Early intervention is an important tool not only for early elementary,
but middle and high school students can also benefit from intervention. I am a firm believer in pre-school and
daycare. I have had many discussions
with friends and family who had their kids in pre-school and daycare. Even stay at home moms and dads said they
send their children to daycare and pre-school, not for the educational advantages,
but for the social advantages. If a
child is at home until kindergarten, who does he/she interact with? The parents. A child in daycare/pre-school on the other
hand has a lot more opportunities to interact with many other children. This is useful to prepare them for school where
they will socialize with many different children.
Opportunities for early intervention are typically the services that
tend to get cuts, whether from the government or from local schools. Headstart was one such service that got cuts
because of money problems. In a nation
obsessed with academic success and failure, why is education always the one on
the chopping block when money is tight? Early
intervention is the key. And the
earlier, the better. Why wait until
elementary school when a child has a problem?
If we as a nation could focus our efforts to intervention in pre-school
if the child is showing signs of problems, that child could have years of help
under his belt by the time he enters the hallowed halls of learning across our
nation.
Title 1 is another form of intervention that so often gets the ax. I have been in schools where Title 1 works
great. The teachers either go into the
classroom or pull students out. I have
also seen Title 1 being wasted by teachers sitting around gabbing instead of
servicing the students. When it works,
it provides the student(s) either one-on-one or small group help. Without that extra push, many students either
fail or get left behind. I have
witnessed this very problem. My client
that I work with was receiving Title assistance. She would come in and sit by him during
class, very often taking notes or simply helping him with class work. For no apparent
reason, this suddenly stopped and not my client doesn’t take notes, very often
gets forgotten about and because of his IEP is getting passed along from grade
to grade.
Early intervention not only works, but is essential for many of the
students we have, had or will have in our classrooms.
I agree that it is important for early intervention programs to start before the student enters pre-school and the child is starting to show the signs of being delayed or having various problems. Unfortunately, many of these programs are being cut by the government. I remember going to a head start program many years ago, and they were already starting to make the cuts. It is surprising to see the government taking away from the students and what our future generations hold. I also like how you mentioned the title 1 program. I think that it would be difficult on the students if they had a service one year, and the next it got cut.
ReplyDeleteStudents should be a part of early intervention programs at early ages. This can be useful and give the data needed for educators who will encounter these students later on in their education. This will help identify strengths and weaknesses and what needs to be improved. The problem is finding a program that works and which one will be around long enough to continue success before being cut.
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