Wyandotte County Early Reading First:
Rising to the Challenge of Ensuring Reading
Success in High Risk Children

Martha Staker and Judith J. Carta
(With Mary Abbott, Jane Atwater, and Angela Notari-Syverson)

Project EAGLE Community Programs in Partnership with Juniper Gardens Children's Project,
Economic Opportunity Foundation Head Start, and the Gardner Institute

ABSTRACT (Early Reading First Program)

Project EAGLE will collaborate with Juniper Gardens Children's Project to develop a center of early education excellence in two preschool programs in Wyandotte County Kansas: Economic Opportunity Foundation Head Start and Blessed Sacrament Family Center of the Gardner Institute. Approximately 92% of children attending these centers are from low-income families and would enroll in the Kansas City, Kansas School District. The school district as a whole serves primarily low-income children including 62% who were eligible for the free/reduced lunch program in the last school year. Through this collaboration, intensive professional development will be carried out so that preschool children in these centers will experience science-based instruction, high quality learning environments and intensive early education experiences to prepare them for success in kindergarten.

This project will support professional development of collaborating center staff in the implementation of evidence-based instructional approaches to support children's oral language, phonological awareness, print awareness and alphabet knowledge. Through a series of inservice workshops and on-site support of early literacy mentor coaches, preschool staff will learn to embed instructional practices into developmentally appropriate activities. Preschool teaching staff will learn to implement screening and progress monitoring assessments to make instructional adjustments for individual children and classroom groups. In addition, preschool programs will receive scientifically based oral language and print materials to enrich classroom environments. Professional development will be directed by early literacy researchers at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project of the University of Kansas who will conduct formal workshops (including credit-bearing courses), train early literacy mentor coaches, and guide the formative and summative evaluation of the program.