VCU news

By Mike Frontiero
VCU School of Education

RICHMOND, Va. (Sept.13, 2004) – The U.S. Department of Education has awarded the Virginia Literacy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education a $3.3 million grant to collaborate with VCU Head Start in creating an early-childhood reading program that will be the first of its kind in Virginia.

The program, Richmond Early Reading First, will promote preschoolers’ successful transition to Kindergarten and will ensure they have the knowledge and skills necessary for optimal reading development. The federal government has funded 32 Early Reading First projects across the country worth $90 million this year. This is the first such grant awarded in Virginia.

“This grant will allow us to work with the children attending VCU’s Head Start program to provide each child with high quality, pre-reading instruction so they can enter Kindergarten ready to learn and to achieve their full potential,” said Mark Emblidge, director of the Virginia Literacy Institute and vice president of the Virginia Board of Education.

The early-reading program will work in conjunction with VCU Head Start – a program of the VCU School of Social Work. In addition to Emblidge, it will be directed by Joan Rhodes, Ph.D., assistant professor of reading, and Evelyn Reed-Victor, Ph.D., associate professor of special education. Also serving on the project management team will be VCU Head Start Director Phyllis Grooms-Gordon, evaluator Christopher E. Chin, Ph.D., of Children's Hospital in Richmond, and Barbara Gibson, associate director of the Virginia Literacy Institute.

“This project will not only benefit the children in VCU’s Head Start program, but will serve as a model for other early childhood education programs across Virginia and the nation as they prepare young children to become proficient readers,” Rhodes said. “It is an exciting cooperative venture with the School of Social Work’s successful Head Start program.”

Richmond Early Reading First also will:

* provide professional development for pre-school teachers and assistance for parents to support their children’s learning at home

* engage parents in training and consultation activities regarding early-reading strategies they can use at home

* work with an external evaluator to identify children at risk for reading difficulties.

To meet the instructional needs of VCU Head Start children, the three-year grant will provide funds to extend the school day to six-and-one-half hours and to provide a full-day, eight-week summer program for three-year-old children. The grant also will allow VCU Head Start to offer full-day instruction throughout the summer for four-year-old children with a special, elementary school-based, four-week session for children entering Kindergarten.

VCU Head Start, a delegate agency of Richmond Public Schools, was founded in 1996. It serves 210 three-and-four-year-old children in a community-based partnership of six pre-school programs.

The Virginia Literacy Institute was established as a partnership between VCU and the Virginia Literacy Foundation to conduct research and development projects in adult education and family literacy. It is located in the VCU School of Education, the 47th ranked School of Education in the United States.