START STRONG
Our goal: Increase number of low-income kindergarteners who are ready for school by 50%
Did you know? 1 out of 2 low-income kindergarteners in east central Iowa do not have the skills they need for school success. Most of these children will never catch up to their peers because they have missed out on critical learning opportunities as their young brains were developing.
For the first 18 months of life, the human brain is rapidly developing at a rate of 700 synapses a second! It reaches 90% of its growth by five years of age. This brain development forms the infrastructure for learning skills throughout life. Economists such as Rob Grunewald and Nobel Laureate James Heckman have calculated that investing in quality early childhood learning can yield a rate of return from $7 to $17 for every $1 invested.
When more young children participate in quality learning activities with their parents or in child care settings, they will have the language, early literacy, and social-emotional skills they need to be successful in school and life.
We invest in programs that:
- Have helped over 500 parents with the knowledge and skills they need to support their child’s development
- Provide high quality early care and education opportunities for over 800 low-income children
- Increase the capacity of child care programs to provide quality early learning experiences for the children in their care, affecting over 2500 children annually
Born Learning
Born Learning is an innovative and unique public engagement campaign that helps parents, caregivers, and communities create quality learning opportunities for young children. It focuses on strategies to improve social, emotional, language, and early literacy development for young children. The UWECI Young Leaders Society is sponsoring Born Learning. Their accomplishments to date:
- Sponsorship of the Friends of the Library Books and Babies program, which provides a book to every newborn and information about the importance of early literacy.
- Ninety-five percent of parents of newborns are being reached with Born Learning materials through St. Luke’s Hospital and Mercy Medical Center’s newborn home visitation programs
- Born Learning Trails at Bever Park in Cedar Rapids and in Iowa County
- Distribution of Born Learning materials through partner agencies early childhood programs
