Emergent literacy skills are essential for children to develop into proficient readers in the future. Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten program (VPK) helps your child gain critical skills in emergent literacy for kindergarten readiness.
VPK uses the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) Star Early Literacy to monitor the progress of VPK students. FAST is a quick way to see what early literacy skills your child has already obtained and what they are ready to learn next.
Your child will take part in progress monitoring at least three times over the course of the school year. VPK instructors will use information from progress monitoring to customize instruction based on your child’s needs.
What can you do as parents to help your child? Here are three simple steps:
- Encourage your child to do their best. Before progress monitoring, tell your child you are excited for them to “show what they know”!
- Obtain your child’s results from the VPK program. VPK programs must share progress monitoring results with parents within seven calendar days of the administration. Review the results with your child’s VPK instructor and ask how you can help at home.
- Support your child’s learning at home. Check out our online resources for ideas and activities to use with the VPK teacher’s suggestions. The developmental standards have examples of how you may support your child – just click the information icon to view these suggestions.
For more information about FAST Star Early Literacy, visit the Division of Early Learning’s website or email us at [email protected].
