Liberation through Literacy

by Talisa_Timms | Mar 5, 2024 | News, Educators and Workforce, Early School Success

Imagine a world where all children experience liberation through literacy.

When I think about the power of literacy, I can’t help but ruminate on the foundational skills that children gain, the impact that learning has on a child’s life, and experiences that empower and engage them in their earliest and most crucial developmental years.

What if all children were exposed to the rhythm and pattern of sound, images of letters dancing on a page, opportunities to engage in imaginative play, and their lived experiences mirrored in stories they are told from birth? How might that positive exposure influence their development trajectory, foster a love for learning, empower their sense of self, and ultimately, enrich their lives?

Early literacy supports the recognition of rhythm, patterns, letters, and sounds, encouraging children to engage in playful inquiry. It creates opportunities to enrich social and emotional development through stories and books. Beyond the conventional components of literacy lie opportunities for children to explore their identities, develop a sense of belonging, and celebrate differences in community.

Liberation through literacy

Liberation through literacy is found when we acknowledge children’s inherent right to find enjoyment in building foundational literacy skills. Liberation is found when we continue to nourish their literacy development and equitably support their families with the resources needed to thrive at every stage of development.

This is reflected in the biliteracy strategies and practices led by our phenomenal Early School Success partners, Forest Grove School District (FGSD) and Beaverton School District (BSD). The leaders of this work are committed to providing high-quality early biliteracy opportunities for their students’ healthy development and lifelong learning.

Angella Graves, FGSD principal and early learning coordinator, recently shared Cornelius Elementary School’s approach to biliteracy with me. “At Cornelius Elementary School, we begin with the understanding that students can learn multiple languages at a young age by strengthening their first language and through multiple experiences in their second, which is why we begin with biliteracy from the start,” Angella explained.

“Learning to read is a civil right, and learning to read in one’s first language should also be a civil right. We want our students to be super bilingual, biliterate, and multicultural and that starts with biliteracy!” she said

Before the pandemic, only 46 percent of all students in Oregon were reading proficiently by the end of third grade. When kids don’t learn to read by third grade, the chances of dropping out of high school increase four fold (Hernandez, 2011). In response, the 2023 Oregon Legislature created its biggest early literacy investment in decades, the Early Literacy Success Initiative. We applaud this investment and believe it has the potential to change outcomes for students across the state.

To support these efforts, Children’s Institute partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest (REL NW) to collect existing, readily accessible resources on evidence-based literacy practices for children ages birth through grade 3. I invite you to explore these resources here.

I encourage you to pause and think deeply about how your own experiences influences who you are, and how you show up as a champion for children. I hope it brings you back to warm and joyful memories, or perhaps you can find inspiration in reimagining the world of early literacy for the youngest learners in Oregon, and beyond.

State Partners Celebrate Early Childhood Inclusion

by Celeste Yager-Kandle | Feb 23, 2024 | Preschool, Educators and Workforce, Parents and Families

Oregon Early Childhood Inclusion (OECI) partners convened at Oregon State University for an annual celebration of statewide work to bring high‐quality, inclusive preschool policies and practices to all levels of Oregon’s early care and education system.

The OECI celebration is a culmination of decades of dedication from people engaging in early childhood inclusion work from many perspectives including at the provider level, at the community level, and in school districts and classrooms.

Families, early learning and care providers, and special education practitioners have said that supporting children aged birth-to-five experiencing disability is a core equity priority in Oregon.

State Partners Celebrate Early Childhood Inclusion (2)

To address this, multiple organizations, state agencies, family advocacy networks and policy change makers have come together as part of the Oregon Early Childhood Inclusion Initiative to develop a state team that helps to guide implementation across communities and elevate the voices of the people they serve.

“It looks at the core needs of children, families, providers and educators, and it brings us together under a comprehensive framework at every level of the system, so that we’re all working and walking in the same direction toward belonging, towards wellness, towards true access and meaningful participation,” said Meredith Villines, early childhood coherent strategies specialist at the Oregon Department of Education.

The initiative is also an important step in Oregon’s plan to eliminate suspension and expulsion practices in preschool by providing educators with tools and support, including coaching and professional learning, to support children with higher needs.

“It has been wonderful to attend this celebration and hear from teams who are using these strategies to build inclusive classrooms in their communities,” said Marina Merrill, director of research and strategy at Children’s Institute.

Merrill sits on the OECI state leadership team. She says that high-quality preschool education is powerful for young children’s learning and development, but that conversations about equitable and inclusive preschool are overdue and OECI is working to change that.

“The Oregon Early Childhood Inclusion Initiative is working to remove the barriers at all levels of the early education system to ensure that children with disabilities can access and fully experience high-quality preschool education in the same classrooms as their typically developing peers,” said Merrill. “I look forward to continuing to work with the OECI state leadership team to expand this work to more communities across Oregon.”

From Vision to Impact: Early School Success in Action

by Aditi Sharma | Jan 3, 2024 | Educators and Workforce, News, Professional Learning, Early School Success, Equity

As we step into a new year, we are reflecting on the journey of Early School Success (ESS)—a journey that has been shaped by collaboration and a shared commitment to create aligned early learning experiences for children in preschool through fifth grade. ESS represents an ongoing, collective effort to cultivate growth, resilience, and academic achievement for young learners. Rooted in evidence-based strategies, ESS strives to bridge the gap between research and practice, and seeks to build educational systems that actively support a range of educational needs.

We have come a long way since the inception of ESS and appreciate the path that we have travelled to get to where we are now. We look forward to the next phase of this work, which will focus on reaching more students through deep partnerships with school districts and educators.

The Early School Success Approach

The School-Based Initiatives (SBI) team at Children’s Institute partners with school districts across Oregon. One of the key bodies of work within SBI is Early School Success (ESS), which supports educators and school leaders to align family engagement, developmentally appropriate teaching and learning, and other school supports for children. This ensures continuity from preschool through the elementary grades and sets a foundation for lifelong learning. Current ESS partners include Beaverton, Forest Grove, Lincoln County, and St. Helens school districts.

Additionally, ESS reaches more educators and students through our Early School Success Academy (ESS Academy), which is open to all school districts and education service districts (ESDs) in Oregon. ESS Academy is a virtual cohort-based learning experience that guides district teams through a year-long professional learning series. In our 2023-24 ESS Academy cohort, nine school districts and ESDs across Oregon are engaged in alignment and building systems to strengthen early learning.

At their core, ESS and ESS Academy create a holistic vision and nurture learning environments beyond traditional educational models, tailored to each child’s unique needs. Our approaches are community-driven and draw upon the strengths of improvement science and human-centered design. This work aims to address the root causes of educational inequity and dismantle systemic barriers to school success.

Charting the course forward

After five years of meaningful engagement with school district partners, ESS is transitioning into a strategic five-year expansion. The next phase will focus on continued support for rural school districts and ESS Academy expansion.

After the first four years of partnership, Beaverton and Forest Grove school districts are set to become learning labs, spreading ESS and improvement processes across their elementary schools. As we continue this work well into the future, we plan to increase the number of schools benefiting from ESS, ensuring innovative models, support, and resources reach more districts, schools, and educators. We will also be able to provide more resources and reach more districts, schools, and educators. 

Our partnerships make ESS successful

Now, more than ever, the success of Early School Success is deeply intertwined with the dedicated support of educators and school districts. Over the last five years, CI’s engagement with two unique cohorts of educators has provided direct coaching to 114 educators and impacted over 3,000 students.

“I have worked with Children’s Institute for the last three years and as an educator, I have learned so much from them,” said Dani Boylan, director of early learning at Helens School District.

These powerful partnerships highlight tangible outcomes in the classroom. For example, children who attended Toledo preschool learned the flow of their school day by managing an interactive visual schedule; and in Toledo kindergarten classrooms children use the same process, making the transition from one learning environment to another consistent.

CI also partners with four different culturally specific organizations for the Early School Success Academy—CAIRO, Y.O.U.T.H, S.P.I.R.I.T.S, and Adelante Mujeres—which further strengthens professional learning for educators to find solutions that work best for the communities they work with.

Boylan explained that the partnership has made the St. Helens School District stronger with administrators, teachers, and families better understanding the importance of early learning and all that it entails.

“This partnership has made my district stronger as a team. Administrators, teachers and families are seeing the importance of early learning and all that goes with it,” she said.

“Together, we’re helping children be more successful by working with teachers to make the transition more effortless for preschool to third grade.”

Interested in bringing ESS Academy to your district? Contact Shawnté Hines at shawnte@childinst.org.

Indigenous Wisdom and Collaborative Care in Early Learning

by Suze Wehr | Nov 30, 2023 | News, Educators and Workforce, Health and Development, Parents and Families, Equity

Tutchone’s Story

Caught in a whirl of perpetual motion, a young boy named Tutchone lived in sensory overload.

His school environment collided with his often-overwhelming emotions, leading him to experience dysregulation, outbursts and classroom disruptions that left him curled up in a ball, exhausted and scared.

Despite the dedicated efforts of his school’s special education team and classroom teachers, Tutchone’s Individual Education Plan didn’t support his social-emotional and cognitive needs. In an educational system laced with historical and ongoing trauma for Native communities, the cultural dissonance between Western educational settings and Tutchone’s background created barriers to finding holistic support for him. Tutchone’s parents, crushed by uncertainty and disempowered by existing school structures, felt discouraged — but the story doesn’t end there.

Looking to support the parents however possible, the special education team asked if anyone else could join for the Individual Education Plan review. At his mother’s request, Tutchone’s auntie, grandmother, and community support team joined for the rescheduled review, expanding the context and care available to him and his parents. This expanded team expressed their goal of providing time and space to be inclusive of all voices, which provided a feeling of relief to both parents, his father in particular. Together, the group found ways to advocate for culturally aligned strategies to help with self-regulation, including the use of traditional drumming as an accessible self-calming strategy for Tutchone to use during school hours.

Within a month, Tutchone began to navigate his world with a greater sense of safety, control, and confidence. The incorporation of the drum as a self-regulation tool not only improved Tutchone’s well-being, but served as a powerful connection between his family, wider community, and the school. His story illustrates the power of strength-based, cultural, and multigenerational delivery in creating pathways for children to thrive.

Indigenous Innovation in Early Childhood

The incorporation of traditional practices into early childhood care does more than pay homage to history. For Indigenous communities across the country (and around the world), the knowledge and technology passed through countless generations often provide innovative approaches that have only recently been incorporated into Western early learning practices.

Cradleboards, a gift presented to infants in many Native American tribes, honor the child through artistry, prayers, and connection to Earth, and provide safety during the fragile early months of development. Through research from the First Nations Health Authority, the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development, cradleboards have even been found to reduce or prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDs). Similarly, sleeping or resting in a traditional hammock strengthens vestibular development, connecting children with their sense of balance and place in space. These innovations and more like them provide key elements of early childhood development for Native children and inspiration across the early childhood spectrum.

Collaborative Circles of Care

As Tutchone’s story illustrates, healthy growth for children requires a variety of creative methods and more. Suzie Kuerschner suggests Collaborative Circles of Care as a system for the relational, intersectional, and culturally specific approach that nurtures children and promotes social-emotional development. Kuerschner is a revered child development specialist, early intervention and special education consultant, and early child education consultant with S.P.I.R.I.T.S., and a Children’s Institute community partner.

“The Collaborative Circle of Care’s primary principal rests on its strengths-based foundation informed by an inventory of the natural assets and resources of the individual within the context of their extended family, community, and culture,” explained Kuerschner.

Collaborative Circles of Care embrace a holistic approach to address societal challenges by recognizing the cyclical reinforcement of negative impacts stemming from systemic racial, health, disability, and socioeconomic injustices. Knowing that successful strategies depend on how closely behaviors can be observed and understood, these circles prioritize partnership with families and communities.

“It’s a system providing a model to integrate, complement and enhance an existing system that is framed by the culture and governance protocols, and procedures of the people,” she said.

By celebrating the vital role of these relationships in education and early childhood, Collaborative Circles of Care foster a collective commitment to holistic well-being and positive societal change.

“Love settles within the circle… embracing it and thereby lasting forever…

turning within itself.” -Luther Standing Bear

Quote graphic about love settling within the circle

As We Look to the Future

We are deeply thankful for the opportunity to collaborate this month with Suzie Kuerschner on this story and a mini guide to Indigenizing Early Childhood. But far more so, we are honored and excited to continue working with Suzie and our Indigenous community partners as the next year unfolds and beyond. We know that learning and embracing Traditional Ways of Knowing is vital to the early childhood ecosystem and will lead to not only a more equitable future, but a more innovative, caring and thriving world. Together, may we continuously transform systems towards compassion, wisdom, gratitude, and honor for our children and the generations to come.

*S.P.I.R.I.T.S. = Strength-based Prevention, Intervention & Resilience Informing Teaching Strategies.