1. Early Childhood Education
JD Arora
Brandon Prentice
Maddie Doering
Ryan Carson
Brian Ketterman

2. With a show of hands, who would say that they received a significant amount of attention from an adult in their youth?
Of those that raised there hands, who would say that they would be where they are today if they did not have those people in their life?
We have recognized the advantages of adult presence in children’s lives and the disadvantages when it is absent.

3. The Issue: Early Educational Preparedness
A gap exists between young children who are prepared to enter elementary school, and those who are not.
This is usually the result of some children being taught by an adult and the others receiving little attention.
This gap remains throughout a child’s education, and ought to be addressed before kindergarten.

4. Why Early Age?
85% of a child’s personality, intellect, and skills are foundationally created before the age of 5.
Language, vocabulary, and numeracy begin developing at birth.
Early literacy is a fantastically accurate indicator of future success.
10 million kids have difficulty learning to read.
15% of them drop out of high school.
Only 2% of them go to college

5. At A Loss For Words
Gap between low-income families and middle-to-upper-class families.
Upper class children have parents to read and dictate the world.
They hear 1,500 more words per hour.
By the time they turn 4, kids in poverty have been exposed to 32 million fewer words.

6. Consequences Jail Cell Planning
Parents not being able to read is a cycle that perpetuates itself.

7. Our Mission
Our purpose is to help prepare kids for their early formal education, by both teaching skills—like reading and counting—and using experiential learning—adult mentors playing with, and simply talking to, young kids.

8. Solution #1: One-on-One Mentoring
Proven to work by multiple stakeholders.
Impacts the lives of a specific group of children tremendously.
Not as sustainable as we would like.
Narrow scope of people impacted.

9. Solution #2: Facilitating Parent-Child Interactions
Providing parents with opportunities to spend time with their children
Field day, book fair, or other low-cost activities
Could be an opportunity to educate parents about the importance of forming relationship with their kids.
Difficult to quantify results; very qualitative measures

10. Solution #3: Bright Beginnings
We provide classes that enable parents to act.
Clinics on health and education
Help draft the curriculum
Focus on parents—indirectly on kids

11. BRIGHT BEGINNINGS
Impactful
Attainable
Sustainable

12. This presentation brought to you by:
The Letter P
And The Number
32,000,000
PLP STREET