By Sacha Pfeiffer (WBUR)

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In the state’s poorest households, some children grow up without books, without making trips to the library, and without family conversations that help build vocabularies. That puts many of these kids at an educational disadvantage at the beginning of life, increasing their risk of becoming high school dropouts.

Boston is trying to change that by knocking on doors at public housing projects to offer help to the poorest families in the city. The Boston Centers for Youth and Families is training low-income parents to be their children’s first teacher, and to make their homes their children’s first classroom.

This weekly play group at the Charlestown Community Center looks — and sounds — like a typical toddler get-together. There’s music and reading and toys and laughter. And, yes, also some crying.

(SOUND OF CHILD WAILING)

But ask Radaisy Santana what this group has done for her three-year-old son Adrian and her eyes light up. She says in the year or so he’s has been coming here, his temper has improved, he listens better and he’s learned a lot.

RADAISY SANTANA: He know the colors, some letters.

Santana also says while Adrian used to speak mostly only her native language, he’s quickly become bilingual.

SANTANA: Now he speaking English and Spanish.

Santana and her son wouldn’t have been here if the city’s Smart from the Start program hadn’t helped coax them to come, along with other low-income families from public housing projects in Charlestown, Mattapan and Roslindale. Some of these families were so isolated they rarely left their houses.

Santana says before she joined this play group she mostly kept Adrian at home. That didn’t give him much exposure to English or to new places and new ideas. And program director Cherie Craft says those early years offer prime learning opportunities.

CHERIE CRAFT: These families and these children are not able to make the best use of that time. Because families are worried about putting food on the table. They’re having substance issues. Kids spend a lot of time alone in the apartment, without stimulation. And these are the kids that are falling through the gaps.

Craft says many low-income parents have little time or energy to focus on their kids’ educations. And she says almost 80 percent of the families who joined Smart from the Start hadn’t known that talking to their kids could increase their language skills. So the program makes sure parents know their children are born ready to learn.

CRAFT: We have one parent who also has a 16-year-old daughter and said, ‘When she was a little baby I was just happy when she was good. I would put her in the seat and I would clean the house.’ She said, ‘Now I see my one-year-old talking sooner, she understands things. I cannot believe the changes that I’ve seen in myself as a parent.

Since Smart from the Start began last year, more than 10 percent of the families it’s reached have signed up for programs like English classes, career planning and money management. The idea is that educated parents raise educated children, so the program’s goal is universal school readiness that will help all kids become high school graduates. Laurie Sherman, who helped create Smart from the Start, wants the city’s poorest families to realize their kids can blossom without fancy schools or expensive toys.

LAURIE SHERMAN: You know what? If you sing and talk to me and read to me in any language — let’s say you don’t know English and what you have at home is a book in Chinese — that helps me learn. And that helps my brain grow. And that gets me ready for school. And then I’m going to succeed in school when I get there. And then I’m going to want to stay in school. It’s really that simple.

In Sherman’s City Hall office there’s a poster that reads, “Home is a Child’s First School.” It’s meant to encourage parents to treat their homes as classrooms by doing things like explaining measurements when they’re cooking or talking about addresses when the mail arrives. Smart from the Start also trains parents to point out shapes and colors and new words.

SHERMAN: Think about it: If you’re a kid and you get to kindergarten and you’re learning to read and write words you’ve never heard, that can be as difficult as learning a foreign language.

Smart from the Start even tries to help kids still in the womb. It does that by making sure pregnant women know where their local libraries, health centers and other community resources are so they’ll have a ready support network once their babies are born. So far, the program has helped 160 families, including almost 300 children. It costs about $700,000 a year. Five hundred thousand of that comes from the United Way and several private foundations. Again, Laurie Sherman.

SHERMAN: What we’re trying to do in Boston is invest early in kids and continue that investment through the school-age years. And then all of our kids could graduate if we do this right.

(SOUND OF CHILDREN’S PLAY GROUP)

Back at the Charlestown play group, Radaisy Santana says she is now thinking of herself as her son’s teacher, and her home as his classroom.

SANTANA: When I’m doing something in the house, I’m talking about what I do. When I cooking, when I use the washing machine, he help me — ‘Mommy, I help you!’ When I’m making pancakes, he open the eggs. He like to help me.

Smart from the Start hopes that kind of parenting will help Santana’s son — and other kids in the program — thrive in school, all the way through high school.