KU News Release

KU’s Juniper Gardens awarded $10 million for early literacy center

LAWRENCE — The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a $10 million, five-year grant to Juniper Gardens Children’s Project, a Kansas City, Kan.-based program of the Life Span Institute at the University of Kansas.

The grant will fund a Center for Response to Intervention in Early Childhood. Charles Greenwood, professor of applied behavioral science, and Judith Carta, professor of special education, are co-recipients of the grant and will oversee the work of the center.

Greenwood is director of Juniper Gardens, whose mission and research focus on improving the development and educational experiences of children and families who live in poverty. The program was established in the 1960s in downtown Kansas City.

“Learning to read is one of the most important skills children need for success in later life,” said Greenwood. “Unfortunately, children with reading problems are often identified much too late. They fail to receive any special intervention until the second or even third grade. By that time, they’ve missed out on important learning opportunities and have a difficult time catching up.”

“Response to intervention” is an approach that identifies children when they show the first signs of reading problems. It then provides them with more intensive instruction.

“While this approach has been used successfully in elementary grades to prevent reading problems,” said Greenwood, “it has not yet been applied in the pre-kindergarten years.”

The center will conduct research, develop methods of monitoring progress and publish its findings. “We expect the center to become a national leader in the area of intervention with preschoolers to develop language and early literacy,” said Greenwood.

Joining Juniper Gardens in establishing the center are researchers at Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota and Dynamic Measurement Group, a company in Oregon. The grant was awarded through the National Center For Special Research Program within the Department of Education.

“We anticipate working directly with 50 classrooms in five states,” said Carta. “About 13 of those classrooms will be in the Kansas City area. But we expect that the new assessment measures and teaching strategies we develop will be available to thousands of children and teachers in the country. Ultimately, our hope is to provide tools and techniques that will improve children’s odds of entering school ready to read.”

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