Early engagement bridges educational divide

 More than half of all pre-kindergarten children do not have basic school readiness skills. 

  They cannot count to 10. They do not know the alphabet.

  And when they come into school without these basic skills, they are more likely to stay behind — and will drop out of school at a significantly higher rate than their peers. 

  Speaking Monday morning at the National Dropout Prevention Network Conference, 

Mary Durel of the Parent-Home Program in Garden City, N.Y., said it’s essential to engage children — and their families — early in life.

  It’s not easy, she said.

  “Everybody and his brother has to come up with a parental involvement program — and it is so, so difficult to do,” Durel said.

  One significant obstacle: Cultural differences in the way different families approach learning.

  “Culture teaches children what to think and how to think,” she said. 

  Those who want to fight the dropout epidemic, she said, need to create opportunities for parents and children from diverse backgrounds to problem solve and interact verbally. One of the most successful strategies, Durel said, is home visiting — which can help families who may be isolated by geography or economy to gain the skills they need to promote better learning outcomes.

  She acknowledged that the best practices of this model — which requires nearly 100 home visits over two years — is resource intensive, but she said that it’s not nearly as expensive as the long-term consequences of allowing these children to move into their adult lives without the requisite skills and knowledge to meaningfully participate in the economy.

  Azucena Gonzalez, who helped implement such a program at the Gads Hill Center in Chicago, said that many families are at first suspicious of the program, which receives funding through Chicago Public Schools.

  “They think that if they do something wrong, you’re going to correct them and tell them, ‘don’t do that,’” she said. 

  Instead, Gonzalez said, home visitors spend a lot of time praising parents and modeling positive interactions. 

  For more information, visit
www.parent-child.org