College of Education Receives U.S. Department of Education Grant
Project Recovery to Help At-Risk Youth in New Orleans
 |
Jennifer Berthelot
| The LSU College of Education was recently awarded a three-year, $3.6 million grant from the United States Department of Education for Project Recovery, an Early Reading First Initiative. The program is in partnership with the University of New Orleans and will be instituted in seven preschool classrooms in six schools in New Orleans. The children enrolled in these classes are at risk based on family income levels and disruptions due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Though these children were babies when the storms made landfall, studies have shown that the mental health of young children is worse now that they are older than it was for them immediately after the storms. While they have few memories of the storm, they have experienced the uncertainty and obstacles their parents and guardians have faced regarding permanent living conditions in the aftermath of the storms. The preschool programs currently in place will be supplemented by a more targeted early literacy program. The addition of this intensive program will allow for more focused strategies for helping children and families regain ground lost due to the disruption caused by the storms. “This program is about emergent literacy,” said principal investigator and College of Education associate professor Renee Casbergue. “It focuses on children learning early literacy skills such as comprehending stories that are read aloud, identifying letters, increasing their phonemic awareness, and understanding that oral language can be written down and read.” The goal of the program is to enhance literacy practices by offering more opportunities for literacy-based activity in both teacher instruction and in play centers. Beyond pencil and paper strategies, “we want to make sure schools can integrate literacy learning into the curriculum while maintaining child-centered instruction and free-play time,” said Casbergue. A major goal is to increase children’s opportunities to engage with print in ways that make sense to them. For example, teachers put literacy resources such as books, paper, and pencils into play centers in the classroom. The books are age-appropriate and fit the theme of the play center. The block center, for example, would include children’s books about construction. In one Mississippi class Casbergue observed in preparation for starting Project Recovery, a teacher put down mock order forms in the block center. The students began their play by ordering construction materials as they took out the blocks. Casbergue talked to one little girl who appeared to be reading a book while playing with blocks. When asked what she was reading, the girl responded that she was looking at the plans for her building. “Dr. Casbergue and I have learned so much about Early Reading First from our experiences as outside evaluators in Alabama and Mississippi, and we are looking forward to creating similar experiences with teachers and children in New Orleans,” said April Bedford, Ph.D., associate professor and department chair of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of New Orleans. The program also includes a small-group, focused literacy lesson lasting 15-20 minutes each day. Students take part in game-like activities such as sorting pictures or toys by the starting sound of the object’s name to engage in literacy skills development in an active learning environment. Another strategy is shared reading with children, whereby they are given the opportunity to interact with one another. This will often be done in partnership with shared writing activities in which students discuss how letters relate to sounds using words from the stories they have read. All of the materials used in these group activities are also left out during free-play so that all of the students will have the opportunity to use items like easels, markers, and picture cards. This simple addition of materials to children’s options for free-play can significantly increase the amount of time they engage with literacy concepts. Teachers who will be selected to participate in this program will be highly qualified teachers, open to implementing program features and engaging with other teachers in the program through scheduled professional development. The professional development for teachers includes an introduction to the program and learning the new literacy curriculum and how it integrates into what they are already doing. The objective is to help teach them to interact with the students in ways that encourage literacy development. For example, during one of Casbergue’s observations, two girls in a class were pretending to prepare for a party. The teacher asked them if they were going to send invitations to the party. The girls loved the idea and started writing and decorating invitations to their party. Teachers will be prepared to make suggestions like these that provide literacy enhancement to activities children initiate. The grant will also help furnish the classrooms with enhancements to make them literacy-rich. This will include everything from furniture like small tables for group reading and writing, to print displays and books. All of which will belong to the school after the three-year duration of the grant. “We are very excited about working with teachers and schools in New Orleans, addressing the literacy needs of those most affected by the 2005 hurricanes,” said M. Jayne Fleener, dean of the College of Education at LSU. “Working collaboratively with our New Orleans partners, we hope to help these students and their families transition their early school experiences to a lifetime of educational successes.” The leaders of Project Recovery hope that this program’s new initiatives will be carried on once the three-year grant is over. “There is a crisis in education in New Orleans and many opportunities have been lost,” said Casbergue. This program may prove to be one of the most important and lasting hurricane recovery efforts yet. |
Angela Owings Broussard | College of Education
Highlights
