Coordination of Early Learning

This week we’ll finish up our discussion of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s report “The First Eight Years: Giving Kids a Foundation for Lifetime Success” and the low academic scores of American third-graders.  The Foundation’s first two recommendation to improve outcomes for our children are to “support parents as they care for their children” and to “improve access to quality early care and education, health care and other services.”  Their third and final recommendation is to “ensure that care is comprehensive and coordinated for all children from birth through age 8.”

As individual child care providers, most of us cannot set up state-wide systems to ensure seamless care for children from birth to 8.  But we can work within our own communities to try to improve communication.  Perhaps we can partner with our school district so that our staff can attend some of the same trainings that local Kindergarten teachers attend.  We can also make sure that parents of children in our care are aware of the various community resources available; health care services, parent education programs or opportunities, financial resources, and resources for children with special needs.  This information can be provided one-on-one, included in newsletters, or posted on bulletin boards.  

One great way to ensure continuity of care is to work with local Kindergarten teachers to ensure that, ideally, your goals for a child entering their program from your program are similar.  (Hopefully, the teachers’ expectations are developmentally appropriate.)  Similarly, if you have signed parental permission, you can share the latest developmental checklist you’ve completed for a child with the teacher.  In addition to providing benefit to both the child and the teacher who will teach that child in Kindergarten, you can also benefit your own program.  A good relationship with local teachers can lead to more referrals to your program.   Win-win!

Misty

Access to High-Quality Early Care

We’ve been talking about the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s report “The First Eight Years: Giving Kids a Foundation for Lifetime Success” and the low academic scores of American third-graders.  The Foundation’s first recommendation to improve outcomes for our children is to “Support parents as they care for their children”.  This week, we will talk about the second recommendation, “Improve access to quality early care and education, health care and other services.”

Most child care providers don’t have the resources available to increase access to early care and education, but we can make sure that our programs are of excellent quality.  The benefits that children receive from attending high-quality programs is well documented and the return on investment is generally acknowledged to be about $7 for each $1 invested.  The problem is that, according to one well-regarded study, less than 10% of early childhood programs are of very high quality.  We can’t control a family’s financial situation or their ability to gain subsidized care, but we can control the quality of our program. 

Part of operating a high-quality program is providing a developmentally-appropriate education.  This means that the classroom teachers need to know the developmental level of each child; their strengths and challenges.  Regular developmental screenings can help make sure your program is meeting each child’s needs and that each child is developing appropriately.  In the case of a child with some delays, our early identification can help the parent get appropriate early interventions for their child.  

Our high-quality programs also provide nutritious meals and snacks for children.  Along with feeding children well when they are in our care, we model healthy eating and help teach parents about nutrition.  Again, we can’t provide comprehensive health care for the children in our program, but we can provide their parents information about community resources.  If you don’t already provide hearing and vision screenings in your program, perhaps a local professional would be willing to provide free screenings.  

Next week we’ll talk about the recommendation to “Ensure that care is comprehensive and coordinated for all children from birth through age 8.”

Misty

Supporting Parents

Last week we talked about the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s report “The First Eight Years: Giving Kids a Foundation for Lifetime Success” and the low academic scores of American third-graders.  Low income students are particularly at risk for poor outcomes.  The Foundation provides three specific recommendations to improve outcomes for our children.  The first recommendation is to “support parents as they care for their children”.

As early educators, one component of our work is parent education.  We help parents understand things like health and safety, appropriate developmental expectations, learning activities, positive guidance, and nutrition.  We encourage them to read to their children regularly and to provide their children with abundant opportunities for creative play.  

Caring for children from low-income families may present an extra challenge.  Struggling to make ends meet financially can make parenting much more difficult.  If a person’s basic needs aren’t being met, the “bonus” stuff can kind of go by the wayside.  Our challenge as educators is to try to provide as much support to the parent and child as we can, but also to be aware of community resources available to families.  We can’t provide healthcare, housing, a job (usually) or food to our clients, but we can help them find those resources.  

Within our program, we can recognize how some income-related challenges will appear in a learning situation.  Many children from low-income families are significantly behind their peers in language and pre-reading skills, especially vocabulary development.  Providing these children with more opportunities to learn basic skills and develop their vocabularies can help erase these deficits.  

Next week we’ll talk about the recommendation to “improve access to quality early care and education, health care and other services”.

Misty

Joshua

Twenty-six years later, I am still haunted by Joshua.  Joshua was in my colleague’s class during my first year of teaching Kindergarten.  Joshua came to class one day with a huge gash across the palm of his hand.  When his teacher asked him what had happened, he explained that his mother wasn’t well that morning (turns out she was drunk), so it was up to him to fix breakfast for his little sister.  All he could find in the kitchen was a can of SpaghettiOs.  But he couldn’t find a can opener, so he opened the can with a butcher knife.  I’m sure you can guess what caused the damage to Joshua’s hand.  He was a smart boy with an engaging smile, but was frequently in trouble in class.  I can only imagine that, unless he had some sort of serious intervention, his life has been pretty challenging.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently published a new policy report that looks at how a child’s long-term outcomes are related to the first eight years of his or her life (“The First Eight Years: Giving Kids a Foundation for Lifetime Success”).  An earlier report from the same foundation revealed that children who are proficient readers by the end of 3rd grade are much more likely than their non-proficient counterparts to graduate from high school and have successful careers.  Incredibly, although the new study found that 74% of 3rd grade students are actively engaged in school, only 36% scored at or above average in math, reading and science.  For low income students, the results are even worse with only 19% possessing average academic skills.  

Fortunately, the Foundation also developed specific recommendations for helping to improve these outcomes. 

1. “Support parents as they care for their children.
2. Improve access to quality early care and education, health care and other services.
3. Ensure that care is comprehensive and coordinated for all children from birth through age 8.”

Obviously, as individual early educators we can’t provide all of this for every child, but we can certainly be a starting point for many children.  Over the next couple of weeks, we will talk in more depth about each of these areas.

Misty