Early childhood education works

Johnny McMahan

March 30, 2008 11:44 pm

— ‘Why do we need pre-kindergarten?’
‘Why do we need all-day kindergarten?
‘I didn’t have kindergarten years ago and things turned out alright.Didn’t seem to miss anything.’
Heard all those lines a time or two. Even used the last one myself a time or two.
Oh yes, longing for the good ‘ole days, when everything seemed so much simpler.
Well, it was a simpler time back in the early 1960s at Bushyhead Grade School.
No one knew anything about kindergarten. Everything started in the first grade.
No computers, no cell phones (barely phones at all), in most cases no color television. Yep, simpler days, and simpler times. Heck, we even got to watch the World Series at school in the afternoon - yes there was a time when the World Series was played in the afternoon.
But those times are long gone and have been for a while.
Today’s world is one of technology that becomes more advanced by the day. Kids grow up quicker. Kindergarten students can do things many of us never dreamed of in the first or second grades.
The world grows smaller every day and we all have to keep up - even at a younger and younger age.
Why, indeed, is early childhood education such a focus in the world?
Because research show it works.
For instance, a study by Georgetown University focused on the pre-kindergarten program in Tulsa Public Schools.
Among the findings:
On average, test scores increased 16 percent after participating in the program with greatest gains in cognitive and language skills.
Low-income students improved test scores 26 percent.
Hispanic students had an improvement of 54 percent.
Another study of Oklahoma’s program by the National Institute for Early Education at Rutgers showed Oklahoma’s preschool program produced gains in skills such as vocabulary, telling time, number concepts, book concepts and others. According to the study, measurements of vocabulary skills were 28 percent higher than the gains of children without the program, while math skills were 44 percent higher.
An early childhood intervention program in North Carolina that began in the 1970s, among other findings that:
Children who participated in the early intervention program (what would be pre-K or something similar) had higher cognitive test scores from age toddler years to 21.
Academic achievement in both reading and math was higher from the primary grades through young adulthood.
Children completed more years of education and were more likely to attended a four-year college.
Participants were older, on average, when their first child was born.
Mothers whose children participated achieved higher educational and employment status than mothers whose children were not in the program. Researchers said the results were especially pronounced for teen mothers.
In a New Mexico study of 886 preschool and kindergarten students in 2006, children who participated in the program at age four showed gains in vocabulary that were 54 percent greater than the gains of children without the program.
Preschool education, according to that study, increased children’s gains in math skills by 40 percent compared to children’s growth without the program. Those skills included basic number concepts, simple addition and subtraction, telling time and counting money.
Early childhood education is a nationwide movement and Oklahoma is in the forefront.
Requirements for pre-kindergarten teachers are strict - a bachelor’s degree with certification in early childhood education.
Almost every school in Oklahoma offers pre-K of some type, either in the school or in conjunction with day cares, Head Start or some other type of program. Some of those are even full-day, others are half-day, like the one here.
In addition, every school in Oklahoma offers at least half-day kindergarten and will be required to offer a full day program by 2011.
Those are all reasons why next Tuesday’s school bond election is important.
To meet the state requirements for kindergarten and also keep and enhance the pre-K program, better and larger facilities are needed.
That is the idea behind building a state-of-the-art early childhood center.
Just remember, these aren’t the simpler times of yesteryear.
Bushyhead Grade School doesn’t exist anymore. It went the way of many dependent school districts over the past 50 years.
If the school was still around, however, it would have quality pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs.
Today’s world is different, more exiting, more intense.
We need to keep up by offering the programs others offer, and by giving our teachers and students the facilities to foster the best learning and working environment possible.

Johnny McMahan is managing editor of the Woodward News.