The U.S. Department of Education recently awarded the UNM Center for Family and Community Partnerships in the College of Education a $2.3 million grant to begin local efforts to improve language and reading skills in young children, called Project LEER.
Project LEER, an acronym for Learners Eager for Early Reading, which is also Spanish for "to read," is an Early Reading First Program.
According to the press release from Heather Wilson's office in Washington, D.C., "Early Reading First is President Bush's initiative to transform early education programs into centers of excellence that provide high quality, early education to young children, especially those from low-income families."
The award is part of $72 million in grant money funded by the Department of Education as part of Bush's Early Reading First program.
According to the UNM center's press release, "The overall purpose of the Early Reading First Program is to prepare young children to enter kindergarten with the necessary language, cognitive and early reading skills to prevent reading difficulties and ensure school success."
Funding for the Early Reading First grants was authorized under Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
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"The grant works with teachers to help them develop early literacy skills in young children," said Polly Turner project developer and director of the center.
Turner, Carol Westby, senior research scientist and Mary Dudley, director of the Family Development Program within the center, began working on the grant in May 2002. The grant is one of 30 proposals accepted by the U.S. Department of Education.
"The proposal was well written and responded to the issues they wanted addressed and it was strengthened by the fact that we're dealing with monolingual children, who speak Spanish, and bilingual children," Turner said.
Another important aspect of the grant is that the center plans to bring two national experts on early reading, Lesley Morrow, professor at Rutgers University, and Linda Espinosa, co-director for research and policy from the National Institute for Early Reading Research at Rutgers University. Both experts will be leading two, six-day intensive summer institutes during 2003-04 for teachers, assistants, home visitors and literacy mentors.
Bilingual mentors will also go into classrooms and provide on-site professional development on a monthly basis, as part of the grant.
The program works with 12 Even Start programs, which is a federal program in which most children are dual-language or English-language learners, three classrooms in APS with 3-and 4-year-olds with developmental delays or disabilities and eight classrooms working with child development programs through the city of Albuquerque. The program will be working with about 40 to 45 teachers and teacher aides.
With this new grant the center plans to provide professional development to teachers by hiring mentors, fund the summer institutes, provide classroom materials for participants, create new curricula and evaluate students.
"The program is very ambitious," Turner said. "There are a lot of assessments of children and a lot of observations."
The programs participating with the Center for Family and Community Partnerships at UNM include Even Start and Child Find programs for 3-and 4-year-old children in APS, childcare and preschool programs through the city of Albuquerque and Baby Amigo, a home-visiting program operated through the center and directed by Judy Madewell.
The grant also includes a home-visiting component, in which 20 families will receive home-visiting services for children from birth to age 3, which is designed for parent and family involvement.
"It really emphasizes one goal which is not to water down kindergarten and first grade programs, but to weave in this program that is appropriate for them in a way that is appropriate for them to learn," Turner said.
