WORDS: Rachel Spivey
PHOTOS: Wendy Dewhurst
Ever heard the old adage, “The early bird catches the worm?” Well, it turns out this saying applies to early learning, too! The earlier children are exposed to stimulating environments, the better the outcome. Years of research have reported that investing in early education programs yields a higher return on investment than at any other time in academia. Estimates on this return are said to be 13.7%, surpassing investments in K-12 and higher education.
Back in the Fall, the Division of Early Learning released significant American Rescue Act Plan funds across Florida to bolster early learning centers and family child care homes, as well as directly support educators. The Early Learning Coalition of Manatee (ELC) Hatched a plan blooming with new ideas to ensure children have the best possible learning outcomes. The Coalition’s $ 4.5 million plan included investments in technology, hands-on learning materials, teacher training, curriculum support, and workforce development programs.
Interactive Technology
The Coalition recognizes that technology is here to stay and that in order for children to reach the coveted kindergarten readiness status, they need to be digitally literate or at least have developed comfort within the realm of technology. Technology use with children, it is recommended that the child be over the age of two, must be done thoughtfully based on ideas that integrate best practices and developmental needs. “Following extensive research, the Coalition discovered Hatch – The Early Learning Experts. This organization has meticulously developed a range of interactive products that come preloaded with software full of hands-on, engaging, and age-appropriate content made especially for the three to five-year-old age range.
The content truly fosters individual instruction and collaborative learning experiences, as well as supporting lesson planning and student development documentation for teachers. Excitedly, the product will be utilized in 52 child care centers around Manatee County. The Coalition is offering a wide range of professional development for teachers to ensure maximum effectiveness for young students.
Additionally, the Coalition is utilizing MarcoPolo, a curriculum supplemental program that can be shown on the Hatch boards. MarcoPolo gives teachers and families a fun, safe application to explore that lets children safely discover the world at their fingertips. MarcoPolo has features that help connect school and home learning, and together, these two products make a remarkable solution to address family engagement and literacy goals.
Hands-On Learning Materials
Most early learning professionals will likely share that play is the “work” of small children. So, in their plan, the Coalition ensured that children through their child care centers had many new and inspirational materials to explore and play with. In fact, 96 child care centers will receive one of three thoughtfully curated kits from KODO Innovations.
These kits feature materials supporting block and ramp play, exploration of light and color with the absolute neatest light table and translucent accessories, and an enormous outdoor magnet wall that teaches ideas such as gravity and friction. Additionally, participating classrooms received refreshed materials that coordinated with the state-approved curriculum. These classrooms will be hopping with joy, new toys, and endless possibilities for little learners.
Curriculum Support
Curriculum refers to a structured set of educational plans and experiences designed to guide learning for a set topic or learning standards. To be effective, classrooms benefit from training in the use of the curriculum, the ideas, knowledge, or practices that make up the curriculum, and having the coordinating materials, books, toys, puppets, etc., to make the curriculum come alive for children.
The Coalition spent a large portion of their state-granted funds to ensure curriculums were full and complete in many child care centers with Learning Beyond Paper. They also added additional resources such as sets of classroom library books, puppets featuring characters with common disabilities, literature for teachers, and materials to advance the structured teaching of executive functioning skills for early learners.
These skills refer to those internal skills necessary for academic success, such as interpersonal relationships, emotional control, planning and organization, and self-control. It is vital to start building these while children are young, so the Coalition partnered with Discovery Source and other vendors to customize kits focusing on the whole child.
In addition, the Coalition invested in LENA Grow, a foundational program that measures conversational turns with a “talk-pedometer.” The number of opportunities children have to talk with adults increases a range of skills from bonding to engagement in the classroom to language and cognitive development and even social and emotional development. With the LENA Grow program, students wear technology housed in a cute lightweight vest that captures the interactions on a sound level. This data, along with coaching, is shared with classroom teachers to help them enhance the quality of their environment, making it language-rich.
Teacher Training and Workforce Development Programs
The backbone of the current economy is high-quality early education. The fact is the workforce of tomorrow is growing today, so to ensure our future, we need to invest in theirs. Additionally, Manatee County can’t go to work if its children aren’t cared for during typical working hours. The Coalition is acutely aware of these facts and invested in programs and training to upskill and develop the child care workforce. High-quality adult-child interactions create an environment where children can thrive.
These positive interactions are the cornerstone of quality in early care and education and are measured by Coalition staff using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS®). CLASS measures these high-quality interactions around ten dimensions, and therefore, the Coalition offered, managed, stipend, and recruited child care professionals from the newest teacher to the most experienced, encouraging additional training in this measurement practice and the professional’s skills to ensure the workforce is fully invested in their role in building the future. Additionally, the Coalition made efforts to recruit and train early learning teachers. This included offering recruitment bonuses and providing health and safety training.
On top of these impactful benefits, the ELC hosted three workforce projects. Two were celebratory breakfasts that involved coordinating a more unified approach to Transition to Kindergarten with the School District and Step Up Suncoast’s Head Start Program. The third was a focused pilot project around measuring accurate results. By putting results first with the consultants from Results First, early educators and Coalition staff learned the value of measurement and how careful analysis of impact can help everyone succeed.
The Coalition hatched many new ideas this year, and the benefits will be cracken far into the future! Darrell King, CEO of the ELC, said of the investments made: “We are excited to see the roll-out of our ARPA Discretionary spend plan. Our ELC team put a lot of strategic thought and planning into what our child care community needs and we feel that some really meaningful long-term investments have been made. I was also really happy to see 263 child care professionals who work on the VPK program all receive a $1000 stipend as it is absolutely crucial that we continue to invest in those who deliver the VPK program to our local children.”
What the Teachers say…
A TeachSmart Board enhances our teachers’ instructional activities, creates more learning opportunities for our students, and provides more hands-on learning activities. The board will allow us to provide learning opportunities that support multiple different learning styles. Using the smart board provides the teachers with access to more online resources that they can use right in their classroom in real-time. – Brittany Swift from Easterseals Southwest Florida
This technology will help our preschool classroom to keep up with today’s world learning experience. We believe it is important that schools and young children are kept up to date with our fast-changing world. – Dafran Gutierrez from Top Kids Bilingual Preschool of Bradenton
It will allow for individual and specific child success and enhancement when needed. In addition, the teachers will be able to customize planning to meet the needs of students, as well as maintain portfolio and assessment data. Such interactive lessons will encourage further learning in the classroom. – Denise Jordan from Next Generation Academics
The TeachSmart tablet will enable me to do various activities in a small group and one-to-one setting that might otherwise take much more prep and materials. I’m particularly excited about being able to add a more fun aspect to learning, as children these days are extremely interested in working on tablets. Using the TeachSmart board and tablets will also allow me to give my students practice in using modern technology that some might not otherwise have a chance to do due to familial financial constraints. In addition, it will help to better prepare my students for using technology that is similar to the modes of assessments these days. – Jennifer Butzow from Imagine School at North Manatee: VPK Program
Because both devices are interactive, I believe this will help further excite the children about learning new skills. They will learn, all while having fun. Also, because the lessons are hands-on learning opportunities, they will help deepen the children’s understanding/knowledge because we know they learn best by doing. – Keisha Small from Let’s Learn Early Childhood Center
Hatch has partnered with educators to extend learning in the classroom through hands-on learning experiences; this will benefit daily operations and practices at our center by helping us focus on each child’s learning ability as an individual to help them achieve the goals set for that student. – Sandra Eaton from Our Kids West
TeachSmart Board and tablets will give the teachers the ability to provide engaging activities that are customized to the needs of each child. This will build confidence for the children in their learning environment and create a strong foundation for their continued education. This will give teachers and parents the ability to work together making sure the children reach their full potential. – Tanya McGrath from Myakka Early Learning Center
