State CYFAR Program Spotlight

Auburn's Begin Education Early — BEE

In rural south-central Alabama, many kindergartners are not ready to learn when they arrive for school each September. Families tend to be poor, have low levels of education, and live in isolated areas, making early childhood education programs difficult to deliver.

Begin Education Early ― a program delivered, quite literally out of the back of a van ― helps parents to see themselves as children’s first teachers, and to get their preschoolers ready to learn.

Half of each one-hour class is spent in play with the child; the other
half is spent working on parenting skills.

BEE, as it is known, grabs attention in each of the five counties it serves just by being there – each van is bright yellow and decorated with bee graphics. This is very intentional, because the educators must not only drive the van and deliver the program, they are also recruiters.

The van is an eight-seater, with most of the seats removed. In their place is a small classroom, with child-sized furniture and bins full of crayons, books and games.  The program is 10 weeks long, and each session lasts one hour. Each family that joins must have at least one child between 2 and 5 years old. They receive four books and collateral materials such as a small toy car, used to act out the story from one of the books.

BEE started in 1995, and has received CYFAR funding since 1997. Last year, BEE reached 120 families in the five counties in which it was active. Each county runs one van. The educator spends about half that time playing games and reading with the child. She is teaching, but she is also modeling behavior. The other half of the time is directed at the parent, asking open-ended questions about the child, discipline, any particular problems that she (90 percent are mothers or grandmothers) is having with the child.

Pre-tests and post-tests consistently show progress in the areas of child discipline, and understanding of child development. In some cases these are very basic lessons – that children have feelings, that they need varied experiences to support their natural desire to learn, that punishment need not hurt to work, that bedtime and mealtime routines are important and calming.

BEE’s program director is Ellen Abell, associate professor of human development and family studies at Auburn University. She points out several evaluation statistics she finds particularly rewarding. In the post-test, 98% of parents report a positive experience. When asked why, 40% talk in terms of nurturing behaviors, such as “I read to my child”, I notice him being good,” and I talk with him about his friends and interests.” One of Abell’s favorite outcomes reveals the clever design of the program, which although aimed at getting children ready for school, relies on turning parents into teachers. In the pre-test, parents are asked why they are signing up for the program, and most say “because it is an opportunity for my child.” After 10 weeks, the parents are asked what they most appreciated about the program, and most answer “because of the things I learned.”

Between the families and the project directors, of course, are the educators. The staff who deliver the programs are hired from within the counties. They must be high school graduates, must be known in their communities, and most importantly, must be able to connect with people they meet. They must also “buy in” to the concepts they are to teach, such as positive guidance and disciplining without spanking.

Before going into the field, educators compelete eight hours of one-on-one training covering program content delivery and evaluation. they learn to use BEE curriculum materials as a guide for talking to parents about the benefits of the children's activities for each of the 10 sessions. After the training, educators work their way through a journal designed to extend her depth of knowledge. Once each quarter, they refresh their knowledge with a four-hour inservice training session, attended as a group with other educators.

BEE's bright yellow vans serve as recruiting tools, as well as
mobile classrooms.

Once in the field, they are guided by their training, their project directors, and by a set of documents from the Alabama Cooperative Extension System including “Getting Young Children Ready to Learn,” developed by Abell and colleagues at Auburn University.  Subjects covered are: large- and small-muscle skills, language skills, self-control skills, social skills and developing the desire to learn. When educators drive away from a house each week, they have left behind a homework assignment for the caregiver, such as noticing good behaviors in the child, or reading stories to him. Each educator has a maximum caseload of 10 families per week, but most have six, Abell said, because educators drive one hour to visit most families, then one hour back again.

Initially, educators recruit families by driving through their counties “looking down red dirt lanes for houses with kids’ toys in the yard,” Abell said. This means that educators, apart from their other qualities, must have a bit of pluck and enterprise. Once a program becomes established in a county, recruiting is easier, as word-of-mouth catches on. Community agencies and advisory board members also refer new clients.

Staffing issues have been the biggest challenges of the program. In addition to the five active counties, one is inactive, due to repeated staffing problems. But overall, the program was so successful in its first six years, and had such a good reputation, that Abell and team decided to expand it to address the closely related issues of health literacy and relationship skills. Alabama is number-two in the nation for rates of childhood obesity, and research shows that issues in the intimate relationships of parents and grandparents greatly affect children’s ability to learn. In 2003, BEE sought and got funding to deliver programs on these two additional topics. These programs were not as successful, and most are dormant now. Abell and the team are still learning from the experience, but the problems seemed to lie in staffing problems, with many departures, an extended illness, a sudden death, and difficulty finding staff who were both enthusiastic about the delivering the program and willing to do consistent evaluation.

But the “core BEE” as Abell calls it, remains active and successful at teaching parents to be children’s first teachers, by delivering the curriculum 10 weeks and one van-load at a time. Two of the original counties have graduated from CYFAR and are now receiving funding from the state of Alabama.

You may wish to consult:

Begin Education Early

"Getting Young Children Ready to Learn", from Alabama Cooperative Extension

Photos courtesy of Auburn University

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