TALLADEGA COUNTY — Schools in Talladega County are seeing positive results from students participating in the school readiness program, Home Instruction Program for Parents of Preschool Youngsters, HIPPY.The HIPPY program, pioneered by Sylacauga Alliance for Family Enhancement, was brought into Sylacauga city, Talladega city and Talladega County school systems through grants awarded by the Alabama Department of Education for the 2007-2008 school year. Talladega County and Sylacauga City Schools received $85,000 for their pre-existing HIPPY programs and Talladega City received $90,000 for their new program.
The HIPPY program provides parents of 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds with the tools they need to prepare their children for elementary school. Parent educators with SAFE go into the home to role-play with the parents, teaching methods that will help preschoolers learn a variety of skills, such as: writing readiness, social development, story comprehension, vocabulary development, problem solving, literacy, math readiness and more.
“We teach parents so they can be the child’s first and best teacher,” said Margaret Morton, executive director of SAFE. “We want that child to come to school ready to learn, but we also want that parent to be involved with the child’s education. Research shows us that if a child comes to school ready to learn and if the parents are successful in supporting their child’s education, then the child is going to be successful down the road.”
Sylacauga City Schools Superintendent Dr. Jane Cobia said 100 percent of the kindergarten students who participated in HIPPY benchmarked at their grade level in testing for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, DIBELS, and only one first-grader didn’t benchmark on one subtest for DIBELS.
“We are very pleased with these results,” she said. “I think that it’s phenomenal. It shows that you have to do the early learning with children. Those who dropped through the cracks, we have to do something for them. This is proof that we’re taking care of those students who are struggling. This just shows you what partnerships can do.”
For Sylacauga City Schools and Talladega County Schools combined, 97 percent of kindergarten students in HIPPY benchmarked on all three subtests for DIBELS, and 81.5 percent of first-graders, who were previously in HIPPY, benchmarked on DIBELS.
According to the HIPPY model, children are not eligible to participate in the 5-year-old HIPPY program unless they have participated in HIPPY as a 4-year-old. Therefore, since Talladega city was a new program this year, only 3- and 4-year-olds were serviced, and there will not be DIBELS results until these students complete the 5-year-old program next year.
Morton said first-grade teachers in Talladega County were surveyed to compare HIPPY children with students who didn’t participate in the program.
“These HIPPY children are your most at-risk children and families, so they are children you would expect to have challenges,” she said. “Eighty-five percent of the teachers scored HIPPY children in the good or excellent range for listening and paying attention. One hundred percent of the teachers knew at least one of the parents of the HIPPY child, meaning that the parent is engaged in the educational process. So these are some pretty significant initial outcomes for our first year of expansion.”
Cobia said $1.7 million of the state’s education budget is allocated for HIPPY for the coming fiscal year.
