the University of Florida\u2019s Lastinger Center for Learning<\/a>, 40% of children walk into kindergarten one to three years behind, and those students struggle to catch up. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAccording to the center’s research, most never catch up, which is why Polk County Schools say Camp Early Bird is so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It looks like it’s all fun and games, but the children in Camp Early Bird are actually hard at work, going through a kindergarten crash course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe try to provide enrichment for kids who\u2019ve already been exposed to our VPK (voluntary prekindergarten) curriculum, but some of our kids have not had any exposure,” said Dr. Ben Henry, a regional superintendent for Polk County Schools. “We provide them certain interventions to really get ready for Day 1.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Henry said the district started Camp Early Bird three years ago, and it\u2019s grown every year. Students work on learning the basics while having fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe do certain things with language for learning, which really gets kids some of the language acquisition skills they need to be ready for the first day of school. We do some number sense activities,\u201d Henry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Social-emotional skills are also very important for incoming kindergartners, and he said a puppet named \u201cAl\u201d helps teachers with those lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAl teaches our kids how to really get ready for the first day of school and be able to express some of the emotions they feel so they can have that first day of school and first adventure in big school to be something they\u2019re excited about,\u201d Henry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting students excited about learning is most important, Henry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All kindergarteners are given a readiness test, and there\u2019s a direct correlation between those who score well on it, and their future academic success, according to Henry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen we start looking at our kindergarten rate of success and getting them ready for kindergarten, in a couple years we look at third grade reading scores, and we want kids to be ready, so we can really start all kids on the right path starting in kindergarten by third grade. They\u2019ll be ready to read and be successful for everything moving forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a head start, students are set for success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The school district accepts open registration for Camp Early Bird every April. The camp is free, and students also receive free breakfast and lunch. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You\u2019ve heard the saying \u201cthe early bird gets the worm,\u201d and in a summer camp offered by Polk County Schools, the \u201cworm\u201d is confident, capable kindergarteners. The district offers \u201cCamp… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"6","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":47409,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/0628_bn9_camp_early_bird_2.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[9039],"class_list":["post-47408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-camp-early-bird-helps-polk-county-students-prepare-for-kindergarten"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47410,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47408\/revisions\/47410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n