Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Program tailored to individuals

Earlier this year we described moving our preK program back out to our elementary school sites for several reasons — one of which was to make it more convenient for parents with older children at the same school.

In addition to this and other changes made to enhance early learning, we’ve also been piloting a program at four of our school sites to support literacy acquisition.

Waterford Early Learning is from the Waterford Institute, a non-profit research center, specializing in early childhood. Founded in 1976, the founder believed incorporating technology into early learning could “help promote the academic success of every child.”

Gathering in-depth research during the intervening years has enable the Waterford folks to refine their digital learning systems.

The program we’re using is SmartStart, which provides a rich, multimedia learning environment with over 7000 activities, songs, and books. It works on computers or digital tablets and is very engaging for these young ones, providing the groundwork for mastery of foundational skills.

While sessions for each student are brief, the program is tailored to the individual child’s learning pace, and they love it when they get to “play” Waterford.

The reading component covers all the essentials: phonics, phonological awareness, comprehension and vocabulary, language concepts, writing, and fluency. It’s easy to incorporate the 12-minute sessions into the classroom, and the students cycle through during the day, when they see their name and their picture or icon appear.

The program allows students to work independently, although there’s always a teacher or educational assistant nearby, should students need help.

Recently visiting our piloting preK classrooms at Parkview, Highland, Lockwood, and Cameo was an unexpected delight. If you haven’t been around young students in a while, you’re missing a treat. They are so eager to share anything and everything and make you feel like a rock star … well … mostly.

At one site, curious as to the ease with which the program was working, I asked a young student if he could show me how Waterford worked. The youngster looked up at me in surprise and said, “You don’t know how it works?” to which I replied, “Well, I was hoping you could show me.”

After looking me over, the student turned to their teacher and said, “She’s nice, but she’s not very smart, is she?”

This 4-year old looked surprised as I doubled over laughing, while the teacher caught her breath in surprise; nothing like the refreshing honesty of little ones.

Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy is the instructional technology coordinator for the Clovis Municipal Schools. She can be reached at

[email protected]