This study investigates the vocabulary development of preschool children in the five programs of the Mt. Druitt Early Childhood Project, New South Wales, Australia. A Vocabulary Assessment Task was designed to tap the customary style of reference used by preschool children in response to familiar objects, and to test the qualitative levels of the…

The influence of five programs of the Mt. Druitt Early Childhood Project on the development of preschool children's vocabulary and syntactical skills was assessed in a pretest/posttest design. Programs differed in the amount of structure they imposed on the language experiences of the children and in the content they specified. Different measures…

The child-centered Contemporary Australian Preschool Program (CAPP), one of five programs for disadvantaged children in the Mt. Druitt Early Childhood Project, is described and evaluated in this report. Within the CAPP, the child's role was that of initiator and the teacher's role was that of facilitator. Specific objectives of the CAPP were to…

A language evaluation instrument was devised to assess the accuracy of program implementation by teachers of four Australian preschool programs. The Teacher Language Instrument (TLI) categorizes each verbal episode of a teaching interchange for both mode and function. Five general mode categories of teacher language behavior--statements,…

This report describes the development, implementation and evaluation of an Australian follow-through kindergarten year one program for children who had participated in an individualized, experience-based preschool program. Follow-through program development focused on planning a program that offered experiences compatible with those offered at…