TEXAS COMPREHENSIVE CENTER

Stepping Stones: A Texas Migrant Early Childhood Program for 3- and 4-Year-Olds was developed in partnership with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and is available for free to all migrant programs throughout the state to support migrant children and their families.

TEA requested assistance from the Texas Comprehensive Center (TXCC) in developing this program, which is an effort to update their existing home-based migrant preschool program and to ensure its alignment with the state's Revised Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines.

The TXCC staff worked closely with TEA staff in both the federal programs and curriculum divisions to organize and facilitate the program development process. Additionally, TXCC staff convened university faculty, education service center staff, representatives from the national Comprehensive Center on Instruction, and practitioners from across the state in the development process.

This home-based program consists of 100 lessons that are aligned to the Revised Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines; they are available in both English and Spanish. The lessons are bundled into sets of ten lessons around early learning themes or units.

The lessons heavily emphasize language and literacy development and follow a “gradual release of responsibility” model that empowers parents to be successful teachers of their children, with guidance from a home visitor.

Along with the lessons, a manual is available to guide home educators and migrant program coordinators in effective implementation of the program.

Directions for downloading

Lessons can be downloaded and printed to use with families in their homes. Simply click on the tab for the English or the Spanish lessons, then click the unit name to download a zipped file containing all of that unit's lessons. Once you open the file on your computer, you can print the lessons you need. The manual can be downloaded and printed in the same manner and placed in a binder for easy access.