Early Childhood: Conference Explores the Learning Business

by Sharon K. Hughes, San Antonio Express-News, 07/27/2002

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/

Success in early childhood development brings economic success for a city, according to a San Antonio group that held a two-day conference this week to discuss how to prepare children for school.

The Kindergarten Readiness program is under the city's Better Jobs initiative.

It aims to instruct parents and child-care workers in ways to teach children the skills they need to be ready for kindergarten and to get child-care workers and schools collaborating. The learning enrichment program is set up at various day-care centers in San Antonio.

It also promotes involvement in early learning from various groups in the community, such as businesses and senior citizens, said Dennis Campa, director of the city's Department of Community Initiative.

"It has to be a community issue, not just a poor family issue or a rich family issue," Campa said. "Now it becomes everybody's responsibility."

Yolie Flores Aguilar, one of the presenters at the conference, said people need to break the mindset that learning is just an issue of good schools.

"If we want kids to be better test takers, then we have to care about more than just test scores," said Aguilar, the director of the Los Angeles County Children's Planning Council.

Aguilar said a child's home environment could play a major role in his or her school performance.

"We're trying to change the debate around school readiness and school success and build the kind of partners that show stakeholders their role in building school success," she said.

Aguilar said San Antonio's program is ahead of most of the nation, especially in terms of getting other groups involved.

The pilot program in San Antonio started in 2000 in the attendance areas of 13 elementary schools and has grown. It will be in 18 schools next year.

Some of the early results can be seen at Poppy's Kiddie Kampus, a West Side day-care center.

Rose Gonzales was substituting at the center Friday and has worked with children for 15 years — 10 years as the teacher at Kiddie Kampus, five as a special education teacher's aide in Southwest School District.

Gonzales likes the program that the city is training day-care workers to use. "We did a lot, but we didn't know there was so much more we could do."

The program, called Smart Start, has several stations around the classroom, and the 3- and 4-year-old children follow their interests. At first glance it looks like chaos, but Gonzales said the children are constantly learning.

Every area and everything in the room has its name written on it in English and Spanish.

She looks over at a little girl trying to fit a toy man through a hole in a playhouse. Soon she'll figure out it won't work, Gonzales said, and the girl will try to fit something else in there.

To the children it's all play.

"Children are capable of a lot more learning, but they're not ready for sit-down paper and pencil work," said Suzanne Winter, a professor at the University of Texas San Antonio and researcher for the city's program.

"It's how you do it, folks. It's through play."

shughes@express-news.net