Early learning center in Massachusetts uses Reading First grant

At the John Silber Early Learning Center in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where most students come from low–income homes with little or no English spoken, gaps in language and vocabulary pose the biggest instructional challenge. But thanks to a recently awarded three–year $1,738,087 Early Reading First federal grant, the center’s preschool reading and language–development programs are about to get a major upgrade, principal Jacqueline Bevere Maloney said. Maloney said she has already used the money to hire two literacy coaches, a language development teacher, and consultants from the Hanson Initiative for Language and Literacy, founded in 2000 by a communications disorders program in the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions. The $1.7 million will be spread over three years, she said. Read more in The Boston Globe.