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Highlands Today

VPK gives students a boost for kindergarten

Highlands Today file photo

From left: Pre Kindergardeners Jenny Perez, Bella Marrero and Josiah Broder work on letter writing and recognition at A Better Choice Children's Academy in Sebring.

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: October 14, 2009

SEBRING - Social problem solving, creativity and inventiveness, eagerness and curiosity - those are some of the skills and traits prekindergarten teachers look for and encourage in their 4-year-olds.

Kindergarten Learning Center teacher Linda Freeland has taught all four years in the school district's summer Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) program so she sees first-hand how the VPK students make progress. Also, she has noted that some kindergarteners who didn't attend prekindergarten struggle a bit.

The children come in at all different levels, but they make huge gains, Freeland said of prekindergarten students.

Started in August 2005, Florida's Voluntary Prekindergarten Program provides free to all families an opportunity for 4 year olds to learn and practice skills they will need to be successful in kindergarten and throughout life.

Freeland said she sees 4 year olds who have only been at home and never had interaction with other children, which is a big step.

They have to learn to share, wait their turn in line and eat when the clock says it's time to eat, she said. Just getting through a day when you are regulated by the clock is quite an adjustment for some children.

"I'm just amazed that more parents don't take advantage of it VPK," she said. Especially when you see the little guys who struggle when school starts because they didn't attend VPK.

Most of her summer VPK students went into advanced academics kindergarten classes because the VPK was like an extra nine weeks of instruction, Freeland said.

Parents believe their children will learn basic skills from day care, but not all day care programs are created equal, Freeland noted.

Freeland's kindergarteners are writing complete sentences now.

"All the kids are doing sentences now," she said. "They start with capitalization and they can put a period and a question mark and they can read it back to you and they know their vowels."

Highlands School District Director of Elementary Programs Joyce McClelland said children who go to a VPK program have a better opportunity to be ready for school.

Many of the people who have taken advantage of VPK didn't have the income that would have allowed them to send their children to a preschool, she noted. They probably wanted to, but couldn't afford it especially with the economy the way it is now.

According to the state wide 2007-08 VPK Readiness Rates, 54 percent of students who completed Florida's VPK program last year demonstrated overall classroom readiness compared to 42 percent of students who did not attend VPK.

Students are assessed within the first 20 days of kindergarten. Later in the school year the Department of Education releases the results of the "readiness rates."

Florida's VPK program is jointly administered by the Department of Education, the Agency for Workforce Innovation and the Department of Children and Families.

•The Department of Education oversees standards, accountability, curricula and professional development.

•The Agency for Workforce Innovation administers the day-to-day operations of the program including policy development, financial management and oversight of the 31 Early Learning Coalitions.

•The Department of Children and Families provides oversight of child care licensing, regulation, Florida's Gold Seal Quality Care program and issues credentials for child care personnel.

Highlands Today reporter Marc Valero can be reached at 863-386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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