R2LP Newsletter Summer/Fall 2011

READY TO LEARN PROVIDENCE Vol. 9 No. 1

INSIDE: Visit two of our ERF sites, pp. 3-5 T.E.A.C.H. scholars start the fall semester, p. 6 ERF centers hold a summer Family Fun Day, p. 7 Pre-K Classroom refunded for third year, p. 8

Summer/Fall 2011

Seeing the city through the eyes of young children

“T

his is a great book,” Providence Mayor Angel Taveras told the large crowd at a reception of the National Association for the Education of Young Children Professional Development Institute as he held up a copy of Places to Play.

“I urge you to use it to discover our wonderful city.”

Place

s to P

In Pro

After praising Places to Play at a reception for NAEYC attendees, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras (far right) posed with some of the providers and facilitators who were behind its creation. L-r: Nuris Ynoa, Amy Neveu, Bethany Carpenter, Andrée Howard and Delia CooperHall.

Places to Play: A Guide to the City by our Youngest Citizens was received enthusiastically by the early-care professionals attending the June convention – and by the some 2,000 people who have viewed the publication online. The book was a collaboration of R2LP, Making Learning Visible (a program out of Harvard University) and a peer network of

A guide

viden

to the ci ty by our

lay

ce

youngest

citizens

“Water plac

e Park is acro ss the and tr street ain stat from th ion. Th e Mall e sun shines near th throug e Stateh h the w ouse hole cit y.”

Providencebased early-care educators to welcome the more than 2,500 NAEYC participants and to increase the visibility of our youngest children.

Christia

n, Age 4

Continued on Page 6

R2LP AmeriCorps program is refunded

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2LP was thrilled to learn in late May that its 35-member AmeriCorps program has been funded for another three years.

Competition for AmeriCorps funds has never been stiffer, according to AmeriCorps Director John Gomperts, who says that this year his department received “more requests for funding than ever before.” R2LP was one of five Rhode Island organizations to receive a grant.

R2LP, which has had a large and vibrant AmeriCorps program since 2005, welcomed its seventh team in mid-August. This team includes 16 mem-

Ready to Learn Providence 945 Westminster Street Providence, RI 02903 Tel: 401.490.9960 Fax: 401.490.9959 www.r2lp.org R2LP is a program of The Providence Plan

Our 2010/2011 team gathers for a group picture at its endof-year celebration in June.

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Continued on Page 7

From the Director

F R2LP Staff Denise Beltre Administrative Assistant Victoria Botelho Pre-K Teacher, CCRI Classroom Bethany Carpenter Professional Development Coordinator Christine Chiacu-Forsythe Director of Educational Partnerships Cynthia Ferguson Coordinator of Communications Leslie Gell Director Gail Gonsalves Operations Manager Nazly Guzman Director of AmeriCorps Julie LePain Early Literacy Coach Desiree Manley Early Literacy Coach Samantha McCormack Early Literacy Coach Joseph Mirsky Early Literacy Associate Magda Ortiz Assistant Director of AmeriCorps Venita Parham Data & Evaluation Admin. Asst.

Maura Pearce T.E.A.C.H. Coordinator Jeffrey Priest Research and Evaluation Specialist Tania Quezada Director of Community & Family Partnerships Kerry Roderick Assistant Teacher, CCRI Classroom Susan Sevegny Early Literacy Coach Reyna Zapata Early Literacy Coach

R2LP is on Facebook. Join us there and be the first to see what we and our partners are doing. Find a link to our Facebook Page on the home page of our website, www.r2lp.org.

or more than eight years, Ready to Learn Providence has worked toward the goal that “All children in Providence will enter school healthy and ready to learn.” That vision has kept us focused on who we serve and why our work is important.

Over the past year or two, however, it was becoming clear to us that our work had outpaced that vision in some significant ways. As is apparent in all the stories in this newsletter, our work has expanded well beyond Providence. Our Early Reading First program serves centers in Central Falls and Pawtucket, and many of our AmeriCorps members work in those cities.

T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood®, a scholarship program for early-care providers, reaches the entire state, and in the past year we’ve provided training and mentoring support at centers on the East Bay. Our Club de Proveedoras includes many family-care providers

from outside Providence.

We also felt the need to acknowledge that early childhood goes beyond kindergarten, and that perhaps our work should not focus exclusively on readiness for school. The field currently defines early childhood as birth to 8, and we wanted a vision that reflected that age range.

Last spring we embarked on a strategic planning process. At two separate off-site sessions, the entire R2LP staff identified our strengths, our future challenges, the unmet needs of the community, where we are now, and where we see ourselves in five years.

External interviews with some of our partners – conducted

El Club de Proveedoras continues to grow

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2LP ’s El Club de Proveedoras now numbers 263 Spanish-speaking home child-care providers.

The club’s monthly 6-hour training sessions – conducted in Spanish – give members an opportunity to strengthen their skills and earn hours toward the renewal of their licensing. For information, call Tania Quezada at (401) 490-9960.

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by an outside facilitator – were enormously helpful in this process. At the heart of all of our discussions was the formulation of a new vision statement.

After much debate we came to a consensus: “All children will have high-quality early education, and a healthy start.” We believe this statement more accurately addresses our ultimate goal, and also gives us the flexibility to pursue new initiatives as needs and opportunities surface in the future.

I don’t want to suggest that R2LP’s work will change dramatically as a result of this new vision. I suspect that providing professional development for the early-care providers and parents of our youngest children will continue to represent the lion’s share of what we do.

And as has been true since our inception in 2003, we will never lose sight of the ultimate prize – the children in our community.

Leslie Gell Director

ERF Profiles This is the second in a series of profiles on the five centers participating in our current Early Reading First program. We visited these two sites last spring when gardens were a popular theme.

The Roger Williams Day Care Center remains a cornerstone of the neighborhood

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n 1973, something happened in Providence that had never been seen before anywhere in the country: tenants in a subsidized housing project planned, built and began operating a day care center for their children. The Roger Williams Homes, long a landmark off Thurbers Avenue, have been replaced by newer housing, but the Roger Williams Day Care Center is still going strong.

A day care center by design, the original building provides a bright central space surrounded by classrooms, with kidsize washroom facilities and convenient passageways between rooms. In 1988, an infant/toddler wing was added, doubling the center’s capacity to 170 children.

Family tradition is part of the appeal here. Balbina Young, who until recently served as director of the center and continues to work as a consultant, has been a member of the Roger Williams family since 1975, when her own children were Continued on Page 4

Children in one of the classrooms watch their seeds grow into plants and learn about gardening with related books.

Children and teachers at Progreso Latino flourish in a bilingual setting

“W

hat I love most about working at Progreso Latino,” says teaching assistant Maritza Rosario, “is the language. It’s a truly bilingual and bicultural center. All of the children, even the English-speaking children, end up using both languages.”

Continued on Page 5

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A visit to Roger Williams Continued from Page 3

first enrolled. As the years went by, several nieces and nephews and then her grandchildren, great-nieces and great-nephews attended the center.

“Relationships are important,” Balbina says. “Most of the staff have been here for 10 to 15 years. We don’t advertise. Children come to us through word-of-mouth.

Parents are impressed with the delivery of services.”

Staff members are particularly excited about being part of the Early Reading

LEA Kerry Roderick works with a child in the science center.

First initiative. In 2009, Roger Williams was selected to be one of five centers partnering with Ready to Learn Providence in its third federally funded ERF program, which aims to strengthen early literacy instruction. Over the course of three years, participating teachers and assistants receive up to four college-level, credit-bearing courses in early literacy, extensive on-site mentoring, and numerous resources and materials. ERF also funds an early literacy associate (ELA), who provides additional support in the classrooms.

Jermell Johnson, a staff member for 12 years who teaches a class of 3-yearolds, says the training she has received makes a big difference: “There’s a reason

for everything we do. I feel like a smarter teacher now.”

One of the key components of the ERF program is the OWL curriculum.

(OWL, short for Opening the World of Learning, offers a series of units that each teach early literacy in several subject areas, including writing, science, math, art and dramatic play.) In a unit covered last spring, Things That Grow, children played with seeds at the sand table, planted a spring crop of vegetables in the room, made salads and shared books and songs.

“Before, some children had never seen what a vegetable looks like whole,” Jermell said. “They were so excited to hold them in their hands. They learn faster with OWL.” Seeds were also growing in LaToya Clement’s classroom, where labels on the plants provide a subtle literacy lesson. On one wall there are posters of poems that the children are learning to recite together, an activity that helps them develop language and literacy skills, self-control and interaction with others. “OWL is great,” says LaToya. “It helps us teach in all the domains” identified in the Rhode Island Early Learning Standards.

Alicia Johnson, who teaches 4-year-

LaToya Clement teaches measuring skills with bird seed.

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A child takes an order from a customer in his restaurant.

olds, is excited about what she’s learned in her evening classes. For one assignment, she created a felt board to use with the book Dog’s Colorful Day. She says her children have enjoyed using the felt pieces to retell the story and develop their own variations.

The long days don’t bother Alicia.

“Working with children comes from my heart,” she says. “This is the work I want to do.”

Kerry Roderick, who was the ELA at Roger Williams last year, says her favorite thing to do is work individually with the most challenging children. She mentions one boy who showed no eagerness for learning at first. After some time working with him, things changed, she says. He began to enjoy writing his name and he learned to identify several letters. By the end of the year, he was asking Kerry to work with him.

An R2LP AmeriCorps member assigned to Roger Williams helps teachers with activities and sometimes works separately with small groups of children.

“Music is my favorite way to teach literacy skills,” says Xiomara Rodriguez, the member who worked at the center last year.

The children loved when she brought in her guitar to accompany circle games, play musical chairs and sing songs.

For educators, these are literacy activities. For kids, they’re just fun.

A visit to Progreso Latino Continued from Page 3

Progreso Latino was founded in Central Falls in 1977 to meet the needs of the growing Latino population in Rhode Island. Its programs address the many challenges facing new immigrants, such as language, citizenship, employment, child care, health and education.

One of the largest of its programs is the Progreso Excellence Academy, which includes an all-day program for children ages 3 to 5, and an after-school program for children ages 6 to 12. This year its early-care program received an enviable four-star accreditation from BrightStars, the state’s quality rating and improvement program.

In 2009 two of the preschool classrooms at Progreso Latino became part of Ready to Learn Providence’s Early Reading First program. One of those rooms was also a site in the state’s Pre-kindergarten Demonstration Project, funded by Central Falls and staffed with a Central Falls teacher, Cindy Colapietro.

“The children have made incredible gains this year,” said Cindy in the late spring. “Kids who came here with no English last fall are nearly fluent now.”

Books and labels in the classroom’s many interest centers are in both languages, and early reading and writing skills are integrated into all of the activities.

ERF teachers and teaching assistants

receive collegelevel courses in early literacy, books and other materials for their classrooms and, perhaps most importantly, the on-going support of a mentor. Julie LePain is the mentor who has been assigned to Progreso Latino, helping teachers take what they learn in class and applying that knowledge in their settings.

(L-r) Teacher Maritza Acosta and ERF Mentor Julie LePain play a literacy Maritza Acosta, game with children. a co-teacher in education and to make a beautiful place Cindy’s classroom, has enjoyed using the for them.” Her involvement with ERF, skills she’s learned in her ERF classes. she adds, has helped her engage parents “I love working on reading, writing and vocabulary development with in the education of their children, and to the children,” she says. She, too, sees keep them better informed about the specific progress their children are making. tremendous value in the bilingualism Says her assistant teacher Amarilys of the center. “Kids who couldn’t say Roque, who has been at Progreso Latino a word in English are now speaking in for 11 years: “I love my work. I often start full sentences, but I think it’s great that at 6:10 in the morning, but when I walk they’re keeping their Spanish too.” into the classroom I always feel a lot of In the second ERF classroom at Progreso Latino, teacher Zelma Malave energy.” is reading Make Way for Ducklings to the children, encouraging discussions about it in both English and Spanish.

“I love this age group and I love teaching in both languages,” says Zelma, who has been an early-care educator for seven years. “At Progreso Latino we all try hard to help children enjoy their

Assistant Teacher Amarilys Roque

Teacher Zelma Malave reads and talks about Make Way for Ducklings.

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Places to Play Continued from Page 1

“It’s a reminder that even our youngest citizens can serve as ambassadors for their communities,” wrote the R2LP/MLV Peer Network facilitators – Ben Mardell (from MLV) and Bethany Carpenter (from R2LP) – in a letter explaining the intent of the book.

Places to Play in Providence was part of a powerful and ongoing six-month Peer Network professional development initiative. In creating the book, early-care educators explored best practices to support a child’s learning. Teachers talked with children about what play is and where it happens. They introduced children to the concept of drafts and feedback, and they engaged families who shared photographs of their children’s favorite places to play.

They helped children share ideas and expertise with their classmates as well as with children from other centers.

The result is a charming 20-page book of drawings and dictations by preschoolers in Providence. Their favorite places run the gamut from their own backyards to Roger Williams Park. Waterplace Park and the Children’s Museum come highly recommended, as does the Asian Palace, where Leila likes the udon noodles.

The project was partially funded by a RIAEYC BrightStars Peer Network grant.

To see a digital version of the publication, you can find a link on the home page of our website, www.r2lp.org, under New at R2LP. (Top) Two children work on their drawings of their favorite places to play. (Above) Facilitator Ben Mardell from Making Learning Visible talks with teachers in the R2LP/MLV Peer Network about the process.

T.E.A.C.H. scholarship recipients head to class

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all classes have started at the Community College of Rhode Island for more than two dozen early-care providers who received scholarships through T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® RI. These awards cover 80 percent of their tuition and 90 percent of the cost of their books.

T.E.A.C.H. has begun accepting applications for the spring semester. Please call Maura Pearce at (401) 490-9960 for information and a phone consultation.

Applicants must be sponsored by the child-care centers where they work or be licensed family child-care providers.

The program is currently open to 6

individuals who wish to pursue an associate’s degree in early childhood education (ECE). Teachers and home providers who have an associate’s or a bachelor’s degree in a major unrelated to ECE, and who are in need of ECE coursework or an ECE certificate from CCRI, can also apply for funding.

ERF sites come together for a day of family fun

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n a sunny Saturday this summer, more than 150 children and families from our Early Reading First sites enjoyed an afternoon at Slater Park in Pawtucket doing a wide range of activities that support the curriculum used in their classrooms.

Children created books about their families, tie-dyed backpacks, painted murals, experimented with shadows and reflections, made and decorated mirrors,

planted seedlings in pots and created bubbles. While there were many earlylearning skills embedded in the activities, children just saw them as lots of fun.

Teachers, mentors and early literacy associates from each of the five ERF early-care centers volunteered their time to facilitate the different activities.

No summer event is complete without ice cream, of course, and children all received books to enjoy at home.

AmeriCorps Continued from Page 1

bers who are returning for a second, third and even fourth year at R2LP. In September, after three weeks of intensive training, they received their assignments and began their work in early-care centers, libraries, pediatric clinics, WIC programs, and the R2LP offices.

Members receive additional training at R2LP throughout the year, some of which is offered for college credit.

Members of this year’s team received three weeks of training in early literacy, early childhood development, the community, and other relevant topics before going into the field in September.

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Non-Profit Org. U.S.Postage PAID Providence, RI Permit #02490

Ready to Learn Providence 945 Westminster Street Providence, RI 02903

Tel: 401.490.9960 Fax: 401.490.9959 www.r2lp.org R2LP is a program of The Providence Plan

Funding for R2LP has been provided by: •

US Department of Education • US Department of Health & Human Services, Child Care Bureau • Annie E. Casey Foundation • Corporation for National & Community Service/ Rhode Island Service Alliance • Brown Rudnick Charitable Foundation • The Ocean State Job Lot Charitable Foundation • United Way of RI • The Urban Institute • Dexter Donation Fund • IBM Corporation • R.I. Department of Education • R.I. General Assembly • The Rhode Island Foundation • Bank of America • Providence Public School Department

R2LP Classroom starts its third year in the state’s Pre-kindergarten Project

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lottery held on August 19 identified the 18 four-years-olds who will attend the R2LP Classroom this year. The classroom, one of five sites in the state’s Pre-kindergarten Project, runs from September to June.

Administered by the R.I. Department of Education, the Pre-K Project is designed to show the impact of high-quality early-care education on a child’s future academic career. In 2010, the R2LP Classroom received five stars – the highest ranking – from BrightStars, the state’s quality rating and improvement program.

Teachers and children in last year’s program perform a song for families at an end-of-the-year celebration in June.

The contents of this newsletter are solely the responsibility of R2LP and do not represent the official views of our funders, nor does this publication in any way constitute an endorsement by the funding agencies.

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