Head Start gets DIG curriculum

Jay County’s Head Start kids are ready to DIG.

Thanks to a $6,567 grant from The Portland Foundation, the Head Start sites in both Dunkirk and Portland are now equipped with the DIG curriculum.

Developed by Abrams Learning Trend, DIG stands for “Develop. Inspire. Grow.”

“This teaches them more in depth,” said Michelle Allen of Portland Head Start. She and Kelsey Peden teach two sessions — one morning and one afternoon — for kids age 3 to 5 each day.

Their classroom was the last of those at the Portland site to receive the DIG materials, which include puppets, books, CDs and themed curriculum outlines. Other classrooms at the Portland Head Start site had already been implementing the DIG program.

“We do a lot more counting,” said Allen. “We do a lot of experiments science-wise.”

The goal, Peden said, is to improve school readiness, so that when Head Start kids head to kindergarten they won’t be behind their classmates. In all, there are 88 school readiness goals targeted by the DIG curriculum.

“They’re all getting one on one,” Peden said of her students.

“And they have homework every week,” added Allen, “so they’re not just sitting in front of their electronics.”