RSG | Press Page: Early childhood growth a priority

MIDDLETOWN - Educators, the medical profession and those concerned with children’s welfare are trying to spread the word about the importance of early childhood education.

Janice Gruendel, senior advisor to Gov. M. Jodi Rell on early childhood issues, recently spoke to professionals from various fields at the Middlesex Coalition for Children’s monthly meeting. Rell named Gruendel last August to head her early childhood education initiative in an effort to make Connecticut a national model for early childhood education.

"The challenges and opportunities we have in Connecticut are just like a Rubik’s Cube," Gruendel said about early childhood education programs as she held up the brain-teasing puzzle of the 1980s. "One day it’s aligned properly in plastic. As soon as you touch it, it’s all in skelter. It’s maddeningly difficult (to solve), but it can be done."

The governor’s goal with her early childhood education initiative is to ensure every child has the opportunity to attend a pre-school program, especially lower-income children, before entering kindergarten.

"We have the wind under our wings on this issue," said Gruendel, who is on leave from her position as co-president of Connecticut Voices for Children. Gruendel is also a founding partner in the Ready, Set, Grow..T Kids! Campaign.

It is realized learning in the first eight years of life is crucial, and this includes developing cognitive and social skills.

A child’s brain has 100 billion neurons at birth, and by the age of 2, the brain contains twice as many synapses as the adult brain, Gruendel said. By the age of 5, it is 90 percent.

"We should be focusing a lot in the first three years," she said, adding children are continuing to develop cognitive skills through 8 years old. "Learning doesn’t stop, but it’s a critical period."

Children who are "reading ready" and have attended pre-school programs are able to process problems more easily, while others are slower, Gruendel said. "These children who are not real reading ready; other things are going on in their brain. They may search for words and use a lot of brain energy."

"We should start (educating) prenatally and not stop at age 3," she said. "In Connecticut we’re really pushing preschool. It provides a basis of what we need now."

There is a national policy for school readiness, which pre-school programs help children with emotional and social development, their physical well-being and motor development, language development, as well as cognitive abilities, Gruendel added. Work needs to be done in the important transition for children from pre-kindergarten to kindergarten. It is an important step, which can affect people later in life.

"We need to do early intervention," Gruendel said. "If a child doesn’t have learning experience, they are behind in preschool. If they are behind at age 3 and 5, they are behind in school. If they start school behind, they are more likely to stay back."

There are increasing special education costs, students are failing the Mastery Tests and dropping out of high school, she said.

"That pathway is real to too many people, especially in Connecticut," Gruendel said. "The pathway is there and clear, and we have to stop dancing around it."

Some of the factors affecting whether a child is school ready and in a pre-school program includes if the family income is at poverty level, if the child’s mother has less than a high school diploma, single parenthood, and a non-English language is the primary language in the home, she said.

"It’s really hard for a single parent to raise a child now," Gruendel said, adding the child may not receive quality pre-school care. Many may receive informal child care from family members or friends. "Reading to children is important; it comes after feeding and caring."

The vocabulary of lower-income children when they reach kindergarten is between 5,000 and 6,000 words, she said. For middle- and upper-income children, the range of vocabulary is 20,000 to 30,000 words.

"That sets the stage for readiness," Gruendel said.

In Connecticut, CT Voices for Children compared lower-income children to others in educational issues.

The lower-income children are 1.7 times less likely to attend a pre-school compared to other children. Only 57 percent of low-income children attend pre-school programs compared to 90 percent.

In the fourth, sixth and eighth grades, lower-income children are five times less likely to pass the Connecticut Mastery Tests. Gruendel said. Between 13 and 15 percent of low income children may pass compared to between 69 and 77 percent of other children.

The education gaps continue to grow as the children get older - with lower-income students being 11 times more likely to drop out of high school.

"The kids who most need to be in preschool are those not going," Gruendel said. "They start out uneven, and the gap grows. That has got to be fixed."

However, in Middletown there are numerous opportunities for preschool programs promoted through the Middletown School Readiness Council. The successes can be seen with the higher averages of students passing the Mastery Tests compared to the state averages, as well as a lower high school dropout rate, she said.

"In Middletown, you have school readiness," Gruendel said. "The school readiness program is awesome."

In 2003, a goal was set by 40 organizations that gathered to ensure children born last year would get to kindergarten healthy and ready, Gruendel said. In five years, that would be between 400 and 500 in Middletown.

"There is a base of activities and support" in Middletown to assist with school readiness, she said.

Middlesex Coalition for Children Director Betsy Morgan said Dr. Cliff O’Callahan organized Gruendel’s discussion regarding school readiness.

O’Callahan, a Middlesex Hospital pediatric faculty member in the family practice residency, "wanted to bring in the medical community" on the school readiness issue.

"It shouldn’t be just the purview of educators," he said. When parents come in with their children for well child visits, the physicians ask if the child is in preschool to incorporate the importance of the notion, O’Callahan said.

"We’re far ahead of many communities," he said. In the family practices, doctors are promoting reading to children. The importance of early childhood education is also being instilled in the new doctors during their residencies, O’Callahan added.

To contact Amy L. Zitka, call (860)347-3331 ext. 211 or email [3] azitka@middletownpress.com.