Early Learning Leads to Family Success
Inspiration: Education Solid Gold Neighbor
by Jeremy Vickers, Associate Vice President, External Affairs
You may be familiar with the statistics around early childhood education with regards to kindergarten readiness, third-grade literacy, and graduation rates. These three data points are highly correlated and are one of the reasons we highly value education programs at the earliest phases of child development. One of these programs is run by a new non-profit organization called Inspiracíon.
Inspiracíon works with the families of Alta Vista Elementary, one of the five under-performing schools in Waco ISD now led by Transformation Waco. The non-profit focuses on empowering at-risk Latino families to break the cycle of poverty by fostering parenting knowledge and skills that directly impact children’s development. Serving Alta Vista enables the organization to be most impactful. To date, nearly sixty children ages 0-4 and their parents have attended two sessions a week on campus with weekly home visits as well. By integrating curriculum from the United Way, Waco ISD, and Avance, the program uses native language speaking instructors to guide families in the process of helping their pre-kindergarten aged children have the social skills, wording and language, and emotional support to take the first step in their lifelong-learning endeavors.
Inspiracíon was born from the need for an organization and model that targets a fundamental key early on in the child development cycle, pre-K, and advances them into Kindergarten ready to learn. Both national data and anecdotal evidence continue to show the correlation between Kindergarten readiness and third-grade reading levels as well as both of these outcomes tying to successful graduation rates. By investing early and supporting readiness, early learning leads to family success! To learn more about how you can support, volunteer, or connect Inspiracíon to a partner please visit www.inspiracionwaco.org.