Half of all children entering kindergarten in Minnesota aren’t ready to do so, and because of that, 20 percent of the state’s third-graders can’t read. That’s why numerous organizations, including one locally, the Houston County Early Childhood Initiative (ECI), are focused on providing parents with programs that’ll give their child the necessary skills to have a successful first year of school n and a successful future.

This was a message Houston County ECI conveyed to a group of community leaders and school officials during a program Nov. 13 at the Four Seasons Community Center in Caledonia. Those associated with ECI talked about its goals, shared some of what it’s been able to do locally, and stressed an overall importance of early childhood education.

Houston County ECI was established in 2003 with support from the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, and was one of the first two coalitions of its kind created in southern Minnesota, said Val Krage, a La Crescent-Hokah Early Childhood and Houston County ECI coordinator. Through its work, and the use of grant money, ECI promotes school readiness for pre-school aged children, which includes increasing the awareness of quality early childhood education, re-instituting county-wide infant screening, and funding school readiness initiatives.

With the help of Houston County ECI, local school districts, and even the county, have been able to offer programs and services that cater towards infants, pre-school children, and parents. For example, Houston County Public Health has been able to provide infant screening for children 4-6 months old. Screening is a test of a child’s mental, social, and emotional health.

And closer to home, ECI also supported development of Camp Kindergarten in the La Crescent-Hokah School District. The week-long program, which was put on for the first time last summer, gave students entering kindergarten their first “kindergarten experience,” said Casey Jorgenson, a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school.

“It gave the kids a chance to meet all the kindergarten teachers, see the classrooms and the building,” she said. “And also, for many, they got to take their first bus ride.”

It’s hoped that any anxiety for the 48 kids who attended would be relieved, and that they’d know what to expect by the first day of school. At the end of the week, each child received a kit with several readiness activities, which was also provided by ECI.

A similar program in Spring Grove, Kinder Prep Academy, was also started with the help of ECI.

Duane Benson was the morning’s feature speaker. He is the executive director of the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation, and is a former state senator from 1980 to 1994, at which time he was also Senate Minority Leader. An 11-year National Football League veteran by way of Hamline University, he now owns a cattle farm outside Lanesboro.

Half of all Minnesota children aren’t ready for school, which means, for example, they don’t know their colors, can’t count to 30, and can’t grasp other simple math concepts, Benson said. In some cases he’s seen, the students don’t know their own name. These facts don’t set up a child well for his or her educational future.

“California and Tennessee do build prison space based on the ability to read in third grade,” Benson said. “If you’re not ready for kindergarten, you won’t read in third grade. If you don’t read in third grade, odds are you’ll drop out in ninth grade. We have populations more likely, four years after ninth grade, to be in prison than in college.”

Much of a child’s development starts at home, Benson said. Children need to be in a loving and safe home where they can explore their environment, and they need to be exposed to language and communication with people, not television.

“That’s part of what we’re doing…trying to measure impact of how all these fit together,” he said.

It’s critical to start kids off right in life because, simply, there are fewer that age now than there were 30 years ago. To be able to support an economy in need of qualified workers and smart consumers, the success of each child is important. This is obtained, Benson said, through early preparation.

“We have the largest concentration of large companies, per capita, of any state in the union,” he said. “They will not be able to sustain themselves here if they don’t have a workforce. They won’t be able to have a workforce unless these kids are ready for school.”

The goal of the Early Learning Foundation, he said, is to find the most cost-effective ways to prepare children for kindergarten.

“This is an important endeavor we’re engaged in, and we can make a difference,” Benson said. “It’s much easier sometimes to say, ‘We’ll do it globally,’ but if we each take a little piece of it, I think collectively, we’ll do it.”