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Millington Model -- Early-Education Classes Cross Language, Income Barriers

Posted on: Tuesday, 27 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

By Halimah Abdullah abdullah@commercialappealcom

Shelby County schools' revolution in early childhood education began with 4-year-olds.

It began with the shy kid who just seemed to blossom when teamed with a new, chattier pal.

And the Spanish speaker who lit up at the chance to teach his English-speaking classmates that la cabeza means head .

And the little boy whose independence streak helped him discover a better way to tie his shoes.

Pre-K teacher Julia Archer revels in these little victories.

"We want them to take ownership of the learning," Archer said.

In Shelby County's Start Smart program, headquartered at Lucy Elementary School in Millington, owning the learning process is a rallying cry. The program, in its fifth year, targets low-income and Spanish-speaking families to help the district's youngest learners make vital connections.

Start Smart includes preschool classrooms for 3- and 4-year- olds, home-based education programs for parents of infants and toddlers, and an adult education program.

The program is the first of its kind in the district and is being considered by the state as a model to help train early childhood education specialists, said grant specialist Judy Faris.

"We're trying to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy through education," said Keisha Caver, program coordinator. "Literacy starts at a young age."

Start Smart's focus mirrors other efforts to increase early childhood education. This year, Tennessee tripled the number of Memphis-area 4-year-olds enrolled in its pre-K program. About 600 more preschoolers are starting class this fall, adding to the 300- plus slots available last year in the pre-K pilot now being financed with excess lottery money. Memphis city schools will get 26 new classrooms. Shelby County schools get four.

Start Smart, funded by federal and state grants, relies in part on research that shows children who get intellectual stimulation as infants perform better in school. Using this information, parent educators fan out across the northern reaches of the county, teaching parents the importance of reading to babies.

When those children get a little older, they and other preschoolers are invited to participate in Start Smart's highly stylized Pre-K classes.

At first glance, Archer's class seemed full of the regular commotion expected from irrepressible 4-year-olds.

There was the routine course of sing-songy chants and the clatter of blocks and puzzle pieces, along with the sharp, earthy smell of clay.

But amid the cacophony, there was a plan.

Small groups of students trooped off to workstations and busied themselves with palm-sized letters, numbers and puzzles with pictures of children dozing and skipping.

A bright-colored puppet named Ms. P presided over the gathering, asking students to point out the colors on her dress or name things that begin with the letter P.

But Ms. P is no dictator.

Part of helping young children develop involves giving them choices, Archer explained. Four-year-old Chris Walls chose to play by himself on a rug painted to look like a city. It was a step toward independence.

As he haphazardly wheeled his plastic yellow school bus across the rug's painted streets, Chris noticed that in this little world there were just as many police stations as schools.

Sometimes the realities of the grownup world seep into this place of child's play in the most unexpected ways.

Maria Trevino was still a child herself when she dropped out of the 11th grade, got married and had a baby.

"I had to pull myself back up," said Trevino, now the program's translator. "So one of the first things I did was get my GED."

She enrolled in Start Smart's adult education classes and got her GED in a month. Then she returned to her classmates and fellow parents and helped them pass as well.

While her daughter Diana, now 5, learned the differences between letters and numbers, Trevino began helping other Spanish-speaking parents understand English-speaking district officials.

She's been a big help. Fourteen of the sixteen 3-year-olds in her class are from Spanish-speaking families. The program now sends parent updates home in English and Spanish.

"The families we visit like that. We teach them more about their babies," Trevino said. "They like that we go to their homes."

-Halimah Abdullah: 529-5806

Source: Commercial Appeal, The

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