SPARK: Skills Promoted through Arts, Reading, and Knowledge. Demonstration Project. Final Report.

This final report discusses the activities and outcomes of the SPARK (Skills Promoted through Arts, Reading, and Knowledge) demonstration project, a project designed to provide inservice training and a preschool curriculum to enable professional early childhood staff to use literacy and the arts to promote the skill development of young children with widely diverse skills. The model was field tested with over 600 children by 57 educators in self-contained early childhood special education (ECSE) classes, inclusive ECSE classes, and Head Start classes. The model includes: (1) a culturally sensitive preschool curriculum based on children's literature that enables teachers to promote individual and general skills through the creative arts; (2) inservice training, which includes five workshops designed to train teaching staff to implement the curriculum and to prepare administrators to observe replication of the model for fidelity of implementation; and (3) family involvement, including home materials for both center-based programs and home-based programs. Findings from the demonstration project indicate that the inservice training component increases teachers' use of effective teaching practices, the curriculum activities are developmentally appropriate, and consumers (administrators, teachers, and parents) value the model. Appendices include curriculum materials and examples of project-developed forms. (Contains 33 references.) (CR)