Photo by Kimberly Kintz Harder unpacking books

Knowing that she and her staff were heading into uncharted territory—armed with nothing more than a concept—they came to the project with one decisive element that helped everything else fall into place: an agenda. That agenda was to increase the literacy skills and abilities of children from birth through age six living in the Gary area. A program such as this was new in the area, and Harder and her staff had their work cut out for them.

With more than 400 children in the Gary area who are in some kind of child-care setting daily, it was imperative that a program was initiated that would teach the children, from an early age, the benefits of good literacy skills and get them excited about reading.

The first item of business was to identify the adults who had the greatest impact on the children. Child-care providers were recognized as those having substantial access to children on a regular basis. Next, they had to determine the obstacles that the program faced in order to be able to provide effective literacy instruction. Some of those obstacles included: a wide array of child-care settings and programs; the large turnover rate of providers in the industry; the lack of consistent training standards for the providers; and a lack of adequate funding.

For the ELA, identifying these obstacles helped guide the development of the literacy program. The goal of the ELA was never to take control, but rather to “empower leadership from within,” Harder said. As such, each center chose two providers who would become the trainers, called professional literacy coaches, thus allowing for a familiar training environment and accessible hours in which the training could occur.

Training occurred over a four-day period and provided six, two-hour sessions that covered the fundamentals of literacy. To those who attended, the training proved to be a valuable asset.

“The training was wonderful,” said Lolita Battle, a child-care provider and literacy training participant. “It taught me how to be a better reader and how to make books more interesting to the children.”

The basics of the program were taught to participants in the first series of classes. They educated providers in understanding early language development, how to create literacy-rich environments, where a conversation leads, reading out loud, the importance of the written word, and how to support language and literacy in everyday life.

Joni Jefferson, a family child-care provider and literacy training coach, said that the skills she learned through the training program have proven to be an immense source of inspiration to her. She feels that the skills have enabled her to make books come to life and draw children in to the world of reading. “I have been able to reach kids who otherwise wouldn’t read,” she said. “My greatest satisfaction is that the kids have opened up and found reading to be very enjoyable.”

Jefferson also said that the materials that ELA have provided to her have made all the difference in helping her guide the children toward a lifetime of reading.

As another new year begins, Harder feels that the ELA has been a success. “In my opinion, ELA met and exceeded all its first year goals,” she said. “I am very pleased and proud of the impact ELA has had in its first short year.”

And according to the feedback from program participants, so are they.