Few investments are as fruitful as those made in early education. Countless studies show that dollars spent on our youngest children can make a real difference as these children move through the academic system, and, indeed, through life.
In pursuing its vision that all children in Providence will enter school healthy and ready to learn, Ready to Learn Providence has invested more than $10 million in programs designed to improve the quality of a preschooler’s education. It raises resources from both the public and private sectors – funds that might not otherwise come to Providence.
In August 2006, R2LP won a $3.2 million Early Childhood Education Professional Development Project grant – one of only three awarded in the country. That award funded a three-year professional development program and study that got under way in February 2007. In this program, which included an extensive evaluation component, nearly 300 center-based and family-care providers received college-level courses, on-the-job coaching and mentoring, and the opportunity to participate in R2LP clubs and activities.
Since 2004, R2LP has won three Early Reading First awards. Administered by the U.S. Department of Education, this program supports the transformation of early learning programs into high-quality centers of educational excellence. In its first two ERF programs, R2LP provided staff at nine centers in Providence with the professional development and mentoring support needed to implement an early-literacy curriculum and add richness to their classrooms. In September 2009, R2LP learned it had won a third ERF award to work with five additional centers in three cities – Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls.
R2LP’s popular HeadsUp! Reading program has helped more than 800 early-care providers integrate early literacy activities into their daily programming.
R2LP’s highly successful AmeriCorps program is now in its fifth year. The 34 members are assigned to branches of the Providence Public Library, early-care settings throughout the city, pediatric clinics and programs headquartered at R2LP to promote early-literacy skills.
For fuller descriptions of these and other R2LP investments, please go to the links at right.
