A free program to help parents give their children the language development they need to be ready for preschool and kindergarten is now available in the Montezuma, Dolores and Archuleta counties.
Team UP Southwest Colorado, a nonprofit that supports children in the Montezuma and Dolores counties, is co-hosting 10 free, weekly online sessions with the Cortez Public Library to help parents understand how to talk with their infants and toddlers in a way that increases their conversation skills before school.
The program was developed using LENA Start, a national nonprofit program that specializes in language development in children.
Interactive talk between parents and their children is proven to be a key factor in early brain development and success in school, according to LENA’s website.
“A lot of parents don’t know that,” Jamie Jones, a volunteer with AmeriCorps and coordinator of the LENA Start program in Southwest Colorado, said in a phone interview.
Jones has an associate’s degree in early childhood education.
Parents learn how to narrate their actions and incorporate talk while doing chores like changing diapers and cooking. Infants make verbal cues back during these interactions, but many parents don’t understand that the noises children make are part of their language and conversation development, Jones said.
Laura McHenry, children’s librarian at the Cortez Public Library, said a lot of talk with children is directional, such as “eat dinner” or “sit down” or “don’t touch that.” The LENA Start program helps parents think more about back and forth interaction with their children, she said, whether it is talking, singing, play, reading or writing.
The push for a program like LENA Start in Southwest Colorado began when a speech pathologist from the San Juan Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, which provides educational programs and services to school districts in the area, noticed that many children in Southwest Colorado didn’t have the standard language or literacy skills for their age group.
Parents in the program use a recording device that counts words and conversational turns to track their progress, almost like a pedometer, Jones said.
The device records any time the adult responds to the child, or the child responds to the adult, but does not record the actual words.
Parents drop off the device curbside at the library, and then receive feedback from program leaders on how much they’re talking and ways to talk or read more with their children.
“It’s a very open environment,” Jones said.
McHenry said the organizers are hoping to reach parents and caregivers on the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe reservation as well.
“Even if it is a different language, the device will pick it up,” McHenry said.
The program is open to parents and caregivers with infants to children three years old.
Children part of LENA Start gain language skills twice as fast as their peers and maintain these gains in school, according to the program’s website.
“The goal is to get them ready for kindergarten,” Jones said.
Only two families have signed up so far, but Jones said there is no limit to the number of parents that can join.
LENA Start families also receive free children’s books and are entered into weekly raffles for other free prizes, such as quilts.
Parents interested in signing up should text or call Jamie Jones at 970-529-0183. The sessions start Thursday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.
ehayes@the-journal.com