Thinking Young, Very Young, with Title I
June 7, 2011 by Irene Sege
Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children
A school district in Wisconsin is trying something innovative with its use of federal Title I funds for children younger than kindergarten age. Instead of focusing only on 3- and 4-year-olds, as school systems often do, the Appleton Area School District (AASD) created a Birth-Five Coalition to develop al district-wide plan for the communities youngest children.
“The school district’s Birth-Five program emerged as a response to concerns over school readiness of incoming kindergartners in the district and growing attention to the need to improve kindergarten through third grade reading performance. The district was striving to get all of its students reading on grade level by third grade and recognized this would be impossible when children were already entering kindergarten with significant gaps.” notes a brief
