FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A pre-school age child in day care may sing, wash his or her hands and play dress-up as part of the day, but to University of Arkansas professor Bobbie Biggs, each of these events presents an opportunity to teach reading readiness. Biggs and a team of trainers have taken their program, which trains day care providers in early literacy learning from Arkansas to the nation.

Biggs and her colleagues presented a four-hour version of a 30-hour training workshop, "Pre-Kindergarten Early Literacy Learning in Arkansas (Pre-K ELLA)," at a recent meeting of the National Association for the Education of Young Children in Chicago. Their four-hour workshop offers hands-on activities for caregivers to increase their awareness of focused learning through play.

Biggs, the statewide coordinator for Pre-K ELLA, and Susan Slaughter, the Pre-K ELLA training advisor, manage approximately 120 trainers located at 14 grant sites. The training program is offered free of charge to child caregivers throughout the state.

"You direct the children’s play and activities so they have an opportunity for learning to happen," Biggs said. "It’s very purposeful teaching, but through play and having fun."

The trainers all have experience with early childhood education and have either a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree. The training is open to child care professionals in registered homes, licensed homes and child care centers.

"We want to help people who work with children do the best they can," Biggs said.

Quality day care is crucial to future educational development, Biggs said. A recent study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development shows that the quality of care of infants and toddlers can impact their cognitive and social development through elementary school and beyond. Other studies have shown that children who have attended pre-kindergarten are 50 percent less likely to need special services than children who have not, Biggs said. Despite studies like these, about 62 percent of children nationwide are in low-quality child care.

"We can’t afford to just baby-sit," Biggs said. "We have to teach in ways that are developmentally appropriate for young children."

The training includes learning how to structure play rooms so they become divided into learning centers; playing games that involve singing and clapping out syllables; using props to tell a story; keeping books near the floor, so children can see them and pick them up to read; and labeling chairs, tables, boxes, walls, doors and everything else with large, easy-to-read words.

"Do they read the words at first? No. But by five, they would recognize the word if you moved it," Biggs said.

The caregivers who take the Pre-K ELLA course get 30 hours of training, a free manual, free program materials and a certificate of completion.

The next step is to test the effectiveness through on-site visits, questionnaires for participants and looking at how prepared children are for kindergarten.

"A lot of our work is going to show up there," Biggs said.

The Pre-K ELLA program was developed by the Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education in the Department of Human Services, the Arkansas Department of Education and Arkansas Head Start.

National workshop leaders included:

Susan Slaughter, Pre-K ELLA and Child Care Curriculum Endorsement training advisor;

Marietta Baltz, Pre-K ELLA trainer and training advisor for Child Care Orientation Training;

NeCol Whitehead, Pre-K ELLA trainer and training advisor for Care giving Certificate;

Debbie Jo Wright, Pre-K ELLA trainer and child and adult care food program administrator for the Northwest Arkansas Family Child Care Association;

Patti Malone, Pre-K ELLA trainer and child and adult care food assistant administrator for the Northwest Arkansas Family Child Care Association;

Kathy Stegall, program support manager for the Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education in the Department of Human Services.

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