Bright Beginnings
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Bright Beginnings empowers parents of children under the age of five to be their child’s first teacher and mentor. We teach parents skills to raise literate, healthy, happy, disciplined children in a faith-based, multicultural, welcoming setting, and provide them with educational materials and support to enhance their learning at home and kindergarten-readiness skills.
While the parents attend these classes, we provide developmentally appropriate children’s classes with learning activities planned weekly. This experience gives the children a tangible classroom experience and provides a model for the mothers of appropriate early childhood learning. The children’s classes are designed to promote interactive learning, classroom readiness skills, and socialization skills. Countless studies and evidence-based research have shown that brain development in the birth-three years is critical to life-long academic outcomes and that a language and literacy rich environment is essential during the pre-K years. 1 in 5 American children grow up functionally illiterate. Bright Beginnings is addressing a gap in the development of young children for some of the most vulnerable and underserved families in our County. |
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Bright Beginnings
Three levels of classes are offered:
Programs include:
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The importance of experience...
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Changing lives from the very beginning
These classes teach mothers how to enhance their child’s language development, pre-literacy skills, and early learning experiences. Classes focus on providing a language-rich early childhood environment, engaging and interactive learning, brain development, social skills, and pre-literacy skills. These essential early years lay the groundwork for optimal development and school readiness skills, impacting a life-time of successful learning.
Relationships and redundancy are effective: Bright Beginnings teaches specific skills while building relationships and a support group for these mothers. We have learned that in order achieve lasting change, the mothers must have redundancy, opportunities to practice new skills, and a supportive community in which to continue to incorporate new skills into daily life. Bright Beginnings is structured to provide additional levels of classes along with a weekly Developmental Playgroup and monthly Saturday Seminars to reinforce and practice new skills and learning.
Early Childhood Interventions: Interventions and referrals are being made very early in children's lives, connecting them to essential services before problems are compounded over time. We serve a very vulnerable and under-served population but the relationships of trust we have developed enable us to provide the information and support these families need to thrive.
Pre-K Education: Many of the mothers we serve are uneducated and, although they want better for their child, they don’t know how to navigate the educational system. We have been able to help them enroll in Head Start and VPK pre-k programs. As graduates of our toddler programs, the children are entering ready to learn and the mothers are entering with an understanding and commitment to their role actively supporting their child’s education.
School Success: Many of the children we have served in Bright Beginnings are now entering elementary school and are reporting improved scores on School Readiness Indicators and making exceptional progress in these early years of formal schooling. Some of the children who come from homes where English is not the primary language, are even able to enter Kindergarten without the need of extra ESL services due to the Bright Beginnings Mom & Tot English Literacy classes they participated in.
Relationships and redundancy are effective: Bright Beginnings teaches specific skills while building relationships and a support group for these mothers. We have learned that in order achieve lasting change, the mothers must have redundancy, opportunities to practice new skills, and a supportive community in which to continue to incorporate new skills into daily life. Bright Beginnings is structured to provide additional levels of classes along with a weekly Developmental Playgroup and monthly Saturday Seminars to reinforce and practice new skills and learning.
Early Childhood Interventions: Interventions and referrals are being made very early in children's lives, connecting them to essential services before problems are compounded over time. We serve a very vulnerable and under-served population but the relationships of trust we have developed enable us to provide the information and support these families need to thrive.
Pre-K Education: Many of the mothers we serve are uneducated and, although they want better for their child, they don’t know how to navigate the educational system. We have been able to help them enroll in Head Start and VPK pre-k programs. As graduates of our toddler programs, the children are entering ready to learn and the mothers are entering with an understanding and commitment to their role actively supporting their child’s education.
School Success: Many of the children we have served in Bright Beginnings are now entering elementary school and are reporting improved scores on School Readiness Indicators and making exceptional progress in these early years of formal schooling. Some of the children who come from homes where English is not the primary language, are even able to enter Kindergarten without the need of extra ESL services due to the Bright Beginnings Mom & Tot English Literacy classes they participated in.