Summary Report, Good Start, Grow Smart, State Early Learning Guidelines Roundtable

From Blueprint to Reality: Early Learning Guidelines Implementation

Index: Preface, About The GSGS Initiative, Overview of the GSGS Roundtables, Summary of Key Points: Effective Collaboration; Infrastructure for Support; Dissemination of Information; Integration of ELGs into the Professional Development System; Assessment and Evaluation, Conclusion/Acknowledgements, Appendix: Agenda, Participant List, Work Group List

How do I become a participating provider?

Summary of Keypoints: Dissemination of Information

The goals of ELG development and implementation include extending access to high-quality early childhood care and education programs for young children and increasing school readiness of entering kindergarteners. To make these goals a reality, it is essential to disseminate ELGs to a number of key groups, including child care centers; Head Start programs; prekindergarten programs; family, friend, and neighbor caregivers; credentialing institutions; 2- and 4-year colleges; parents; and the community at large. Key recommendations that emerged from State discussions are:

• Agree on a clear, consistent message. A well-articulated message is essential in promoting the dissemination and implementation of ELGs. Public awareness campaigns must make known the purpose of ELGs, as well as how to access and use them. Sending a strong, clear message about the importance of ELGs and early childhood care and education to businesses, policymakers, and legislators is also important as a first step in giving ELGs traction and momentum.

Broad public awareness campaigns try to leverage general public support for early care and education, whereas campaigns focused on ELGs are targeted at getting materials and information to key constituencies. (See below for examples of dissemination efforts aimed at parents and practitioners.)

• Make ELGs available and accessible to a wide variety of stakeholders. A key strategy is to make ELGs readily accessible to people of multiple cultures, in multiple regions, and with varied types of early childhood interests. The translation of ELGs and corresponding materials into multiple languages is important if they are to have widespread use. In addition to translating written ELG materials, States are making training on the guidelines available in the dominant languages of the State.

In addition to language, another potential barrier to accessibility of materials and training is the remoteness of rural areas. Arkansas utilizes a distance-learning program to make sure training reaches child care providers in even the most remote areas. Making the information available via the Internet is another strategy for making ELGs available and accessible to wide groups of people in different areas of a State.

Additionally, assuring that ELGs and corresponding materials are appropriate for the full range of early childhood groups, such as special education or tribal child care, is key to their widespread use. For example, Oklahoma has worked to align ELGs with Head Start standards, as well as making them culturally relevant for tribal child care.

• Develop focused materials for parents and practitioners so that ELGs are known and understood. Parent involvement has proven vital to State ELG partnerships. Dissemination of ELGs to parents via activity packets, activity cards, and interactive calendars has been extremely successful in many States. Parent dissemination materials should provide clear information on development in each domain, benchmarks for this development, and strategies for encouraging it. Such materials are distributed mainly through early childhood care and education programs, but also through dentists’ offices, libraries, community action agencies, and community health centers.

Maryland, Arkansas, and Rhode Island each have developed and disseminated materials that help parents know how to support their children’s development and how to seek out quality early childhood care and education. In Rhode Island, parents and early childhood professionals worked in partnership to develop family materials in both English and Spanish that have been widely disseminated to homes throughout the State. The materials are also available on the Department of Education website³ to provide more universal access. Professional development sessions with early care and education professionals emphasize how the materials can be used to strengthen partnerships between families and providers.  

Similarly, materials for providers should be clear and user-friendly and detail specific stages of development and activities to support them. One State noted that it is helpful to use “guidelines” language when disseminating materials to providers so that they will see the materials as a resource to help them in their work, rather than as another set of standards on which they will be regulated and evaluated. In Rhode Island, the Departments of Education and Human Services worked with Rhode Island Kids Count to produce attractive materials that include a standards book and poster. Materials were mass-mailed to child care programs, Head Start, public preschool and kindergarten teachers, and family child care homes. This communication strategy helped to produce a groundswell of interest among providers and prompted many to take advantage of early learning standards professional development opportunities. Rhode Island now offers three levels of professional development, led by a group of trained consultants who follow an established curriculum. In this way, early learning standards information is shared consistently across and among providers.

If dissemination of clear information on early child development occurs simultaneously to providers and parents, then both are more informed and can reinforce each other’s efforts towards supporting school readiness. In Ohio, efforts are made to ensure that Head Start program staff, child care providers, and parents are equally informed about early childhood development and early learning standards by integrating early learning content standards into training opportunities such as regional trainings, a statewide early childhood conference, a conference focusing on evaluation and assessment tools, and early literacy seminars where toolkits are disseminated. Many trainings are conducted on weekends and evenings to better accommodate parents.

• Prioritize choices about target audiences for dissemination. Given limited resources, many States face difficult choices with regard to which providers to reach out to first. Because it is relatively easy to reach licensed, center-based providers and teachers in early childhood education settings, they are usually the first target audience for dissemination, rather than family, friend, and neighbor care providers. Broad target audiences, such as the general public, are hard to reach successfully, given limited resources. Launching an expensive public awareness campaign is not always feasible within agency budgets. Partnering with multiple agencies and organizations to increase resources is a strategy for reaching all stakeholders over time.

Continuing challenges identified in the area of dissemination include:

• Which groups are not yet targeted for ELG information dissemination, and why not?

• How can these groups be reached? Who are the best partners, and what are the best methods?

³http://www.ride.ri.gov/els (Back to Text)

⁴http://www.readyatfive.org (Back to Text)

Summary of Key Points: Integration of ELGs into the Professional Development System >>