Learning Enrichment Activities Program

Margaret Cone Head Start Center, a model preschool program for economically depressed four-year-old children, offers the children a comprehensive array of services. These services are designed to match developmental opportunities, which the children's counterparts in more affluent families enjoy. The model includes the following program components:

Education
Health/Nutrition
Social Services/Parental Involvement
Evaluation
Transition

This model is designed to meet the needs of the four-year-old children who live in a specific, low-income, public elementary school attendance area. The Center operates for an extended day to accommodate working parents.

Education

The preschool uses a developmental, interactive, teaching methodology in conjunction with an enriched language curriculum. Classroom activities for the children are intended to stimulate intellectual curiosity, develop logical thought processes, support cognitive growth, enhance language opportunities, and build phonological and print awareness skills. Teachers assist the children by providing learning opportunities in the context of the children's self-initiated activities. Multisensory, interactive strategies designed to expand language use, phonological and print awareness is incorporated throughout the day.

As a part of LEAP the teachers attend specially designed in-service programs in order to learn strategies to help the children improve their language, pre-reading, and cognitive skills. LEAP incorporates teacher training, on-site modeling by volunteers, parent workshops and expandable lesson plans. Cooperative efforts with the local elementary school assure the continuation of the children's progress.

Health/Nutrition

The health component of the preschool is coordinated by a health care professional who provides or secures in the community, all of the health, medical and dental services which the children require. The health care professional also oversees the children's health education and provides health education programs for the parents and preschool staff.

The nutrition program is part of the health component. At the preschool, the children eat breakfast, lunch and two snacks. These provide at least 80 percent of the minimum daily nutritional requirements for the children.

Social Services/Parental Involvement

The social services component is intended to help the children develop intellectually, emotionally and socially. Working with the parents, two full-time social workers are responsible for securing for the children and their families any necessary emergency assistance including food, clothing, and other services such as counseling. They also endeavor to help the parents improve their educational and/or financial status.

The program at Cone Center recognizes that while an effective education requires a partnership between parents and teachers, parents are the prime educators of their child and therefore essential to the child's healthy development. Frequent personal interactions of children, teachers, support staff, and parents take place. Classes and programs in child development, including information about the intellectual, social and physical growth of children are presented for the parents. Parents are involved in many volunteer activities at the center including working in the classroom, attending parent meetings and support groups, and participating in parent training programs.

Evaluation

The evaluation component includes a pre and post-assessment of each child, a pre and post-survey of the parents, and follow-up tracking of the children in the local public school system. Assessment measures include the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) and PPVT-3, and the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool (CELF-P). Scores from the Frazier Elementary School for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and Stanford 9, at the kindergarten level, and the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) at the third grade level are included in this longitudinal study. Health and nutrition services, social services, and parent involvement are tracked and reported at quarterly meetings of the members of the collaboration.

Data from the PPVT-R, PPVT-3, ITBS, TAAS, and Stanford 9, are available under "DATA" at this website. The impact of the addition of the language enrichment is confirmed in the improved scores of each cohort.

Transition

Frazier Elementary Most children from the Cone Head Start Center attend kindergarten through third grade at the local public school, Frazier Elementary. Standardized test scores (ITBS) and Stanford 9, of children attending Frazier are consistent with the results of the PPVT-R, PPVT-3, and CELF-P evaluations of the Cone Children. Standardized test scores from the ITBS for the first years of this study revealed that kindergarten children at Frazier were functioning at or near the 30th US median percentile rating. In light of this extremely poor performance, it was believed that a very large percentage of the children would drop out before competing high school.

As Cohort 3 entered Frazier Elementary, changes took place that bore a significant impact on the children. First, a new principal was hired at Frazier, and second, the Language Enrichment Activities Program (LEAP) was begun at the Cone Center. The improvement in the scores on all tests, both those given at the elementary school and those given at the center, since that time is significant.

Since cohort 4, the Cone Center children have consistently scored near the 70th percentile on the ITBS a the end of kindergarten. The site-coordinator of the Cone Center and the principal of this neighborhood elementary school, Frazier, are in frequent communication with each other. Recent analysis of the data from the studies at Cone Center indicate that children in most cohorts are prepared, after only that one year, to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.