SPARK: Skills Promoted through Arts, Reading, and Knowledge (Directed Research Project)
Web Site: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/sped/spark
The purpose of SPARK is to address the needs of an increasingly culturally diverse population by providing teachers of young children with: (1) a story-based creative arts curriculum, derived from a variety of cultural and ethnic traditions; (2) a developmentally and individually appropriate curriculum process that can be applied in a variety of settings to meet the needs of children with diverse skill levels; (3) a system of inservice training and ongoing support to enhance the implementation of the model; and (4) materials and guidelines to enable families to support their child's classroom experiences. The project is evaluating program outcomes at the child, teacher, and administrative level as well as the range of adaptations made by teaching staff to aspects of the model. This information is being gathered through the use of weekly teacher logs, interviews, observation data, child progress data, and surveys.
