Philadelphia ? President Bush promised on Tuesday to give American children a chance at “the lifelong gift of early learning” through better training for teachers in the Head Start preschool program.

In a speech before a nearly all-adult audience at a Penn State University campus in suburban Delaware County, Bush said he would direct the Department of Health and Human Services to begin training almost 50,000 Head Start teachers on the best techniques to teach the rudiments of reading to preschoolers.

“Reading is the foundation for all of learning,” Bush said. “Reading to a child early and often can change a child’s life. … A child who cannot identify the letters of the alphabet in his or her first year of school runs a real risk of staying behind in school throughout her or his career. We cannot accept this in America.”

Bush’s proposal immediately drew criticism from members of Congress who challenged him to put more money into his ideas.

“The president … proposed no additional resources to help states and local communities provide the vital support to families and children,” said Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt. “The president’s is a good first step, but we need to do so much more.”

Bush said he wants to dedicate $45 million for research into early literacy programs and practices that work, the same basic goal as another proposal that cropped up Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said he and a bipartisan group of colleagues would propose giving $5 billion in incentive grants to states over five years, to coordinate early childhood programs in Head Start and other preschool programs in public schools, daycare centers and at home.

The money would go to programs that care for and teach children as young as newborns.

“To make a real difference for our youngest children, we must add flesh to the bones of the president’s commitment,” Kennedy said.

Bush spoke of his own joy as a parent who read to his twin daughters when they were toddlers. “Sometimes, when I sleep at night, I think of ‘Hop on Pop,”‘ Bush said, a classic children’s book by Dr. Seuss. “We found it to be fun. … But it’s more than just fun. It is a vital preschool learning experience.”

Bush said he wants every child to start school with standard knowledge such as the letters of the alphabet, an idea of the sounds that signify those letters, the look of written words and the experience of seeing their parents reading.

Sarah Greene, president and chief executive of the National Head Start Assn., questioned why Bush is tinkering with the 37-year-old Head Start program when it has proven effective and already is undergoing change.

“Why is the president adding yet another bureaucratic layer?” Greene asked. “Making reckless changes to a program that works, rather than directly addressing the shortcomings of the K-12 system, makes little sense.”

Like Bush’s kindergarten-to-12th grade education plan, which Kennedy helped develop, the congressional early childhood proposal would subject local programs to “rigorous evaluation” by state departments of education.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, would tie teachers’ salaries to their training and give parents information “in a way that is understandable,” Kennedy said in a statement. Bush proposed a similar public awareness campaign.