2010
Funding Priority: Promoting Early Learning & Intervention
The
Issue:
Many Knox County residents undervalue the importance
early learning has in the life of a child. Babies
are born learning and this learning occurs during
the children's interactions with caregivers in everyday
experiences, and can be facilitated through responsive
care giving, extending children's language, and
promoting early literacy. Parents and caregivers
can build their child's early learning foundation
as part of everyday life. Simple everyday activities
like talking with the child, singing songs while
driving in the car, counting the number of cans
that are being placed into the grocery cart, and
interactively reading stories as part of the bedtime
routine will help the child become interested and
engaged in learning.
The
following factors are significant in the importance
of community awareness, education and intervention
strategies:
For every $1 spent on early intervention, a community
saves more than $17 in future intervention costs.
Some
46% of American kindergarteners are coming to school
at risk for failure, according to the US Department
of Education.
Knox
County low-income parents report not being able
to find child care that is both quality care and
affordable care.
Our
Focus:
Born Learning is a community awareness and outreach
campaign that has been designed to affect parents'
and other caregivers' knowledge and behavior to
achieve the four outcomes named below. The following
outcomes were developed based on expert input and
a review of research:
Parents and other caregivers know that children
are born learning - Humans acquire knowledge
mainly through experiences and interactions
with their environment. Children are trying
to understand their world the minute they
are born. A child's earliest experiences are
responsible for wiring the brain for future
use, thereby building its basic architecture.
Most of the traits and abilities that form
our unique personality are reflections of
these early developments in our brains. As
a child learns to crawl, speak, and interact
with others, for example, specific areas of
the brain are stimulated, develop and grow.
Parents
and other caregivers know that their interactions
with their child in everyday moments are important
to early learning - Many caregivers think
that they need to take extra time out of their
busy day to enhance their child's early learning.
This is not always the case. The adult's role
is to encourage and increase children's engagement
in learning and this can be done during everyday
moments. It is as simple as having a conversation
or interacting with the child in an everyday
moment, like reading cereal boxes together
in the grocery store.
Parents
and other caregivers are responsive to their
child - In responsive care giving we let the
child take the lead and build our responses
around his or her actions. By connecting with
children in authentic relationships, caregivers
can make the child feel secure to explore
his or her world with responsive care giving
techniques such as watching and listening,
or extending. While watching and listening,
caregivers should attempt to understand what
children are trying to understand, and do
and expand on the child's discoveries.
Parents
and other caregivers extend their child's
language and promote early literacy - The
basis for life-long literacy begins during
the early childhood years. Emergent literacy
and language acquisition skills precede the
ability to read and write and influence later
literacy skills. Young children who develop
an awareness of and interest in literature
and language are more likely to enter school
with increased early literacy skills and to
experience academic success in later years.
