WASHINGTON – Joan Churchill said she buys books for everyone. As a mother, the assistant director of child and family services at Community Concepts in South Paris, Maine, understands the importance of creating a reader-friendly home environment for preschool children.

“I watched my daughter learn to read,” Churchill said. “You know, sitting on the couch and reading books together was a ritual in my family.”

Community Concepts is a nonprofit community action agency that works to promote early childhood literacy in families that do not have a literacy-rich environment.

“We work with children [up to age 5] from many home environments,” Churchill said. “Some are considered ‘high-risk’ kids.”

Such “high-risk” children live in “home environments of stress and instability, and providing a high quality literacy experience is not on the top of parents’ priority list,” she said.

In conjunction with President Bush’s plans to reform education, Maine’s childhood development experts are trying to determine the best strategies for developing pre-reading skills in young children and for reaching parents who do not have the skills to prepare their children for school.

Research suggests that some children have as little as 25 hours of experience with books before starting school while others may have thousands of hours of literary experience, according to Dr. Paula Moore at the Center of Early Literacy and the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine.

In 1997, a study by the National Research Council’s Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy also strongly supported the belief that children arrive at preschool or day care with many differences in their cognitive, social, psychological and motor skills.

Preschool programs that involve parents could have a tremendous effect on getting children on the same developmental level by the time they start kindergarten, according to the National Research Council, which in turn would make it easier for schools to implement more effective reading programs.

“Research has shown that parents are the child’s first and most important teacher,” said Becky Dyer, family literacy specialist at Maine’s Department of Education. “Involving parents in their child’s education is the best way to improve the skills and abilities of young children.”

The president said he realizes the importance of early childhood intervention.

“Local reading programs would help teachers and school administrators improve instruction, support family literacy activities to improve the home learning environment, and mobilize reading coordinators and experts in communities and states to strengthen existing literacy efforts,” according to Bush’s budget proposal.

Bush budgeted $250 million for Even Start, a federal program that supports local projects that blend early childhood education, parenting instruction, and adult education into a unified family literacy program.

Churchill said she did not know whether Community Concepts would benefit from Bush’s plans but said she hoped to be eligible. “Everything is so preliminary right now,” she said, referring to the budget proposal.

Even though many of the details need to be worked out, Moore said she was glad to see this national focus on education, particularly literacy education, in Bush’s agenda.

First lady Laura Bush, a former teacher and librarian, also has made reading and early childhood education her top priority. In addition, Maine first lady Mary Herman chairs the Maine Family Literacy Task Force, an interagency group that promotes family literacy.

“Research is clear that the children who know more about reading when they enter first grade are the ones who make the most achievement gains,” Moore said. Students seem to be better prepared for literacy instruction, she said.

Moore added that new brain research shows “that learning anything actually changes the architecture of the brain. Therefore, learning early literacy skills in preschool will affect how children subsequently think and learn.”

The best thing parents can do for their children is to develop their pre-reading skills before they enter kindergarten, said Krista Kafer, education policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“Have the parents read books to them, have them sound words out, teach them the alphabet,” Kafer said. “Once you got those down, it is easier to learn reading words and sentences.”

But it’s not only about teaching children reading skills, it’s also about developing a positive attitude, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “Many children report that they do not read on a regular basis either to learn new information or for enjoyment,” said a study conducted by the institute.

Early reading programs and intervention need to be combined with emotional and social approaches to create a comprehensive approach to dealing with youths, said William Davis, director of the institute for the study of students at risk at the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine.

That is where community programs are especially effective, Churchill said, because they provide and encourage families to read to their children and make reading a positive experience.

“It’s like an art,” said Doreen Madore, a parent educator at Community Concepts. “It’s like doing a dance with the family, because every family is unique.”

She said part of the home visiting program involves bringing a book or a nursery rhyme with her to most of the home visits and reading with the family. As the program continues, the constant exposure to reading and books becomes natural to the children, she said.

Almost more important, Madore said, is how family members become more comfortable with each other.

“We try to provide parents with a bag of parenting tricks. Things might work one day but not the next day,” adding that there was no right or wrong way of parenting as long as children aren’t pushed to do things they are not ready for.

“When parents support their children’s learning and have high expectations for their achievement, children can succeed,” Dyer said.

But Churchill warned that it would be a great mistake to push young children to “learn” to read before they are cognitively and emotionally ready. “I hope President Bush listens to the child development experts to tailor literacy to children’s developmental abilities,” Churchill said.

Moore said one risk in early childhood education is children being exposed to unqualified teachers. “Early childhood education, in general, has lower standards for teachers.” Teachers also need more access to scientific research on child development and literacy instruction, she added.

Churchill said formal background alone does not necessarily make you a great teacher, and added that her employees have all sorts of different backgrounds. Some have had academic training, others bring with them parental experience, and some have had both, she said.