Culture, Community Hold Keys to Early Learning Success

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Abriendo Puertas (Open Doors) is a program designed for parents of Latino children that teaches them how to prepare their children for preschool. Designed by former educator Sandra Gutierrez, the program educates parents on the public resources available to them.

As part of the program, instructors share learning games that parents can use to teach their children basic skills as well as stress the importance of reading to their children. The lessons are all taught in Spanish.

“It’s beneficial to promote language, whatever it may be,” said Gutierrez.

The program was started due to noticeable gaps in the school readiness for reading. Data from the National Survey of Child Health found that Latino families were 16% less likely to read to their children age 5 and under.

A white paper citing the work of Abriendo Puertas entitled Meeting the Public Policy Challenge of Diversity & Equity in Early Learning by scholars Vickie D. Ybarra, Shannon Sanchez-Youngman, and Shania Krawic of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation studied the outcomes from a symposium conducted by the Center on Early Childhood Development and Health (ECDH) and a case study of early childhood policy in New Mexico.

The authors determined that children of color make up 51% of the nation’s 20 million children under the age of 5 and that 25% live with at least one foreign-born parent. These children also make up 70% of those in the age group that live in poverty.

To address the concerns, the authors proposed several policy recommendations, including assessing literacy and language skills in a child’s primary language, boosting the retention and recruitment of community-based early learning providers and teachers, and offering access to professional development opportunities for teachers.