U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today announced the award of two grants totaling more than $1.7 million to two University of Texas projects for pre-kindergarten teacher training materials and professional development in early childhood reading instruction.

"Reading is the foundation of all learning, and this administration will offer unprecedented support to programs that help children develop reading and language skills, beginning even before kindergarten," Paige said. "These grants are just a few small ways that we intend to accomplish our goal of teaching all children to read well by the end of third grade."

The Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning & Education (CIRCLE) at the University of Texas-Houston received $1.2 million over two years to launch professional development programs in early childhood language acquisition at Head Start centers at three sites, with 14 classrooms in each site.

The funds will support rollout and evaluation of model instructional strategies for pre-kindergarten teachers expected to enhance language learning and early reading skills. The project will use professional development strategies with a strong research base and focus on low-performing schools in high-poverty communities, including some where many children are learning English as a second language.

The objective of the project is to improve the knowledge and skills of early childhood educators to help them to enhance children's language and reading skills. The project also aims to upgrade the training skills of mentor teachers who work with pre-kindergarten teachers.

The Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts (TCRLA) at the University of Texas-Austin received $500,000 to develop a national training model for kindergarten through second-grade teachers in effective early reading instruction.

The TCRLA will use the funds to produce professional development materials to improve teachers' abilities to prevent reading problems among students who are beginning to read. The primary goal of the project is to promote widespread use of effective, research-based practices in reading instruction. To that end, the TCRLA will be turning the practices used successfully and effectively in Texas schools into prototypes for professional development programs that can be used by other states.

The grants come from the Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE), under the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. FIE funds activities that stimulate reform and improve teaching and learning.

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