Partnership to enhance Head Start

A new $3.3 million, three-year reading project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, will serve 225 children in northern Delaware and their teachers through a partnership between the University and New Castle County Head Start Inc.

The Delaware Early Reading First project, which will support learning in 12 classrooms in three New Castle County Head Start centers, involves the Delaware Center for Teacher Education at UD, in cooperation with colleagues from the University's Department of Individual and Family Studies.

The project aims to prepare teachers through ongoing professional development meetings and classroom-based coaching. Three Centers of Excellence will be created, according to Carol Vukelich, Hammonds Professor in Teacher Education at UD and director of the Delaware Center for Teacher Education. Teachers can come to those centers to learn about ways to deliver a high-quality, research-based program that has a positive impact on young children's language and early reading development.

"The teachers with whom we will be working already are good teachers who are providing their young learners with language and early reading activities," Vukelich says. "Their children already are achieving. Our goal is to provide these teachers with a powerful professional development program so that they are not just good teachers, they are excellent teachers."