Early Childhood

Can 3-year-olds learn online? Susan Magsamen believes they can, with moderation and careful monitoring by a mentor or parent. And she's building a company to prove it. Last month, Magsamen launched Curiosityville.com , a company that focuses on online learning for children ages 3 to 8. The Cockeysville company has raised $2.3 million from investors and has struck several partnerships with some major children's learning brands, including National...

The Anne Arundel County school board voted yesterday to move forward with a proposal to create a regional "early childhood center" for 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds on the site of dilapidated Ferndale Elementary School, opening the issue to a public hearing in coming weeks. The board declined requests for public hearing from three communities seeking to redistrict their children to other schools. Board member Paul Rudolph introduced motions on behalf of two of the groups, but they failed because of a lack of support from the board.

Anne Arundel County schools Superintendent Eric J. Smith said yesterday that he will recommend closing the dilapidated, but beloved, Ferndale Elementary School and erecting in its place the county's first institution devoted entirely to prekindergarten and kindergarten. If approved by the board, Smith's plan would bring to an end years of controversy surrounding the small, gray, 77-year-old building on Wellham Avenue. In July, noting unsafe and unhealthful conditions, Smith temporarily shuttered the county's smallest elementary school and sent its 140 students to nearby George Cromwell Elementary.

Since she was hired two years ago as a medical assistant in suburban Chicago, Jennifer Simonsis has come to an agreement with her employer: During the winter, she is given time off to see her doctor, frequent breaks, and help in setting up a light-therapy lamp at her desk. Joining a controversial trend, Simonsis sought workplace accommodations for seasonal affective disorder, or SAD - depression triggered by limited daylight in winter. Pointing to a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against the disabled, some SAD sufferers say they are entitled to schedule changes, access to windows and other modifications.

IT'S SAID that play is the work of children. Now we're taking their jobs away. That's the thesis of Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff. The two developmental psychologists were at the Port Discovery children's museum Thursday. They came to promote play. They had an appreciative audience repeating after them: "Play equals learning! Play equals learning!" Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff have co-authored a delightful book, Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, which decries our Roadrunner society's fixation on teaching kids to read and compute before they're potty-trained, prepping them for Harvard before they can tie their shoes, viewing a "Baby Einstein" video before they know their colors.

FOR EVERY dollar invested in a quality preschool program, society gets $7.16 in benefits - savings on welfare and special education, savings on crimes that aren't committed, prison sentences never served. Plus the taxes on earnings that flow to local, state and federal governments. It's one of the most famous findings in education research, one that's been debated for years. David Weikart, the educator and psychologist who conducted the research, was in town yesterday to discuss it with 350 Marylanders who work with young children.

Before Lauren Preston opened the cover of the book "Spring" to read to her pre-kindergarten class at Mary Ann Winterling Elementary School, her students excitedly told her why, and showed her how, the season was underway. Daffodils - not just "yellow flowers" - were appearing from beneath the soil, they said. Hyacinths were blooming, they demonstrated with the slow unfolding of their tiny fists. And butterflies were emerging, the students showed by flapping their curled arms. In pre-K classrooms around Baltimore's school system, subtle changes like interactive reading are having a substantial effect in helping prepare 4-year-olds for elementary school - addressing an achievement gap that city schools have faced for years.

For the fifth year in a row, Maryland has the best public school system in America, according to rankings published Thursday by a leading education publication that gave the state high marks for post-graduation outcomes, state funding levels and overall student achievement. In the report card published annually by Education Week, the state was issued an overall grade of B+, compared to the nation's overall C+, after an assessment of six areas that examined education policy and performance.

The Early Childhood Development Program at Essex Community College has been awarded the Maryland State Department of Education's Award of Excellence for Career and Technology Education for 1991.The award was presented to Dr. Andrew Snope, dean of instruction at Essex, during ceremonies at a meeting of the Maryland Career and Technology Education administrators. Accepting the award with Dr. Snope were Donna Jacobs, associate professor and program coordinator, and Dorothy Wood and Adrienne Koram, associate professors of Early Childhood Education.

There has been a lot of conflicting information in the local and national press recently about pre-kindergarten. As longtime practitioners of the art of early childhood education, the Maryland Family Network would like to offer some perspective and broaden the conversation. First, publicly funded pre-K is just one piece of a much larger system of early care and education. This system consists of child care centers, family child care, Head Start and a range of other early learning settings, such as private nursery school.