October 11, 2017Update from the Virgin IslandsAnna Scarbriel, community lead, USVI GLR Campaign, updated us on the Community Foundation of the Virgin Island's ongoing efforts to aid the recovery across all three islands. Scarbriel emphasized the need to be mindful of meeting critical immediate needs, while also rebuilding in such a manner that addresses long-standing shortcomings in their early childhood and K-12 systems. New Orleans Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (NOCGLR) Hosts Mayoral ForumNOCGLR, in partnership with the United Way of Southeast Louisiana and the Institute of Mental Hygiene, hosted a mayoral forum on September 27. The forum aimed to shed light on the critical need for increased municipal funding in New Orleans to support early child care, education and summer learning programming. The forum received support from a diverse set of community nonprofit leaders, including more than 50 community organizations signing a joint statement of support. Be An Everyday HeroThe daily back-and-forth interactions between parents and children, the sharing of songs, books and rhymes, the simple routines that add structure to a child’s learning, all of these are ways that parents can help their children build their brains. These are the activities of an Everyday Hero, a new text messaging initiative recently launched by the Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading to support parent success. Five "Wows" and "Worries" from LENA Conference 2017The recent LENA Conference gathered experts in social change, education, health care, funding and research to discuss early language development and the shared mission to close the achievement gap. If you were not able to join the conference in person, LENA has compiled archives to keep you in the loop. Poster and presentation archives are available as well as the conference summary, which covers the five "wows" and "worries" that came to light during the conference.Read for the Record ActivitiesOctober 19 is quickly approaching, but there's still time to spread the word and plan events and activities for Jumpstart's Read for the Record. The activities and resource toolkit has ideas for family and classroom events as well as flyers, posters, certificates, bookmarks and much more! Don't miss out on the festivities, make sure you're registered! Pop-Ups Bring Preschool to Low-Income CommunitiesPop-up preschools, a program created by the YMCA, utilize libraries, neighborhood centers, churches and the beach to offer low-income children preschool opportunities that they normally wouldn't be able to afford. The YMCA runs 104 pop-up preschools in 27 states, serving nearly 1,900 children plus a parent or grandparent of each child. A key goal of the program is to provide more opportunities for low-income children to attend high-quality preschools so they’ll be more prepared socially and academically when they start kindergarten. Early Truancy Prevention ProjectThe Early Truancy Prevention Project (ETPP) was designed to improve attendance of primary-grade children by facilitating communication between teachers and parents and giving the teachers the lead role in intervening with students when attendance problems emerge. An analysis of attendance data indicated that ETPP significantly reduced the prevalence of absenteeism without excessively burdening teachers. October October 16-18 October 19 October 23-24 November |