5-Year-Old Graduates Are Lauded First Lady Addresses Youngsters In Program

The graduates’ feet didn’t reach the floor, and halfway through the ceremony they had to be entertained with books. But it was a commencement celebration all the same, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was the speaker.

The graduates, two dozen 5-year-olds who completed the D.C. Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters and their families filled the Mt. Airy Baptist Church a few blocks from the Capitol on Thursday.

“I want to congratulate all of you,” Clinton told the children, clad in tiny white caps and gowns, and their parents. “You have worked hard for this day.”

The program helps low-income parents in 26 states and the District of Columbia prepare their preschool and kindergarten-age children for school by teaching them basic learning skills at home.

The first lady was instrumental in taking the program to Arkansas when President Clinton was governor and sat on its national advisory board for four years.

She praised the district’s program, and said it gives children the skills they will need when they move into elementary school.

She noted that it helps give parents a role in their children’s education. “I want to congratulate the parents who did the lessons, who worked with their children,” she said. “We are applauding not only your child, we are applauding you.”

After her speech, Clinton helped program coordinator Doris Rhinehart present the children with certificates of achievement, giving each child a hug and posing for photographs.

Ayana Sutton, who will start first grade at Walker-Jones Elementary School in the fall, said she was proud and excited to finish the program. “I liked it,” she said, but “I’m happy to go to first grade.”

The 5-year-old planned to celebrate her accomplishment with a trip to Toys R Us.

“It makes me happy because she’s learning,” her mother, Yolanda Sutton, said. “It’s prepared her for school.”