However, the wages of early childhood professionals don't support or reward high levels of academic training. We need to change public policy. We need to reward academic achievement for early childhood professionals. A method that hasn't been focused on that is important is training early childhood supervisors and coordinators to train their staff and support them in promoting literacy. The curriculum for teachers needs to be integrated, uniform and not dichotomized.
Higher education needs to give teachers a strong knowledge base, so teachers know all the pieces.
Not all pieces of instruction need to be given to all children, but teachers need to know them to make informed decisions on what methods to use. I want to see professional development seminars at conferences like the IRA conference for teachers to discuss this issue. They learn by hearing. If you talk to, talk with children twice as much they'll learn twice as many words. Have interesting conversations with lots of words.