Through our partnership with ELF, we will be sponsoringstudents to attend Sheltering Arms Early Learning Academy from the Villages of East Lake. It is because of YOU that students from the Villages of East Lake are able to attend school and have the potential to not only meet their developmental milestones, but exceed them. Read more about Sheltering Arms below!
Since 1999, the Sheltering Arms Early Education & Family Center in East Lake has been the East Lake Foundation’s partner in ensuring that children from the community have a strong foundation for learning. Sheltering Arms provides early childhood education programming for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years (infants through Pre-K) in a facility built as part of the East Lake revitalization.
The program serves more than 130 children annually, including 30+ who live in The Villages of East Lake (VOEL), the mixed-income housing developed by ELF as part of the community redevelopment. Most of the VOEL residents receive scholarships through funding raised by the East Lake Foundation to ensure that cost is not an obstacle to attendance for economically disadvantaged children from VOEL.
Research has shown that access to high quality early childhood education is particularly important for children from economically disadvantaged families. A study conducted by Dr. Betty Hart (University of Kansas) and Dr. Todd Risley (University of Alaska) concluded that children from low-income households heard 30 million fewer words by age three than their high-income counterparts. Even by 18 months, children in different socio-economic groups displayed dramatic differences in their vocabularies (Dr. Anne Fernald, Stanford University). This is key because vocabulary and literacy development in the early years is related to later reading skills and school success.
Sheltering Arms addresses this need by serving working families with affordable and high quality early childhood education and comprehensive support services. To address literacy and vocabulary, teachers are trained to place a strong emphasis on language and pre-literacy instruction to ensure that children enter kindergarten ready to learn to read, and enter 3rd grade ready to read to learn. The curriculum, teacher qualifications, facilities, and health and safety procedures are administered based on the highest quality standards in the industry. The results are strong – about 92% of children attending Sheltering Arms centers in metro Atlanta meet or exceed developmental milestones for their age. The remaining 8% are either new to the program, or are referred for special services to address developmental delays and special —needs.