Hillary Clinton spoke about teaching youngsters based on the model of a program in Israel. Photo: Screenshot.

During a speech on Tuesday at a community meeting in Florissant, Missouri, 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton cited an Israeli program as a model for educating youngsters, the Jewish Insider reported.

The former Secretary of State said that as First Lady of Arkansas years ago, she searched for an affordable, universal pre-K program for children from poor families. She looked for programs “that people could run themselves” and came across the Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), a home-based program developed in Israel in 1969.

HIPPY supplies activity packets to guide parents in helping their children learn. The organization also hosts support groups for parents and provides assistance from parent paraprofessionals.

Clinton said the Israeli program helped immigrants in Israel, particularly Ethiopians, who moved to the Jewish state seeking religious freedom with their children, some of whom had never been to school. She said Americans could learn from HIPPY about how to teach their own youngsters.

“The secret to the program… was to teach the mother to teach her child. We need to do more of that and I call on all of us to find ways to reach into those families,” she said.