This quarterly report on the Kailua Intermediate School's Excellence in Education Project provides information about the status of the project's four components, success of the project, replication of the project in other schools, and the project budget. The four component areas described include the skills laboratory, Homework Assist Program,…

In 1978, the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families, through its Head Start program, designed and implemented the Basic Educational Skills (BES) project to foster Head Start children's readiness for school and their subsequent achievement in elementary school. The purpose of this document is to disseminate elementary-level BES materials.…

One Pennsylvania district's experiences suggest that key factors in improving education are (1) redefining education's purpose, focusing on the basics, (2) defining the core curriculum, (3) restructuring the existing curriculum, (4) presenting the plan to the community, (5) responding to fears, (6) maintaining commitment, and (7) keeping…

This guide for parents indicates ways in which they can help their childen succeed in school. Sections focusing on language arts and mathematics list skills that students are required to master in kindergarten through fifth grades and suggest language arts activities for parents to implement at home. (RH)

Prepared specifically for parents of children ages 4 to 6, this brief guide (available in English or Spanish) provides basic information about what basic skills children should master, and how parents can help them acquire these skills. Ideas and suggestions are given for teaching such basic skills as controlling large and small muscles,…

If schools rush into Back-to-Basics the way they once rushed into open education, educational quality will not improve and the positive, humanistic attributes of progressive education may be lost. Change must be slowly and carefully planned and provide adequate support to the teachers who must implement it. (SJL)

This guide is designed to explain the concepts and details of the Certificates of General Education for Adults, which have been accredited by the Vocational Education and Training Accreditation Board in Victoria, Australia. Following an introduction, section 2, The Accreditation Document--Introductory, details the history of the project and the…

This evaluation guide resulted from a 2-year project that conducted literacy audits at 10 manufacturing companies, assessed 3,291 workers, developed customized assessments and curricula, and provided 104 courses to 948 participants in the Chicago area. The guide is a hands-on resource to assist companies, unions, or educational agencies in setting…

One of the developers of Cabrillo Unified School District's Basic Proficiency Monitoring System outlines basic principles for designing and implementing such a system: believe in the process, concentrate on the fundamentals, keep it simple and inexpensive, and always follow up. (SJL)

A process called focused holistic scoring has been developed for use in the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills to assess student performance on writing samples. This process is "holistic" because it evaluates a total piece of writing, and it is "focused" because it evaluates the writing in terms of two specific objectives…

Suggestions are presented that are drawn from basic skills instruction at the English Learning Centre at Gloucestershire College of Arts and Technology (England), an open learning center geared specifically for ESOL students. Funded for 2 years as a special project by the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit, the center examines procedures that…

Procedures for administering the Proficiency Testing Program, adopted by the Idaho State Department of Education, are explained in this test administration manual. The tests are described as given on a district optional basis to ninth grade students in the basic skills areas of reading, writing, spelling, and mathematics. Criterion-referenced…

Provided as a framework for use in curriculum development are Arkansas' course content guides for the primary grades one, two, and three. At each grade level, language arts, mathematics, and reading skills have been identified at three instructional levels: basic, developmental, and extensional. Basic skills are those which all students must…

This manual describes an effective, cost- and time-efficient approach to basic education and vocational training for adults. The approach was developed during a pilot project in Massachusetts that featured the following: capitalizing on students' interests, hands-on vocational training, the expectation that students' motivation to learn a…

As part of the development of a functional literacy test for fourth through eigth grade children in Title I compensatory education programs, this report defines functional literacy for children and enumerates criteria for evaluating existing tests. Criteria for selection of a test include: (1) content, empirical, and construct validity; (2)…