Dr. James Johnson is a member of Smart Start's Early Care and Education Committee and a professor in the Penn State department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education. He specializes in early childhood education.

 Q:"My wife and I are expecting our first child. We have heard that the commonwealth has changed public school teacher certification and want to know why - and how might this affect our family, our child?"

A:Pennsylvania has eliminated the nursery through third-grade and the kindergarten through sixth-grade teacher certificates and has replaced them with a pre-Kindergarten through fourth-grade and a fourth-grade through eighth-grade licensure range. This represents an important change in basic and higher education for teaching young children in Pennsylvania - and in many other states - and the change is for the better.

Why the change? First of all, research convincingly has established that the early years are critical learning years. Your baby will be a very intentional learner and will need intentional teaching. Another reason is the need to address America's vanishing potential. National Assessment of Educational Progress scores have documented the fact that many fourth-graders do not show satisfactory academic attainments at grade level in math and reading - and this lack of proficiency disproportionately besets youngsters from minority, migrant or poverty-stricken families.

Research has sadly shown that the positive effects of early education, targeting these vulnerable groups, often diminish during elementary school due to inadequate follow-up. We need to align education across preschool and the primary grades to prevent this fade-out effect.

Changing the certification ranges should help schools reorganize to better serve all children in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and the primary grades.

Teachers with the new certificate (Pre-K to 4) blending early and elementary expertise will be focused on helping children learn to read by the third grade, so that children can read to learn from then on. Of course other subjects are taught as well, but always with an emphasis on the whole child. The child's family and cultural roots are very important; and persons with the early childhood teaching certificate will have been taught to pay as much attention to where the child is coming from and where the child is now as to where the child is heading academically in the future.

Lifting early childhood philosophy into the elementary schools will result in more teachers saying "I teach your child math (or reading, etc.)," than saying "I teach math to your child." While academic achievement continues to be a major focus, there will be greater sensitivity to individual differences, resulting in your child being appreciated as a person first - his or her overall growth, development and well being.

How well this change is implemented in our public schools can use your help. Families must engage schools in partnerships to promote optimal learning and development across the early learning continuum, from birth to fourth grade.

Hopefully your child will flourish because there will be greater responsiveness to the need to educate the whole child, the individually unique, precious child, and because there will be more understanding that children blossom in different ways and at different speeds.

Be proactive, not passive, in working with your child's teachers.