Frank Pallone: “I feel bad because I am not always there and my wife has to do the interaction most of the time, because we are down…”

“I feel bad because I am not always there and my wife has to do the interaction most of the time, because we are down here in Washington and they are back in New Jersey. But it is amazing how they begin to learn from the very beginning, and the environmental factors are so important. I watch my wife, who just insists on reading to them and having books around all the time, and stressing the importance of learning the alphabet and watching programs on TV that provide instruction in pre-reading skills, and it is just so crucial. We can just see that they are absorbing everything every day, and if they are not constantly involved in some way in an effort to learn, they will not learn as quickly. So that really has brought home to me the value of what we are trying to do by expanding Head Start to reach out to children from zero to 3. I think it is so crucial. It is just one of the most important things we can do in terms of investing in education, and in the long term providing children as they are growing up with a really good start, so to speak, so that they learn and they can become valuable members of society.”