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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Thursday, April 21, 2005

Campaign seeks to enhance early learning

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writer

The Aloha United Way is reaching out to parents of young children with public service announcements and educational materials that include tips on ways to turn everyday events into learning opportunities.

The Born Learning program will be officially launched nationwide on May 3, but the Aloha United Way had a sneak preview at its annual meeting yesterday.

"The goal of this campaign is to increase parent knowledge and skills so that they are able to have the information they need to provide quality learning before their children actually get to school," said Cynthia Round, United Way America's executive vice president of brand strategy and marketing, who came to Hawai'i for the meeting.

Research indicates that up to 40 percent of kindergartners enter school unprepared to learn and fall behind their peers when learning essential skills, such as reading. The Born Learning campaign indicates several things parents can do to avoid that problem.

The program points out ways to turn everyday events, like doing laundry or running errands, into learning experiences. The simple activities make it easy for even busy parents to help their children.

"It's not so much that parents of children under the age of 5 don't know what they're supposed to be doing or they don't know have a sense of how important it is to be providing quality learning for their children. The real obstacle is time," Round said.

The educational materials for the program include a brochure on how to make the most of children's play time; tips and tricks to help parents care for children; handouts on child's development from birth to age 5; parent tools with checklists, logs, ideas and activities; and a poster on how to create a nurturing environment.

The materials will be available at bornlearning.org on May 3. More information is available by calling Aloha United Way's information and referral line at 211.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.