PORT ANGELES — The First Step Family Support Center has received a $3,000 grant from the Ben and Myrtle Walkling Memorial Trust.
The money from the trust — created by the late Myrtle Walkling in 1992 and funded it with more than $1 million — will support a Tools of the Mind Early Learning Academy for low-income children 3- and 4-years-old.
The Tools of the Mind curriculum focuses on building young children’s executive function skills that foster self-regulation, inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility, said Nita Lynn, executive director of the center at 325 E. Sixth St., in a news release.
“This enables very young children to begin to develop critical thinking skills that are extremely important for school readiness and school success,” she said.
The Early Learning Academy also will focus on addressing a word gap often experienced by children from low-income homes, Lynn said.
She said that research has shown that during their first three years, low-income children hear on average about 30 million fewer total words than his or her more affluent peers.
“This is known as the word gap and it can lead to disparities not just in vocabulary size but also in school readiness, long term educational and health outcomes and eventually, earnings,” Lynn said.
Parents of the children attending the Early Learning Academy learn along with their children, Lynn added.
In parent groups, they learn about the importance of building a child’s executive function skills and exposing their children to the wonder of words through reading, story-telling and use of descriptive words in everyday life situations.
Lynn said that the Tools of Mind curriculum holds the promise of strengthening the resiliency of children who have experienced adverse childhood experiences.
The findings of the Adverse Childhood Study, which can be found at www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy, suggest that certain adverse childhood experiences are major risk factors for illness and poor quality of health in adults.
For more information about the Early Learning Academy, contact Lynn at First Step Family Support Center at 360 457-8355 or see www.firststepfamily.org.
