Florida mayors urge DeSantis to prioritize early education | Commentary
From Orlando Sentinel: “Getting children off to a good start is sound policy and wise investment in the future of a state we all love.”
Welcoming Older Adults into the Head Start Classroom
From Medium: “Encourage volunteers to share their skills and hobbies. Invite volunteers to connect their lives to children’s interest and your curriculum.”
Bridging more than just a reading gap
From Sarasota Herald-Tribune: “The mission of the Literacy Lab is to provide low-income children with individualized reading instruction to improve their literacy skills, leading to greater success in school and increased opportunities in life.”
Educating homeless parents on the importance of early childhood education
From The Philadelphia Inquirer: “According to child experts, early experiences of homelessness are associated with higher rates of developmental delays, poor academic achievement, asthma, attention problems, poor social and emotional functioning, acting out, and other difficulties.”
Acts of Kindness: Foster Grandparents Volunteer To Teach Students
From Star-Herald: “After dedicating their day to teaching the students, the foster grandparents feel a sense of pride as they watch the students interact with others in public for years.”
It Only Takes One Dedicated Mentor to Shape a Child’s Future
From Boca Raton Tribune: “If children are truly our future, then we adults owe them a helping hand in shaping it. We can do so through mentoring.”
Foster Grandparents Program Gives Children Love, Attention
From Reflector: “The children know these seasoned adults are not their teachers; they are their grandmas who take up extra time with them, teach them, give them hugs and welcome them onto their laps to read books.”
How San Antonio educators are bridging cultural gaps to involve parents
From San Antonio Express-News: “Educators across the country have emphasized parental engagement, because studies show students whose parents are involved outperform those whose parents do not appear engaged.”
How to Get Preschoolers to Share
From The New York Times Magazine: “To foster empathic behavior like sharing, helping and comforting others in a child, guide them into the inner world of feelings — their own and those of others.”
Five Ways to Nurture Compassion in Kids
From Mind/Shift: “Do more than have conversations about being compassionate with your child, look for ways to act compassionately at home and in your community.”
Foster grandparents volunteer and share their love at schools
From CBS News: “Wearing blue aprons and serving up hugs are six foster grandmothers working alongside the school’s teachers to help students succeed.”
Parents learn, babies talk: How coaching moms and dads improves infants' language skills
From Science Daily: “A new study shows that parents who learn how and why to speak ‘parentese’ can have a direct impact on their children’s vocabulary.”
Home visiting helps children and parents — more families could use it
From The Hill: “Home visiting typically serves families with children under age 6 not yet in kindergarten — from single parents juggling new responsibilities to teen parents completing high school. It can be an especially important lifeline for military families.”
‘A big balloon of joy’: D.C. grandparents give students mentors and themselves a purpose
From The Washington Post: “The Foster Grandparent Program aims to give seniors across the country a purpose in retirement by providing some of the neediest children with mentors and giving teachers help in the classroom.”
David Lawrence Jr.: A Champion of Children and Our Community
From The Miami Herald: “He is a humble man who through gaining knowledge, taking action and persistence is a community champion and a warrior for children’s rights.”
Support Helping Children? Step Up and Volunteer Now
From The Tallahassee Democrat: “Do you love to read? Join the Reading Pals program and give that one-on-one attention that is so important for children struggling to read. ”
The Joy of Grandparenting
From The New York Times: “Those heroic grandparents actually raising their grandchildren. More than a million children live in their grandparents’ households without parents present, says the advocacy group Generations United. Grandparents who are distant, geographically or otherwise, probably also have different experiences.”
Home visits in early childhood provide benefits for students and schools
From Education Dive: “Home visits for families with young children in Florida’s largest county have dramatically reduced abuse and neglect, increased immunization rates to near 100%, reduced unwanted pregnancies and have cut sudden infant death syndrome cases in half.”
Dr. Dipesh Navsaria: Reading programs are really about supporting strong parent-child bonds
From The Capital Times: “I don’t object to programs that bring high-quality books into a child’s home, but that emphasis is often misplaced; the book itself does little if handed to a child without any other interaction. A child learns the magic and power of reading only when a loving, nurturing, responsive caregiver (usually a parent, but could be anyone) reads aloud with them. A book that sits on the shelf is useless — it only does its magic when open in the hands of a parent and child reading together.”