Multilingualism is an international fact of life and increasing in the United States. Multilingual families are exceedingly diverse, and policies relevant to them should take this into account. The quantity and quality of a child's exposure to responsive conversation spoken by fluent adults predicts both monolingual and multilingual language and…

The objective of this report is to review studies that report language and literacy outcomes associated with preschool curriculum-based interventions. Results from studies reporting on interventions targeting preschool children from low-income families were included regardless of the specific type of program. Although the majority of preschool…

Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest explores the nature of vocabulary and its implications for classroom instruction. After defining vocabulary and discussing some of the sources of English vocabulary, the digest examines how children's vocabularies develop. It then discusses the role of vocabulary…

Reports on an eight-year longitudinal study of Dutch children on the relationship of the development of reading ability in primary schools with general academic success. Finds that young children with reading problems in primary school keep them throughout their educational career. (CFR)

To gather longitudinal student achievement data from schools utilizing the four-day week, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) grade equivalent scores were obtained in 1984 from five rural Colorado school districts for four consecutive years--two years prior to and two years following the districts' change to the shortened week. A first analysis…