March 02, 2004

By: Gordon Baumann
Website: http://www.1st-in-kids.com

The Dawn of Learning: What’s Working in Early Childhood Education

The House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Education Reform today held a hearing on The Dawn of Learning: What’s Working in Early Childhood Education. This was the first in a series of hearings that the subcommittee plans to hold on the importance of early childhood education, the focus of a two-day summit last week hosted by First Lady Laura Bush.

Rep. Mike Castle, chairman of the subcommittee, noted that many recent studies conclude what most have intuitively known for some time -- that the successful acquisition of school readiness and learning skills in the first five years of a child's cognitive development predict a lifetime of future academic success.

For these reasons, early childhood education programs enjoy strong bipartisan support in the Congress, Castle said. Still, I believe that it is appropriate to examine these programs to determine if they truly give their young participants a head start or if additional structural improvements are needed.

Witness testimony at the hearing focused on factors that must be present in order to have an effective early childhood program, and what changes they felt should be made to improve the quality of current federal early childhood programs such as Head Start.

I believe that we all would agree that Head Start has a long history of success, said Dr. Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services. But if the program is to continue to have a positive impact, we must integrate some of the new research findings about childhood learning into the program. This shift in the focus on learning can -- and should -- be accomplished without sacrificing the comprehensive nature of the program.

Under Secretary of Education Dr. Eugene Hickok said the Department of Education is providing information to educators and policy makers about why early education is important and what it takes to ensure that preschoolers’ education experiences are of sufficient quality to make a difference in learning, no matter what their developmental stage. One major thrust of that effort is a focus on early literacy or pre-literacy skills and early reading, especially through the President’s Early Reading First Proposal, Hickok said.

About The Author:

Gordon Baumann is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.1st-in-kids.com.  Helping parents find kid-approved clothes, toys, games, books, activities and more.