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Yearning to Learn

So the reporter buys the hoopla hook, line, and sinker, not asking anybody what is developmentally appropriate.

By Sandra Barbier

At 5 years old, Laurielle Wilright not only knows the alphabet, but she also knows which letters are consonants and which are vowels.

Some letters are vowels "because they have many sounds," Laurielle said Thursday during a Louisiana Day celebration at the St. Charles Parish public school system's East Bank Head Start Center in Destrehan.

"She shocks me," said Laurielle's mother, Charmaine Smith. "If you give her something, she knows how to read it out to you."

No longer is prekindergarten just a place for 4- and 5-year-olds to play, or a baby-sitting service for busy parents.

The Week of the Young Child, celebrated this week at the East Bank Center, helped raise awareness of the purposes of early childhood education.

"This point in their life is the most important time," teacher Karen Hebert said. "Their brains are absorbing much more than at any other time in their life."

In St. Charles, instructional programs at the two Head Start Centers and in the prekindergarten classes at the district's six elementary schools all follow the state Department of Education's guidelines, St. Charles Head Start Director Mildred Butler said.

The guidelines detail what children should know at each grade level, or the grade level expectations.

"Louisiana is at the forefront of early childhood education," Butler said.

A cornerstone of the St. Charles program is the Zoo-phonics language program. Children learn the alphabet and fundamentals of reading by associating letters with pictures of animals, sounds, music and movement, "all their senses," Hebert said.

Kindergarten, prekindergarten and special education teachers across the district are trained in the language program, and now Butler is working with St. Charles United Way on a campaign to get all day-care centers in the parish to use the program, too.

"Our time line is within the next 24 months," she said.

On Thursday, students from neighboring Harry Hurst Middle School's Wetland Watchers group showed off rabbits, box turtles, a baby alligator and other animals, and helped prekindergarten students and their parents make crafts from pipe cleaners, finger-paint and race crawfish in a kiddie pool.

Students also learn science, math, health and social skills through developmentally appropriate lessons, Hebert said.

"If they are ready for it, they will get it," she said, but even those who aren't ready benefit from the experience.

Most of the students are from families with low incomes, but federal guidelines support keeping classes filled, and up to 35 percent of students enrolled can be from higher income families, Butler said.

Research has shown early childhood education works, but St. Charles teachers know it from experience, too, Butler said.

"I used to go to schools and there used to be complaints, that children didn't know this or that. Now, when I talk to kindergarten teachers, they tell you, 'They are ready.' " she said.

— Sandra Barbier
Times-Picayune
2008-05-10
http://www.nola.com/education/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-4/12103968576970.xml&coll=1

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