By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

The three-year $2.7 million grant, administered by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is focused on giving preschool students the early literacy skills they need before entering kindergarten.

UNL's partners in the program are the Grand Island Public Schools and Head Start Child and Family Development.

The grant to UNL was just one of 32 that were awarded nationwide.

Pam Dobrovolny, Grand Island Public Schools special education supervisor, said 150 preschool children ages 4 and 3 are in the program, while Head Start has 100 students in the program in its building on Piper Street.

The majority of students in the program are 4-year-olds, which is typically the year before they will enroll in kindergarten.

Dobrovolny said the grant is benefiting children who are part of the school district's five Leap Ahead classrooms, with two classes at Newell Elementary, two at Gates Elementary and one at Knickrehm Elementary.

She said teachers in those five classrooms, as well as Head Start teachers, are using a new OWL curriculum, which stands for Opening the World of Learning.

Dobrovolny said the curriculum is more tightly focused on early learning and literacy skills than the former curriculum.

"We want to take our centers, which were very good, and turn them into centers of excellence," said Dobrovolny of the Leap Ahead and Head Start classrooms.

Deb Ross, executive director of Head Start Child and Family Development Program, was not available for comment at press time for this story. However, she had said much the same thing during an earlier interview.

During last fall's press conference announcing the grant, Ross said Head Start is already a quality program and that the Early Reading First grant would allow Head Start to build on that quality.

The program, however, does more than use a new curriculum for preschool students. Dobrovolny said two Head Start classrooms were expanded from a half-day to full day of instruction.

She noted literacy coaches also were hired to work with teachers for all the classrooms in both the public schools and for Head Start.

In addition, the program has two Family Literacy Nights per month for the parents of students in the program. Those nights at held at each location where the preschool classes are conducted.

Dobrovolny said families can earn three $10 gift cards each month, one card each time they attend a Family Literacy Night and one card each time they keep a Family Literacy Portfolio of activities done at home for that month.