Tag: Early education

Project Enlightenment, part of the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), has been providing services to children ages birth through 5 years, their parents, and teachers in childcare and preschool settings since 1969. With a local and grant funded budget of just over 2 million dollars, staff members served about 2,400 children in 2011-12. The number of children impacted increases considerably when siblings and students of the teachers served are included. The overall goal of Project Enlightenment is to prepare children to be successful in kindergarten. The prevention and intervention services available through Project Enlightenment are more comprehensive than those identified within other large school systems. All the districts that were contacted provide developmental screenings. Beyond this, Project Enlightenment provides teacher parent consultations and workshops, parent training via home visits, kindergarten readiness activities, and parent counseling. It also has an onsite parent teacher resource center and two preschool classrooms, one of which is a WCPSS Title I Pre-K classroom. Survey results show that parents and teachers are highly satisfied with the services provided. Analyses on small samples of children served suggest some short-term improvements in children's areas of need. The findings, which cannot be generalized due to the limited samples, also show some positive impact on their kindergarten success. Further evaluation is needed on the long-term success of the service components. Recommendations to staff include strengthening goal setting, adjusting data management systems, modifying service delivery as appropriate, and exploring new public outreach and screening opportunities.

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Early Start, a pilot preschool program, offered three weeks of literacy and social skills preparation to pre-enrolled kindergarten students who have limited to no preschool experience. The percentage of participants mastering the six assessed concepts of print jumped from 5% to 52%. Entering students mastered an average of three out of six concepts of print and finished averaging five out of six. Student progress was also measured using 10 literacy and personal/social items from the Kindergarten Initial Assessment (KIA). Increases in overall proficiency were minimal due to a high number of students entering the program already proficient on the assessed items. Closer examination of these items using a four-part rubric did reveal improvements toward greater proficiency. However, participants scored similarly to demographically matched nonparticipants on the full KIA administered upon entry into kindergarten. Thus, overall results indicate growth for targeted skills. However, this growth was not sufficient to influence overall performance on the KIA.

Full Report (PDF)