Early to school makes Missouri kids brighter

Caleb Sykes and Zach Watkins spent 30 minutes Wednesday sanding blocks of wood and gluing them together in their preschool class at the Early Education Center in Oak Ridge, Mo.

"I don't need my gloves to sand," Caleb said. "If I get a splinter, I'll just take it out."

When they were done gluing, the two 5-year-olds stood back, took off their plastic protective goggles and aprons and reached for the markers to write their names on the blocks.

Many kindergartners must learn to hold a pencil correctly, but the children in Caleb and Zach's preschool class already do much more.

The children can count to 10 in three languages, recognize the primary and secondary colors and read all of their classmates' names.

A recent report by Education Week, one of the nation's leading journals on elementary and secondary education, said Missouri is at the forefront of early childhood education because of its preschool program and other early education initiatives.

"Missouri has long been on the cutting edge in early childhood education, having made the issue a priority over the past three decades," the Quality Counts 2002 report states.

The report focuses on the importance of such learning, saying children in well-run programs are less likely to drop out of school, repeat grades, need special education or get into teen-age troubles with the law than other children.

Ruth Flynn, director of early education for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the state continually looks for ways to reach more pre-kindergarten children.

During the past several decades, DESE has been responsible for initiating three programs that have changed the face of early childhood education in the state: Parents as Teachers, the Missouri Preschool Project and full-day kindergarten.

In 1981, DESE launched a pilot program for 380 families in Missouri called New Parents as Teachers. It provided parents with support and information about their developing children. The program was expanded statewide four years later.

Sue Sheehan, training director for PAT's national office in St. Louis, said the program is now mandated in every school district in the state and used in over 2,800 cities around the world.

"The eyes of the world recognize Missouri for its early childhood education contributions," Sheehan said. "We're continuing to develop new standards for literacy, and we're really beefing up the quality of early education."

Carolyn Beasley has been working with PAT in Jackson, Mo., since it started 17 years ago. "This year we have added over 100 new families. We now have 467 families and five parent educators," she said.

The parent educators make free, regular home visits to families with children from birth to five years of age to teach parents developmental activities.

"When children are born their brain is half the size of the adult brain," Beasley said. "By the time the children are three, their brains have already grown to 80 percent of their adult size."

"We are here to show the parents how important they are during those years," she said. "They are the most influential teachers that child will ever have."

'A little easier'

Kristi Black has been using PAT since her daughter, Katie, was born three years ago.

"It has been very helpful," Black said. "They encourage you and make you feel more comfortable about what you are doing."

Black's youngest daughter, Hallie, who is 4 months old, recently was diagnosed with Down syndrome. Black said Beasley has been very helpful with filling out paperwork so Hallie can get the services she will need.

"I would have been fine raising my daughters without PAT," Black said. "They've just made things a little easier."

Susan Englehart's oldest daughter, 3-year-old Cassie, attends the Child Development Center in Jackson two days a week.

"PAT got her used to the teacher situation so she wasn't scared to go to the Child Development Center and see the teacher there," Englehart said.

Preschool project

DESE has performed school entry assessments on random samplings of kindergartners from across the state for the past three years, and results have repeatedly shown the top performing students participated in Parents as Teachers, preschool programs or both prior to starting kindergarten.

The Missouri Preschool Project began delegating grants in 1998 as a way for school districts to start educational preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds.

Cape Girardeau, Oak Ridge and Meadow Heights school districts each operate preschool programs funded by the Missouri Preschool Project.

Linda Holt, director of the Oak Ridge Early Childhood Center, said the benefits are tremendous.

"I feel sad for children who don't go to preschool," Holt said. "By the time they get to kindergarten they have missed out on so much. They don't know how to line up in a straight line, some can't cut with scissors and some don't even know how to hold a pencil the correct way."

Holt said by the time the children leave the center, they have been exposed to counting, some writing, numbers, shapes and social skills -- all lessons that are normally not learned until kindergarten.

Full-day kindergarten

In 1986, DESE started logging the number of children attending half-day and full-day kindergarten classes.

During the 1986-87 school year, 70 percent of the students attended half-day kindergarten and 30 percent attended full-day. Fourteen years later, only 22 percent attended half-day kindergarten and 78 percent attended full-day.

Flynn said this trend has been a long time in the making.

"Kindergarten teachers told us for years full-day classes give them more time to do the things they could only hope to do in the past," she said.

In 1995, the Springfield, Mo., school district completed a study on the differences between full-day and half-day kindergarten classes.

"What we found were significant advantages to the full-day kindergarten over the half-day," said Diane Buatte, director of Springfield's early childhood education program. "The full-day students consistently outperformed the half-day students on a variety of tests."

School districts in Perry, Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Scott counties all offer full-day kindergarten.

Parents interested in any of the early-childhood programs offered in Southeast Missouri can contact the school district where they live for enrollment information.

hkronmueller@semissourian.com

335-6611 extension 128