UC helps some of Cincinnati’s most vulnerable get kindergarten ready

Jessica Gries thinks back on her time at Head Start Cincinnati and smiles, remembering reading bilingual books to a classroom that included many Hispanic children, ages 3-5.

“It was exciting for me to be able to incorporate linguistic diversity when working with the students,” says Gries, now a bilingual speech-language pathologist for Cincinnati Public Schools. “The students were able to learn from each other and with each other, drawing on almost everyone's native language skills and language strengths.”

The practicum experience fulfilled some of the clinical requirements that Gries needed to earn her Master of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Cincinnati. Ultimately, the experience helped her decide to take her first job in a school.

She is one of nearly 200 UC graduate and undergraduate students who have participated in the partnership between Head Start and the College of Allied Health Sciences since 2009. A partnership that Head Start’s Micah Davis calls “one of the best things that could have happened at Head Start.”

Davis is the grantee service director, overseeing many facets of the federally funded program available to children from low-income households. Every child, regardless of circumstances at birth, can reach their full potential—that’s the cornerstone of Head Start. The goal is to prepare each and every child for kindergarten, Davis says.

“Abby’s team is really good with the kids and very professional,” Homan says. “You can tell they’ve picked a field they’re going to succeed in and have been able to help identify help for even our younger children.”

It works like this: Each center accepts income-eligible children into either its Early Head Start or Head Start program. Early Head Start is for infants to 3-year-olds and is available year-round. Head Start is for children ages 3-5 and runs nine months of the year. Children can come for morning or afternoon sessions. Some stay from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. 

UC screens every Head Start child at the start of each year, testing their speech and language skills based on developmental standards. Each year, there are roughly 15 graduate students in the program with an additional six or so seniors doing their undergraduate capstone project with Head Start. 

After the initial screening, a child who does not pass is given a second screen 

“We give the students — who are in preschool or younger — the benefit of the doubt the first time,” Foltz Hottle says. “Maybe they were tired, or hungry or missed mom. We know there are a thousand things that can come into play, and we don’t want to over-identify kids.”

If the child fails a second time, they are referred to their local school district or Children’s Hospital for further evaluation to determine if they qualify for special services, such as an IEP. Last academic year, the UC cohort conducted 277 Speech and Language screens and 54 Preschool Language Scales-5 screens at Head Start, which led to 26 children being referred to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center’s Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, and 14 children referred for IEPs. 

Those children can remain in Head Start until kindergarten, if they remain income-eligible, and receive weekly speech and language support via the UC program.

“The graduate students create lesson plans and execute them, they collect data and write progress reports,” Foltz Hottle says. “It’s really impressive, what they can achieve in a year.” They also conduct enrichment sessions for entire classrooms — such as Gries’ bilingual story time — working on phonological awareness, teaching vocabulary, reading, and comprehension.

Zachry Kinnett has watched the UC cohort in action in many years now, first, as a Head Start teacher years ago. “They gave me a lot of ideas, as a teacher, as a coach,” Kinnett says. Later he supervised a group of teachers and learned more about the inner workings of the program. Today, Kinnet is the grantee education coordinator monitoring many Head Start programs, including the speech and language program with UC. “They do a great job, I just make sure no one falls through the cracks and every kid who needs one gets a referral,” Kinnett says. 

Foltz Hottle says the experience is a good one for the budding speech-language pathologists. Despite efforts to diversify graduate candidates, many of the speech and language students find themselves a minority for the first time in their lives, amongst underrepresented Head Start students.

“We want our students to understand cultural responsiveness,” Foltz Hottle says, “and we want them to better understand some of the hardships that Head Start kids might face. How do we make sure we’re not saying insensitive things and we are informed enough to practice with sensitivity and respect to their needs and values.”

For Naomi Jackson, the placement had it challenges, but ended up being one of her favorite experiences in graduate school. She decided to pursue a career in speech sciences after taking a class her freshman year that provided an overview of all of UC’s colleges and the jobs they could lead to. She wrote a paper on speech pathology, and something clicked. After a few intro courses, Jackson knew her path. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Speech Language Hearing Science from UC in 2021 and added a Master of Arts in Speech Pathology degree in 2023.

For two semesters she worked at two Head Start centers and loved it.

“I learned that you could plan what you think will be the best lesson ever, but if the kid isn’t interested, it’s not going to work,” Jackson says. “You have to learn to adapt.” Today, she is a speech-language pathologist at two Cincinnati Public Schools, where she builds on those skills every day.

In fact, she, Jessica Gries, and two other speech-language pathologists who graduated in their class took jobs at CPS. “We text constantly, asking, any thoughts on this, any ideas on treating that,” Gries says. “It’s a really nice support system.”

Featured image at the top: UC Speech-Language Pathology graduate student, Grace Miller, provides a tier one language and literacy lesson to all the classroom students. Photo/Provided.