized in preparation for participation in community settings. The classroom staff consists of a Teacher of the Deaf (Auditory/Oral), a Speech Language Pathologist and a General Educator. The children receive daily speech, language and listening therapy (individual and small group) both in the classroom and in a quiet setting.

All of the children in the Kindergarten Program attend HEAR in NH in the morning and a mainstream kindergarten classroom in their local communities in the afternoon. This provides the children with age appropriate social and language role models to further encourage and expand their emerging spoken language skills. Once a week, staff from HEAR in NH visit these afternoon kindergarten programs to provide information and support to the classroom teacher and help the child make a successful transition to the mainstream setting.

Curriculum: Our Kindergarten program uses a theme-based curriculum with strong emphasis on listening and talking embedded into every activity. Children use their hearing aids, personal FM systems or cochlear implant speech processors to access auditory information and develop spoken language skills. The concepts, vocabulary and routines provided in the Kindergarten program help prepare the children for immersion into mainstream classrooms. Field trips are an integral part of our curriculum. These opportunities allow our students to use the listening and speaking skills they learn in the classroom in the larger world in which they live.