Demand for child care services has grown steadily over the last few decades due to demographic trends, public policies, newly discovered links between brain development and early environments, and the number of parents entering the labor market for reasons such as welfare reform. As a result, most U. S. children under five spend time on a regular…

As part of efforts to improve school readiness by enhancing the quality of early childhood education, the state of Maryland developed standards for the use of staff in center-based child care and Head Start programs to mirror the standards in place for public school prekindergarten programs as well as a state accreditation process for center-based…

Students in early childhood teacher education programs are expected to know, plan curriculum, and teach within several sets of content area, national, state, and local, learning standards. Understanding where these standards originated and why they are important within the context of classroom practice will help new teachers begin their careers…

Children whose homes are filled with books, whose parents read to them, and who have begun to understand the reading process have higher levels of reading skills and knowledge when they enter kindergarten than children who do not have such rich literacy experiences before entering school. This article describes a family literacy project developed…

The planning and implementation of a pilot CDA training project is described in this final report to the Office of Child Development by the Human Services Department, Social Science Division of the St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. Staff training, selection of candidates and curriculum development are emphasized early in the report. The…

This report summarizes findings from the first year of an implementation study of the Early Childhood Cluster Initiative (ECCI). ECCI is a prekindergarten program in ten elementary schools and a community child care center in Palm Beach County, based on the design of the High/Scope Perry Preschool model. The initiative is characterized by low…

In Arizona and around the country, there is an increased focus on ensuring that children start school ready to learn. Noting that the best way to know if Arizona's children are starting school ready to learn is to track their progress, this booklet details indicators or benchmarks in five categories used to measure the state's progress in school…

Despite having a genuine concern about racism and oppression, many early childhood teachers encounter significant feelings of discomfort as they try to implement antibias values in their classrooms. Based on the view that it is not possible to authentically teach children about acceptance without engaging in reflection upon one's own values and…

Based on the view that the rapid expansion and development of preschool education requires careful scrutiny of both educational policy and practices, this book presents information on current early childhood education and care policy in Portugal. Section 1 of the book provides a historical framework for the development of early childhood education…

This publication reports findings from the first year of an implementation study of the Early Childhood Cluster Initiative (ECCI). ECCI is a prekindergarten program in ten elementary schools and a community child care center in Palm Beach County, based on the design of the High/Scope Perry Preschool model. The initiative is characterized by low…

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has proposed a 10-year campaign to enable the country to meet the national education goal of having every child start school ready to learn. The campaign has a 7-step agenda. First, every child must have a healthy birth, and be well-nourished and well-protected in the early years of life. The…

This essay discusses the achievements of early childhood educator, Vivian Gussin Paley, preschool and kindergarten teacher for more than 30 years, and author of 12 books portraying her work in the classroom with young children. It begins with a description of seven narrative tools she developed over the course of many years that became the means…

There is a nationwide call to better provide schools with a teaching force equipped with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively teach the diversifying U.S. student population. This series, Collaborative Partnerships Between ESL and Classroom Teachers, edited by Debra Suarez, aims to contribute to the field's responses to this…

On the premise that hearing other preschool teachers talk about their challenges in creating inclusive settings is a powerful impetus to reflect about one's own teaching practice, this book contains personal narratives by 18 teachers about their journeys toward inclusive, developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood education. The…

Noting that the preschool period is important for the formation of individual habits and modes of behavior related to health, the Czech Republic initiated the Healthy Kindergarten (HK) Project, thereby expanding the Healthy School Project for primary schools introduced into the country by the World Health Organization. This report describes the HK…