ABC and Beyond™ Workshop for Hanen Certified Speech-Language Pathologists and Early Childhood Education Consultants/Trainers

If you’re a speech-language pathologist or early childhood education consultant/trainer, and you’re concerned with promoting emergent literacy in early childhood settings, the ABC and Beyond™ Workshop is just for you.

ABC and Beyond is an Advanced Hanen Workshop for SLPs and early childhood education consultants/trainers who have already been introduced to the Hanen philosophy in a previous Hanen workshop. The ABC and Beyond workshop certifies you to lead ABC and Beyond™ – The Hanen Program® for Building Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood Settings. Bringing to life the most current research on the development of emergent literacy, the ABC and Beyond Program teaches early childhood educators practical strategies that can be easily integrated into daily, naturalistic interactions with preschoolers (aged 3-5 years) to promote the following six building block of emergent literacy:

The 2-day ABC and Beyond workshop includes:

Upon completion of the ABC and Beyond workshop, you’ll be able to:

►Teach an evidence-based program to early childhood educators

“Translated” from the most current research in early childhood literacy, ABC and Beyond strategies promote the emergent literacy skills that are considered fundamental for learning to read and write successfully.

Pilot programs of ABC and Beyond have proven the effectiveness of the program strategies, showing that the more educators used abstract or decontextualized language, letter names and references to sounds in words, the more the children did the same. This demonstrates that changes in educators’ literacy practices impacts on children gaining the new and important literacy skills they’ll need to be prepared for success in school.

To view a detailed research summary of the ABC and Beyond Program, click here.

To learn more about how the ABC and Beyond Program helps educators, click here.

At the end of the workshop, you’ll leave with all the resources you need to get your first ABC and Beyond Program going, including:

1. The ABC and Beyond™ Making Hanen Happen Leaders Guide 

This is a detailed guide to how to provide the ABC and Beyond Program and includes group session outlines as well as program handouts.

2. The ABC and Beyond™ Program Slides DVD with embedded video clips

This DVD contains the Power Point slides for the group sessions and embedded video clips showing real-life examples of educators using ABC and Beyond strategies in early childhood settings.

3.  ABC and Beyond™: Building Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood Settings (Weitzman and Greenberg, 2010)

This practical guidebook for educators outlines all the ABC and Beyond strategies with clear examples and helpful checklists to support educators in their correct implementation strategies in their classrooms.

Click here to learn more about the ABC and Beyond guidebook, and how you can use it outside of a Hanen Program® to promote early literacy in early childhood settings.

►Offer the program in a variety of flexible delivery models 

Once trained in ABC and Beyond, you will have the option of choosing from a number of delivery models to select the one that best meets the needs of your organization.

If you are unable to deliver the full program due to time or funding constraints or limited participant commitment, it is possible to provide a partial program of selected session topics. A partial program may also be appropriate if your potential participants have already had extensive training on some of the ABC and Beyond topics.

►Enhance individual consultations with practical, research-based resources

The ABC and Beyond workshop provides you with concrete, easy-to-apply and easy-to-remember strategies, as well as valuable resources, for working one-on-one with educators to help them promote emergent literacy in the classroom. 

►Improve collaboration with educators

Once early childhood educators complete the ABC and Beyond Program, you will likely find that your ongoing consultations with them about literacy become easier. You’ll have a shared understanding of the strategies and why they’re effective, and you’ll be talking about the children with the same “language”. 

►Effect lasting systemic change

The ABC and Beyond Program is based on the core principles of adult education, recognizing that adults learn best when they are actively engaged in their own learning through discussion, participation in hands-on activities and opportunities for self-reflection and personal goal setting.

These principles of adult education are reflected both in the design of the group sessions as well as in the individual videotaping and feedback sessions. The ABC and Beyond Program focuses on how to most effectively support participants to change how they promote emergent literacy in their classrooms and how to maintain these changes once the program is over.

►Obtain ongoing support

As a Hanen member certified in ABC and Beyond, you’ll receive frequent updates on further developments in the ABC and Beyond Program, as well as the latest news and research in emergent literacy development. The ABC and Beyond Program Director and the Hanen Team are also always happy to support you in any way we can.

Taking the ABC and Beyond™ Advanced Workshop

The ABC and Beyond workshop is open to:

• Speech-language pathologists who have taken either the It Takes Two to Talk® Certification Workshop or the Learning Language and Loving It™ Certification Workshop, and who have current Hanen membership; and
  
• Early childhood education consultants/trainers who have taken the Learning Language and Loving It™ Certification Workshop, and who have current Hanen membership.

If you are already a Hanen member and you would like to find an ABC and Beyond workshop near you, click here.

If you are not a Hanen member and would like to find out more about Hanen membership, click here.

To view the ABC and Beyond Workshop Fact Sheet, click here.