Educators, Directors, Owners
Age focus: 2 years to 5 years
Monica has spent 15+ years in early education — long enough to know what's broken, and committed to building something better. She founded The Neuro Nook to create learning experiences that treat early educators as the experts they are.
You've heard about the 30-million-word gap. Newer research moved the target: it's not the words children hear — it's the back-and-forth. Researchers call them conversational turns, and the benchmark is about 40 an hour. Even at half that pace, a child in your care passes thirty thousand turns a year with you. Right now, in center-based care, only 7 in 100 children hit that benchmark. Not because teachers care less — because rooms are busy and nobody's counting.
This course is about those turns. Seven short lessons on the moment between you and a child: what separates a quick reaction from a quality response, and the three moves that raise the bar — keeping an exchange alive past turn two, feedback that builds instead of ends, and questions that stretch thinking. Then: making the moves work for every child, what to do when they aren't enough, and a plan you'll run for three days. Nothing here adds minutes to your day. You already have more exchanges than you can count — this course is about getting more from each one.
Complete all seven lessons, including required audio on the opening and resolution screens of each lesson.
Required interactive activities and videos.
Complete required reflection activities.
Complete the post-assessment with a score of 80% or higher; 3 attempts permitted.
Submit a completed Capstone assignment.
