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The Zero to Three website (Zero to Three, 2014) has so many places to explore! I often get lost in the amount of information that the organization provides regarding what is best for children, ages birth to three. If there is one thing that I have learned from exploring the Zero to Three website, it is that I will always have something fascinating to read about and learn from the never-ending research and information that Zero to Three provides for those who care for very young children.

I actually decided to explore the Zero to Three Facebook page, which provides the latest information about what researchers are working on in the field.

I explored a link that took me to a blog article about Seattle’s current mayor who is asking fellow mayors to sign a resolution that “would designate the decade of 2015-2025 as a time for building an Early Learning Nation” (Haywoode, 2014). The goal of this resolution is to focus on the children of Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2025) “to emerge equipped and prepared to resolve issues, assume leadership positions, while generating innovative and long-term solutions for previously intractable and seemingly unsolvable challenges” (Haywoode, 2014). This resolution will be presented at the U.S Conference of Mayors’ annual meeting in Dallas from June 20 to 23, 2014. It will be exciting to find out the results of this proposition at that meeting!

In this week’s edition of The Baby Monitor (The Baby Monitor, personal communication, June 10, 2014), one of the highlighted articles is about asking your mayor to sight on to build an “early learning nation,” which is about Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray and his proposal as mentioned in the paragraph above. This sounds like an important proposal that Zero to Three is promoting on several fronts!

I chose to look at the section of the website titled “school readiness interactive.” Many people don’t usually think of school readiness when thinking of infants and toddlers, therefore I wanted to see what resources were available. According to Zero to Three (2014), this web exclusive “is designed to help parents and caregivers encourage their young children’s early learning.” This page includes an online tool based on specific ages. I clicked on the 24 – 36 month button and was directed to a page that included information about how children typically develop in the areas of language and literacy, thinking skills, self-control, and self-confidence. These are great resources for early childhood professionals, along with families to understand how they can support their child to “get ready for school.”

Lastly, Zero to Three does have information regarding some of the topic content from this week. In the report by Park and McHugh (2014), barriers are presented for immigrant parents as they seek out early education experiences for their children. This report (Park and McHugh, 2014) focuses on a study conducted by the National Center on the Immigrant Integration Policy at the Migration Policy Institute to address the unique needs of newcomer parents.

The report (Park and McHugh, 2014) outlines several significant gaps in services for immigrant and refugee parents of young children. They include:

· Gaps in parents’ English proficiency and functional literacy are barriers to effective engagement in early childhood programs.

· No public funding that supports language, cultural access or other immigrant family-specific needs in parent engagement programming.

· A lack of alignment between efforts in early childhood and K-12 parent engagement programming leads to parent alienation from their child’s schooling.

· Smaller minority groups and speakers of less common languages are particularly underserved.

· Pockets of good practice are often surrounded by communities that may be ambivalent or even hostile toward diverse populations.

· A lack of important data on the federal, state and local levels hinders efforts to take the needs of newcomer families into account.

Park and McHugh (2014) remind us that “nowhere is research and political will better aligned than in the early childhood arena” (p. 6). This is an important idea for everyone who cares about the well-being of all children. Additionally, “with the changing demography of the country’s young families already a well-established fact, the need for concerted action to address the challenges outlined in this report is immediate” (Park and McHugh, 2014, p. 6). It sounds like we all have some work to do.

Haywoode, Alyssa. (2014, Juen 4). Mayors seek to build an early learning nation. Eye on Early Education. Retrieved from http://eyeonearlyeducation.com/2014/06/04/mayors-seek-to-build-an-early-learning-nation/.

Park, M. and McHugh, M. (2014, June). Immigrant parents and early childhood programs: Addressing barriers of literacy, culture and systems knowledge. Retrieved from http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigrant-parents-early-childhood-programs-barriers.

Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families (2014). Retrieved from http://www.zerotothree.org.

Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families (2014). School Readiness Interactive. Retrieved http://www.zerotothree.org/early-care-education/school-readiness-interactive/.