Culturally and linguistically responsive teaching is coming to more early-childhood education classrooms in Rhode Island.
As part of a grant program through the R.I. Department of Health and the R.I. Department of Human Services, a well-known provider of Head Start services in Central Falls and Pawtucket will be able to expand 2-year-old programs that utilize a teaching method to connect the classroom to children’s home lives.
Children’s Friend is among eight community-based programs or nonprofits that will receive state grants this year to expand preschool-development programs aimed at improving children’s health.
Each of the programs serves a health equity zone, a designation based on specific census tracts that directs additional state resources and programs to support healthier, more-connected communities. The goal is to eliminate health disparities and address the social causes of health problems.
Children’s Friend, a long-standing Providence-based nonprofit, provides education and health services to communities including Central Falls and Pawtucket, where the health equity zone includes most of Central Falls and the bordering area of Pawtucket.
The grants will allow Children’s Friend to create additional classrooms, for children ages 3-5, where teachers follow culturally and linguistically responsive teaching strategies.
‘Children want to be there. Happy children are happy learners.’
SANDRA ROBINSON, Children’s Friend family preservation supervisor
What does that look like? Teachers actively learn about children’s cultures and bring that information into the classroom, including having parents visit and sometimes give presentations on their home cultures. The learning materials incorporate the community’s cultural and linguistic diversity and the classroom is designed so students, and parents, feel welcome.
Children’s Friend, which operates Head Start program classrooms, created its Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Program in 2017, initially with seven classrooms, according to Sandra Robinson, family preservation supervisor for the nonprofit.
Within the first year, Children’s Friend added five more classrooms in the method, and now has more than 25, she said. The new program funding, through the state partnership, will allow the culturally responsive program to reach 1,000 students in pre-K and Head Start classrooms.
How does this approach to teaching relate to health?
“The education relates to health because, one, children want to be there. Happy children are happy learners,” Robinson said.
Parents are more engaged, she said, because they know their children are being taken care of. And they’re invited to participate. Central Falls and Pawtucket have families who are from a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds, including Spanish-speaking families and those from African countries, such as Ghana and Liberia.
“We have a lot of dual-learner children in our Head Start program,” Robinson said. “This allows us to bring their culture into the classroom, so everyone can learn about the culture. And it helps the child feel more a part of the classroom and it makes for a better learning environment.”
Program funds will be administered through Local Initiatives Support Corp. Rhode Island. Its executive director, Jeanne Cola, says health equity zones are place-based strategies that address social determinants of health. The health department wanted a community vehicle, in each zone, that could administer local funds.
Of the Pawtucket and Central Falls population who use Children’s Friend services, she said: “A lot of their children are English as a second language learners. And therefore, a lot of the families are English as a second language learners. By including those families within the classroom in the educational process, it very much helps with the overall educational attainment for the child. So, as they reach the kindergarten age, they are more fully able to participate in that process.”
In addition to Children’s Friend, the preschool-development grants were awarded to seven other community-based groups. They include The Autism Project, which will work in the Central Providence and Woonsocket health equity zones, on evidence-based “Conscious Discipline” instruction, which helps families understand and support their children’s social and emotional growth.
Federal Hill House in Providence will expand the Providence Talks playgroup program, which encourages parents to talk, read and play with their children, using caregivers who work with play groups.
Additional funds will go to the Incredible Years Parenting Groups in Washington County, which have early care and education instruction.
Woonsocket’s health equity zone will receive services through Connecting for Children & Families, which will expand its Parents as Teachers Family Home Visiting program for pregnant and parenting teenagers, and for the Circle of Security parenting-intervention program.
West Warwick will receive early-literacy funds for its library and social-service supports.
Mary MacDonald is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Macdonald@PBN.com.
