The newsletter
that I subscribed to is the National Institute for Early Education Research found
at http://nieer.org/. There are many
issues addressed such as home visits to encourage good health reform for the
children, addressing the benefits for early start programs in regards to lower
future crime rate, and advocating for different ethnicities to focus on early
childhood development programs.
Considering that our main focus is trends and diversity this week I
chose to focus early start programs in regard to different ethnicities.
The article that I
read is 'Preschool for All' Shouldn't Be 'One-Size-Fits-All.' The article is based on information gathered
from the Illinois school system. The
article mainly focuses on Hispanics and the effect of the lack of participation
when it comes to the early start programs before the age of four. “The data show us that at-risk and low-income
-- many of whom are Latino -- kids gain more from preschool than their peers;
inversely, they have more to lose by not attending” (NIEER, 2013).
Many government programs
stress the need for children in this case Hispanics to get connected with high
quality educational programs starting at birth.
The emphasis is stressed on high quality education/programming. High quality programs depends on; teachers
who are well trained, teachers or aids who are bi-lingual, and a program that
encompasses the linguistic and cultural factors. The trend in Illinois is that the state is
mandating that pre-school teachers be bi-lingual or is working towards it. “In building a teacher pipeline that can
effectively support diverse learners, we must provide all teachers with
opportunities for linguistic and cultural professional development -- and adopt
practices that attract diverse teacher candidates to the profession” (NIEER,
2013).
I like that the
state of Illinois is taking a big stand to lessen the gap between the students
whose primary language is not English.
As educators we need to focus on the every child; however it is
important to make sure that every child starts on the same “playing field.”
I would encourage everyone to read this article. I know I found it very interesting!
'Preschool for All' Shouldn't Be 'One-Size-Fits-All. Retrieved from:
Sherry
Sherry, we think alike! I also chose to highlight the article from Latino Voices, accessed through the NIEER newsletter. The authors really make the case for high-quality preschool to be accessible and responsive to the needs of DLLs. Thank you for bringing attention to this important issue through your blog post! -Susan
ReplyDeleteSherry, I love this newsletter also. As a Early Head Start teacher I do a home visit before the child starts in my classroom. I love to do the home visit because it gives me the insights of how the child's environment, their culture, and learn about the parents. i will be subscribing to this article also.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing that with us. I enjoyed reading your blog this week and think that I will subscribe to this newsletter too. I think that every program should be a high quality program. A child shouldn't have to suffer educationally because a parent can only afford childcare A, but childcare B has the more educated staff.
ReplyDeleteSherry, this newsletter is informative to me. I work for a day care center and we do not have a home visit program. Also our day care does not celebrate any culture’s holidays. From this article and other classmates’ comments, I will recommend this program to my day care center.
ReplyDelete