Programs aim to boost preschool educations for low-income children, By Teresa Watanabe, May 26, 2015, Los Angeles Times: “In the isolated desert town of Lake Los Angeles, Maria Olegine visits one home after another, bringing life-changing information to mothers and their young children. In one home last month, she greeted 11-month-old Angie Rios with wide smiles and high fives. ‘Helloooo Angie! Cinco, five!’ She gave Angie a fabric house, a toy horse and bright stackable plastic donuts, keeping up a running patter of vocabulary and complete sentences. ‘This is a little house. Tengo un caballo. I have a little horsey!’ Angie’s mother, Maria Delfina Zuniga, said Olegine’s lessons on how to develop her child’s vocabulary and motor skills through daily reading and play have made a big difference. Angie has already mastered several words — far ahead of her older children when they were at that age — children she did not regularly read to before kindergarten…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty