Overview

We owe our children a future filled with promise, and for children in one low income neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, the future looks more promising than ever. Because of their participation in the Language Enrichment Activities Program (LEAP) they are "learning by leaps and bounds". They enter kindergarten prepared to learn, thereby increasing their chances of succeeding in and staying in school. This report describes how LEAP is being used successfully in a Head Start Center. 

According to Tom Hehir, former secretary of education, "Children who start school behind, stay behind". Hehir reminds us that these same children experience a gap between potential and achievement that tends to widen throughout their school years, and ultimately results in many of the students dropping out of school. In the state of Texas alone, almost one-third of all youth begin adult life without a high school diploma. The most common thread that joins students who drop out of school is a childhood experience characterized by poverty. Through a partnership between a corporate foundation, a public school district and two universities, in 1990, a model preschool was designed. This model preschool for 90 four-year-olds, the Margaret Cone Preschool, is a Head Start Center in an area marked by poverty, crime, and unemployment. Some of the services and activities at the Cone Center are common in Head Start Centers throughout the nation (e.g., parent involvement opportunities). 

Many of the components at the Cone Center, however, are vanguard and unique (e.g., the enriched language curriculum). The long range goal is for the graduates of the Cone Center to complete high school and secure a job with the possibility of further educational achievement and future employment opportunities. During the first two years of the model (1990-92), the children at the center received supplemental health, nutrition and social services, and the teachers and staff provided extended hours each day as well as a year round program. In spite of these rich resources the children continued to enter kindergarten performing well behind their chronological age according to the Battelle Developmental Inventory (BDI). At this point, the partnership had to make a critical decision -to discontinue, or to make significant changes in the program. They courageously chose to seek ways to strengthen the academic curriculum as well as to continue the other supplemental resources to the center. 

Southern Methodist University 

In 1993, Texas Instruments Foundation (TIF) approached the Learning Therapy Program at Southern Methodist University (SMU) with a request to develop a phonics-based, prereading program for the Center. After observing the children at the Center, the SMU team determined the greatest need to be in the area of language development. Over several years the Language Enrichment Activities Program (LEAP) was developed. This unique, multisensory, enriched language program provides lessons to be used throughout the day. It includes teacher training, model teaching by volunteers, parent workshops, and expandable lesson plans. 

The goal of LEAP is to prepare children to enter kindergarten functioning close to an age-appropriate level of development. LEAP emphasizes the areas of receptive and expressive language, phonological awareness, knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, basic concepts, numeracy, and prewriting fine motor skills, thereby increasing the children's chances for success in kindergarten. Pre and post-assessments document the gains made by the children who participate in the program. The median standard scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-R (PPVT-R) have increased significantly. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) scores from the local public school also indicate that children from the Margaret Cone Center completed kindergarten scoring above their peers at the Frazier Elementary School and maintain an academic equal to their peers in the Dallas I.S.D. By entering kindergarten prepared to learn, most of these children are completing the year performing above the national norm, thereby greatly increasing their chances of succeeding in school.