Play-groups help give toddlers a head start

You may think preschoolers play all day, but they actually learn how to succeed in kindergarten, and a local group is trying to ensure that children who spend their first years at home don't get left behind.

Stay-at-home toddlers learn plenty from family and friends, but they may not understand how to line up, sit in a circle or share toys, all de rigueur skills for today's kindergarteners.

To help these kids avoid being labeled as "problems," or being sent to unnecessary special-education classes, play-groups are popping up around Seattle to ease the children's move into organized education.

These groups help parents who don't send their kids to preschool and child-care groups for financial, cultural or personal reasons,

With kindergarten looming, Anh Tang, for example, worried about her son Roger's proficiency with the English language. Tang didn't leave Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, for the United States until 1998, and she struggles with English.

After a year in the play-group, Roger now asks teachers when he doesn't understand a word during story time.

I was "a little bit worried because he didn't understand English very well," Tang said during a lull in playtime in Seattle's International District last Friday.

The International District group is an example of a recent explosion of interest in improving what kids learn before they begin formal education. Only last fall Seattle launched a program to help working poor parents pay for quality child care, and Gov. Christine Gregoire has made early learning one of her top priorities.

This year, Child Care Resources, a non-profit agency that helps parents find decent child care in the area, created the Play & Learn Network, which offers training, research, materials, publicity and some startup funding to play-groups in the Puget Sound region. These groups often charge nothing, or a nominal fee of $1 to $3, according to the non-profit.

The interest reflects a growing awareness that the first few years of a child's life are even more critical than previously thought. By kindergarten, a child's brain is 90 percent developed, according to the Foundation for Early Learning.

Kindergarten is also one of the first times income begins to separate children, as kids from expensive pre-schools arrive at class already reading, singing and lining up.

Lower-income families may not be able to afford pre-school or child-care centers. Instead, they may rely on family and friends to care for their young children, and that means their kids may not develop social skills needed in kindergarten.

Immigrant families also may assume that learning begins in kindergarten, says Hueiling Chan, family and parent educator at the Chinese Information and Service Center.

These kids may mingle with others who started formal learning exercises as young as 2.

"Who's Dr. Seuss? They are never exposed to that," Chan said "If you are not ready (for kindergarten), you are already behind at the starting point."

Chan's program eases the shock by mixing cultures in the International District group. The kids do the hokeypokey and sing Chinese songs. They listen to a diverse selection of stories in a circle surrounded by Asian-influenced art.

This kind of support can pay big dividends. Spending $1 on top-quality programs for disadvantaged toddlers can return $1.26 to $17 in economic benefits, according to a RAND Corp. study released in January.

The returns are based on such things as fewer kids winding up on welfare and in special-education classes, and more kids graduating from high school and college.

Paula Medina noticed results far earlier after her daughter Paola, 2, joined the Family, Friends and Neighbors First Steps Program in Shoreline.

"She's more responsible," Medina said.

And "she goes to bed early."