June 23, 2008

More than 800 children this summer are participating in a UAB enrichment program that is designed to help youngsters retain what they learned during the school year and expose them to subjects not usually taught in their classes.

The children are participants in the UAB Children's Creative Learning Center, created for youngsters ages 4-12. The children receive reading and writing instruction and participate in art, creative writing, music and science workshops on topics such as ecology, physics and computer science. Some of the children have created bird feeders out of discarded water bottles. Others have experienced reciting poetry while playing drums or learned how to make movies using computers. Center programs are being held this summer at Rocky Ridge and Bluff Park elementary schools in Hoover, and for the first time in Birmingham, at Glen Iris Elementary School. Each school location offers different activities.

This summer at Glen Iris Elementary School, where 60 rising kindergarten students are attending, the focus is on nursery rhymes and fairy tales. "We are finding that many children today don't know the nursery rhymes and fairy tales," says UAB Associate Professor Lynn Kirkland, Ed.D., who directs the Center. "The reason may be that many parents aren't reading to their children as often, so they aren't reading the nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes and fairy tales are important because they are early predictors of literacy, and they help teach what is known as phonemic awareness, in which a child learns how words sound alike and how they sound differently."

The UAB Children's Creative Learning Center is offered in cooperation with the Hoover and Birmingham City schools.