Texas First Lady Opens UT-Houston Center to Improve Preschool Literacy

Texas First Lady Laura Bush recently helped inaugurate a new center at The University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center to help families and teachers assist young children in getting ready for reading and learning as they approach school.

Texas First Lady Laura Bush helps children cut the ribbon at the inauguration of the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education.

The Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (CIRCLE) will use the knowledge gained from 20 years of research with children and their families to help improve preschool education and literacy in Texas. In cooperation with Texas Education Agency, CIRCLE will:

• conduct workshops and side-by-side training with teachers in Head Start and other early childhood programs to help prepare children for kindergarten;
• identify age-appropriate tools to evaluate the progress of preschool children in acquiring pre-literacy and language skills;
• provide training in using the tools for assessment teams in the Texas Even Start programs.

"I'm thrilled to be here to help launch the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education," Mrs. Bush said. "CIRCLE will serve as the state's premier center for early childhood research and initiatives."

"This is such a wonderful opportunity to get children ready for school and to give them a much better chance for success," says Dr. Susan H. Landry, director of CIRCLE and holder of the Michael Matthew Knight Memorial Professorship in Pediatrics at The University of Texas-Houston Medical School.

Dr. Landry's ongoing National Institutes of Health study of 365 families provides a "solid research foundation" for the CIRCLE program, she says. The babies in the initial study are now 8 or 9 years old. The study has yielded "the most amazing amount and quality of information" about how children develop over time, the role of poverty on development, and what factors predict a better outcome. Results of the study have already been used to develop a parenting and mentoring program in partnership with Acres Homes in Houston.

CIRCLE will provide information that will help Head Start and other early childhood programs improve children's language and pre-literacy skills. Helping the children increase such skills as awareness of print, understanding the sounds of letters and increasing their vocabulary will aid in getting the children ready for kindergarten.

Too many Texas children enter school not ready for reading and learning. Ensuring that preschool children have the right kind of experiences that prepare them for school is an important task. In the past legislative session, the Legislature appropriated $17 million for pre-reading and language activities in Head Start and early childhood programs.

"We regard reading failure as a public health problem," says Dr. M. David Low, president of UT-Houston. "We're interested in reading because illiteracy is at the heart of many of our social, medical and economic problems."

- Ina Fried

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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