Will future be dim for Bright Beginnings in North Carolina?
A well known program that helps prepare disadvantaged four-year-olds for kindergarten may be hitting a roadblock, as educators in North Carolina debate continuing it. Known as Bright Beginnings, the Charlotte, North Carolina program has aimed to create an approach that is “child-centered, literacy-focused,” for young children, and it’s been used in five pre-k centers and [...]
The wired generation: how early it all begins…should it?
EarlyStories was struck by a comprehensive report in “Teaching Young Children” that offered tips and suggestions on how to introduce young children to computers. The story appeared in “Young Children and Computers: Storytelling and Learning in a Digital Age,”’ produced by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The tips were excellent, and [...]
What does a good early start look like?
It’s not easy to figure out what is really going on in a pre-school classroom. It might look like children are simply sitting on the floor, playing, cooking or running around in circles, the way toddlers will sometimes do. This may be one reason why so few journalists bother to venture into early childhood classrooms. [...]
In some states, quality issues step to head of the class
The recession is taking its toll and jeopardizing expansion of early childhood in some states, so it was interesting to read this week about effort to ramp up the quality of current programs. The issue of quality is a huge one for child care and early education programs. Professor Sharon Lynn Kagan of Teachers College [...]
In Baltimore, pre-k attendance means higher test scores later on
There may be disagreement about what students should learn and when, but superintendents across the U.S. generally hare a common goal of raising test scores — even if it means they don’t always agree on how to get there. So it was interesting to read what happened to test scores of first and second graders [...]
Ban pre-school graduation ceremonies? Or should we have a heart?
EarlyStories was at first amused, then appalled, and then maybe even convinced that pre-school graduations are a waste of time and money, after reading Valerie Strauss’s item in The Washington Post‘s Answer Sheet blog. Strauss donned a cynical cap and left her rose colored glasses off when she wrote “it’s time to call a halt [...]
Hard times in the U.S. are taking a toll on children
There are some frightening pitfalls ahead for children who are living through these tough economic times. More are living in poverty (more than 1 in 5) and have parents who are unemployed. And a recent report by The Foundation for Child Development predicts the number of children living in poverty will rise to 15.6 million [...]
Another early childhood blogger: Welcoming a new kid on the block
EarlyStories has often lamented the lack of media coverage devoted to early childhood education and pre-kindergarten, a decline that in some ways is linked to staff reductions at media outlets all over the U.S. Even before this trend was glaringly apparent, however, education reporters tended to focus on covering K-12 systems, leaving what happens before [...]
Just not giving up on public pre-kindergarten in South Dakota
EarlyStories has long been fascinated by the resistance to starting publicly funded pre-kindergarten in South Dakota, so it was heartening to read that supporters are still pushing hard for a pilot program in the prairie state, one of just 10 that have no state funded programs. Sioux Falls has had some success in starting a [...]
Tough times ahead for incoming kindergartners?
For the last few years, it looked as if children entering the Cincinnati public schools were coming to kindergarten more prepared then ever, in part due to expanded access to pre-school programs and more coordination between what they learned beforehand and the city’s K-12 curriculum. The recession and budget cuts, however, may be taking a [...]
