"Head Start is Crap!"

[december]

So says, columnist Mickey Kaus, concisely summarizing a Los Angeles Times Article. See http://www.kausfiles.com/ and http://www.latimes.com/print/asection/20010617/t000050401.html

Kaus writes,

**Bush’s plans to turn Head Start into a literacy program may make sense. Current Head Start programs often emulate the well-known High/Scope model, which shies away from teaching students normal words on the theory that “words are too abstract for young children and hurt their self-esteem if they can’t read them.” … Sounds like B.S., doesn’t it?..

But think how positive those returns would be if the program hadn’t been liberal crap, and instead had been half-rigorous! … Were Charles Murray and the other neocons who lauded High/Scope as about the best government could do sneakily suckering liberals into hanging their pro-intervention argument on an antiquated model of early education? … P.S.: Head Start will cost $6.3 billion next year! … (6/17) **

The LA Times writes

**…The use of symbols, often instead of words, is one of the characteristic features of High/Scope, considered by many educators to be the most influential preschool in America. The approach, embraced by many Head Start programs nationwide, stems from the notion that words are too abstract for young children and hurt their self-esteem if they can’t read them.

But this national model is under attack by President Bush, who thinks the $6.2-billion Head Start program, which serves 1 million impoverished children, isn’t doing enough to help children catch up academically…

Bush’s top advisors contend that Head Start’s failings are one factor in the widening achievement gap between children from affluent and poor families.

Indeed, a recent evaluation of 1,600 Head Start children found that, on average, they recognized only two letters–often fewer than they’d known when beginning the program.
“A probable reason,” researchers found, was that most teachers “do not give children’s acquisition of these skills a particularly high priority.”

…Indeed, children learn the most, the report said, when they’re challenged to learn concepts as well as skills, including connecting the letters of the alphabet to sounds and written numbers to quantities.

In light of that and other research, Bush administration officials say it makes no sense to deliberately hide letters from children, as approaches such as High/Scope seem to do.

[On the other hand…]

         Children Make Progress at Their Own Pace

Epstein argues that such activities show that children are making progress toward reading, but at their own pace. Most days, she says, children will ask to be read to during “work” time. Afterward, some will draw a picture of what they did. Or they will spontaneously tell a story, which the teachers will transcribe.

She says the children see plenty of words around the room, in the labels for “Kitchen Area” or “Book Area” and in the daily schedule. But she decried the use of “scripted” lessons that drill preschoolers on their letters…

“One-size-fits-all lessons don’t work,” she said.
The back-and-forth on the issue has left many experts in how young children learn on the fence. On the one hand, they say the High/Scope model is outdated. On the other, they fear the administration’s sharp focus on reading will bring on a regimen of work sheets and flashcards. **

So, the debate is:

Should Head Start be restructured to replace the High/Scope method with rigid, letter-based pre-reading instruction?

[shell]

Restructuring HeadStart to meet these new criteria would (IMHO) be a mistake http://www.nhsa.org/advocacy/advocacy_position_realstory.htm
http://www.brook.edu/comm/ChildrensRoundtable/Issue5/issue5.htm

Also, longitudinal studies of former Head Start students have found that they score higher on achievement tests and have more positive school report cards by age 10 than non-Head-Start children from the same backgounds and neighborhoods. (Haskins, 1989; Zigler, 1998).

There are improvements that can be made in the Head Start program, but forcing it to become a literacy program isn’t one of them.

[december]

*Originally posted by shell *
**There are improvements that can be made in the Head Start program, but forcing it to become a literacy program isn’t one of them.
**

Can shell or anyone explain why it makes sense to not teach letters in Head Start?

I have no experience with Head Start. However, Sesame Street teaches pre-schooler letters. My kids learned to recognize letters before school. I have a long-ago memory of reciting the alphabet before I could read.

According to the LA Times article, the Head Start kids learn symbols made up by High/Scope. If they can understand High/Scope’s symbols, they could understand letters. That would give them a head start in reading.

Who can explain this?

[Kimstu]

december: Can shell or anyone explain why it makes sense to not teach letters in Head Start?

This is a rather puzzling question, since not only the sources shell linked to but also the LA Times article that you yourself linked to make it clear that indeed, it is required to teach letters in Head Start. I quote from the article you linked:

Three years ago new rules required Head Start programs to teach children at least 10 letters, to develop a wider vocabulary and to learn that letters convey sounds.

And I have not seen shell or anybody else arguing that this is necessarily a bad idea. What is a bad idea, according to critics of the Bush proposals, is to substitute across-the-board requirements of “rigid, letter-based pre-reading instruction” for the current more general developmental goals. As the first of shell’s linked articles notes,

It is essential to understand that in order for children to excel in cognitive skills, the whole child must be nurtured. School readiness (a goal shared by NHSA and those with a focus on academics) is best promoted when the physical, emotional, and social development of the child is given as much attention as the cognitive.

In other words, teaching kids letters in a Head Start program is a very good idea (and is in fact mandatory). Requiring the focus of Head Start to be exclusively on teaching letters and other academic-readiness issues is not such a good idea.

According to the LA Times article, the Head Start kids learn symbols made up by High/Scope.

Actually, the school discussed in the article (where the students were using the symbols) is the High/Scope Demonstration Preschool itself, which is not the same as Head Start. According to the article, about a third of Head Start programs are customers for the High/Scope curricular materials, but there is no discussion of how those programs are actually using the materials or whether they are in fact interfering with their reading-readiness work. As the article I quoted before comments,

In its more than three decades of experience, Head Start has come a long way in providing a model for the development of the whole child. It is important to recognize that much (if not all) of the criticism leveled against the program is based on “research” that was carried out on a program that no longer exists. Since 1990, there have been tremendous changes in Head Start brought about by a continued focus on quality and improvement promoted by Head Start Practitioners, Congress and the two most recent administrations (Bush and Clinton).

So if you are going to go around making assertions like “Head Start is Crap!”, I think you need more substantial data about Head Start programs themselves. At present, the facts you’ve provided that are actually relevant to Head Start amount to these:

• A recent survey of 1600 Head Start children showed that they knew on average only two letters;

• About a third of Head Start programs use High/Scope curricular materials.

IMHO, this is very inadequate as evidence either that “Head Start is Crap” or that it ought to be recast as a narrowly-focused literacy program instead of a more general developmental program. Obviously, more information is needed before there can be a useful debate about this, and I’m pleased to see that the Bush administration is planning a “conference of early-childhood experts” this summer to attempt to provide some.

*Who can explain this? *

Hope this helped.

[december]

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
**
So if you are going to go around making assertions like “Head Start is Crap!”, I think you need more substantial data about Head Start programs themselves. At present, the facts you’ve provided that are actually relevant to Head Start amount to these:

• A recent survey of 1600 Head Start children showed that they knew on average only two letters;

• About a third of Head Start programs use High/Scope curricular materials. **

Thanks for the info, Kimstu.

“Crap” was part of a quote from Democratic columnist Kaus. I used the quote to attract attention.

How does one reconcile a 10 letter requirement with a survey showing that the kids know only 2 letters. Also, why teach only 10 letters? [Insert you own joke.]

Anyone out there who has direct experience in this program?

[Kimstu]

december: How does one reconcile a 10 letter requirement with a survey showing that the kids know only 2 letters.

Good question; maybe the survey was taken in or before 1998 when the 10-letter requirement was enacted? Do you have any other information at all on this mysterious survey? I did some web searches but came up dry.

Also, why teach only 10 letters?

(Seriously, you did gather from the linked report that the requirement is that children learn to recognize some subset consisting of at least 10 of the 26 letters, not that there is a specially selected subset of letters to be taught, right?)

Anyone out there who has direct experience in this program?

Well, my mom worked with Head Start programs, so I could ask her; but her experience was maybe 25 years ago, so I doubt it would be that relevant.

[Dangerosa]

Please note that Head Start is a preschool program. The children are mostly 3 and 4 years old. Yes, many of us and our children knew our ABCs before kindergarten, and some of us could read, but the goal of preschool programs is learning readiness. Also, Head Start has a large population of kids with low-literacy parents. And over 10% of the children it serves are classed as disabled.

Here is a link from Head Start on helping your child learn to read. Note that letter recognition doesn’t happen until step 10.

http://www.famlit.org/headstart/tipread.html

You can’t teach letters to kids who have never learned to sit still or who haven’t been repeating rhymes and singing songs or who have never been read to.

I suspect Head Start saw 10 letters as a reasonable goal for these kids. I would be interested to know how many kindergarteners who don’t attend preschool start knowing ten letters. And, if they already know their ABCs entering kindergarten, what do we teach them in kindergarten?

[shell]

My mother has been employed by the Head Start program since it’s onset (thirty-something years), and I’ve been learning through her about the program for quite a while now. It helps to remember that Head Start is targeted toward disadvantaged children. The majority of these kids come from very poor homes, many have special needs, there are often abuse/neglect/nutrition/etc. issues. It has been my experience that Head Start attempts to address all these problems (and many others) while at the same time providing preschool education for these disadvantaged children. A phenomenal task involving the children, their parents, and the community at large. It is my understanding that the 10 letter requirement is meant as a minimum goal in Head Start language development instruction.

I would encourage anyone interested in Head Start to contact their county agency and perhaps volunteer at their center. Something that Mr. Kaus himself should have done before making his “crap” statement.

[Pepper_Mill]

Any program that gets childern to start learningis at least something. There are still a lot of kids who start kindergarten without even knowing what colors are. My daycare provider has just decieded to close up after 14 years. I thought that I would check out the Head Start program located at the community college where I am taking classes. While I felt the program was not right for my child, (most of the childern in it are 2-3 year olds, my daughter is alomst 4), the kids were at least learning how to get along with one another and basic things like colors and shapes and counting. I really do feel that Head Start may need to evolve, but then do most school programs. And I don’t mean with standardised testing. But don’t get me started on that!

[elfkin477]

I worked with head start kids through my position with NH Reads last year. Though I primarily worked with children at their child care providers houses and in WIC clinics doing our early literacy program, but I did spend time with HS kids too, and from observing in their classrooms, I know that the vast majority of them knew at least their ABCs, and many of them were beginning to write. Things in their classrooms were labeled with their names as well. Perhaps NH Head Start classrooms are the exception to the generalizations the article made, but I wonder how much data-collecting went into the article’s research.