New program to help with low-income children's vocabulary

But that's about to change.

Children from high-poverty environments are getting significant help and making impressive progress through a program called Early Childhood Literacy and Learning Model, or ELLM -- and now it's in Collier County.

"This is a way to guarantee our first-graders will be able to read in two to three years. We're building readers," said Kim Long, a representative of Fun Time Child Development Center in Naples and a member of the Edison Community College Board of Trustees.

ELLM was developed at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville and has been used successfully in Duval, Orange, Miami-Dade and other counties on the state's east coast.

It works because it targets 3- and 4-year-olds, kindergartners and first-graders from high-poverty families to build their vocabularies and prepare them for school with solid reading skills.

"It's very strong in terms of helping youngsters enter kindergarten much more ready than they would ordinarily be," said Larry Byrnes, dean of Florida Gulf Coast University's College of Education.

"Our education professors have looked closely at it, and at this point they're focused on Collier County," Byrnes said. "The idea is to gather some partners and seven other child development centers in Collier County to bring ELLM to Southwest Florida. A very powerful piece of this project is to get parents more engaged in their children's learning."

Long was so impressed with ELLM that she gathered a group of Collier's lawmakers Monday to see how it works first-hand.

State Reps. Dudley Goodlette and Mike Davis and state Sen. Burt Saunders, all Naples Republicans, visited Fun Time at 1010 Fifth Ave. N. in River Park.

"They thought it was fabulous," Long said. "They were so engaged in what was going on. We are so excited about this because, after nine weeks of implementation, preschoolers have learned 200 new vocabulary words and they're recognizing their own names and their classmates' names. They know that an author is a person who writes a book and an illustrator is one who draws pictures for it."

FGCU President William Merwin became interested in the Early Literacy and Learning Model when he first heard about it, and immediately wanted to see it launched in Collier County.

"We're taking Dr. Merwin on a fast ride," Long said.

The Early Literacy and Learning Model has been around for about six years, and it's one of the top seven early literacy models examined by federal education agencies.

The Collier County partners hope to have 49 classrooms around the county with students identified as being at risk of school failure. Ten classrooms are up and running, Long said.

Fun Time, FGCU and its College of Education, the Florida Institute of Education at UNF, and the Florida Center for Public Policy and Leadership, also based at UNF, are the four co-anchors of ELLM.

Each has a role in the project: FGCU is the fiscal agent and hopes to raise $1.2 million in private donations; Fun Time serves as the project demonstration site; the Florida Institute of Education will do training, provide materials, technical assistance and grant-writing support; and the Florida Center for Public Policy and Leadership will provide lobbying and help with grant applications and intrastate partnerships.

"Our hope is that we'll expand this program into other counties," said Pat Riley, executive director of the Alliance of Educational Leaders, a consortium of college and university presidents, school superintendents and other education officials in the five counties of Southwest Florida.

"Collier County was set up as a kind of model site because the people there have the interest and the ability to raise funds," Riley said. "To do it to the extent we want, with 1,200 students in 50 classrooms, we need $1.2 million for the first year to cover materials, professional development and related needs."

The 1,200 targeted children will have access to the Early Literacy and Learning Model through the following centers: Collier County School District; Head Start ; Fun Time; Guadalupe Center in Immokalee; Redlands Christian Migrant Association in Immokalee; Pat's Tot Care; Immokalee Child Care Center; Naples Community Healthcare System's Bear's Den; and FGCU's Family Resource Center.