TOTAL LEARNING INITIATIVE

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About the Total Learning Initiative

Total Learning is a highly effective approach for those children who need it most.

Total Learning is a prototype program, research based, and meticulously studied, that provides a comprehensive educational program for children ages birth through nine that reduces the achievement gap between poor children and upper income children. Results from an independent evaluation of the program concluded, Total Learning is meeting its objective: to close the persistent achievement gap that challenges impoverished and disadvantaged students in Bridgeport, CT... "Total Learning appears highly effective for those children who need it most."

Total Learning utilizes a whole child approach that incorporates:

• Multi-Sensory approaches to Curriculum Delivery: In Total Learning, curriculum is delivered through the lens of multiple intelligences, providing a variety of hooks for children to grasp hold of and learn.
• Enhanced Learning Environment: The Total Learning class environment includes a smaller child-staff ratio, and an extended school day and year.
• Professional Development: The professional development for Total Learning requires approximately 45 hours, delivered over the school year through classroom modeling, team teaching, coaching, and planning sessions. The goal is to train teachers to independently create and deliver the curriculum through use of powerful, multi-modal, developmentally appropriate strategies.
• Family Support: Total Learning utilizes a Head Start model for the delivery of Family Support services. All families are assigned a Family Advocate, who provides case management and care coordination for family and child needs and partners with parents to improve children's school attendance.
• ChildFIRST Mental Health Services: Behavioral health professionals both on-site in the classroom and in the child's home.
• Parent Involvement: Workshops, activities and family service plans are developed in response to parent surveys and interviews. Family Advocates offer all families home visits. Monthly parent workshops are held to connect the home to classroom activities.

• Parent and Infant/Toddler Classes: Through Music Together - Weekly Parent-Child dyadic workshops take place using music and movement as the vehicle for parent development. Parents receive on-going coaching throughout the fun-filled workshops. Additionally, each family receives a full set of materials (which includes music tapes or CD's, music books, and age appropriate musical instruments) to extend the activities to the home for additional practice.
• An Independent Evaluation that meets the “gold standard” for research assesses the success of the initiative in improving children's achievement, acquisition of speech and language skills, literacy skills, social-emotional development, and in general, success in reducing the achievement gap. The study involves a randomized controlled design.

While Total Learning is being studied in Bridgeport, CT, the meticulous study will result in a model that can be replicated across the country to meet the needs of all children, so that truly, no child will be left behind.

ABCD, Inc. 1070 Park Avenue, Bridgeport, CT 06604 Phone: (203) 366-8241 Fax: (203) 394-6175
Charles Tisdale, Executive Director

Action for Bridgeport Community Development Inc. (ABCD), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit agency was designed as the anti-poverty agency for the Greater Bridgeport Area in September of 1964 by the Office of Economic Opportunity. The agency aims to work with people toward the eradication of the "paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty in this nation." ABCD presently servers over 35,000 individuals annually through its broad range of services in a six-town area, covering Bridgeport, Easton, Fairfield, Monroe, Stratford, and Trumbull, Connecticut.

ABCD is distinguished from other corporations in two important ways. First, ABCD's sole mandate is to assist the poor. Second, ABCD concentrates its efforts and resources on identifying and eliminating the causes of poverty rather than only dealing with its effects. ABCD's efforts are directed towards promoting appropriate institutional change and enabling the poor to become self-sufficient.