This report contains a transcript of the presentations of the primary speakers at a consultation on day care and the public schools organized by The Interchurch Center in New York. In addition to the presentations, the report provides highlights from a round table discussion of the issues raised by the speakers. Presentations described preliminary…

A study compared child care centers determined to be of high quality and low quality along three established indicators of quality: good adult/child ratio, caregiver continuity, and caregiver training in child development. The centers were all community centers who enrolled full tuition parents. Eighty-nine families with children aged 18, 24, 30,…

This descriptive study compared language used by teachers and children in Ausubelian and Piagetian preschool programs during small group instruction and related learning activities. Instruction in the Ausubelian program (AP) was based on Ausubel's subsumption theory of learning while that in the Piagetian program (PP) was based on Piaget's theory…

The Austin (Texas) Independent School District served 4,143 students with limited English proficiency in 1986-87. The native language breakdown was 87% Spanish, 5% Vietnamese, and 8% other language groups. The students were served through either the Transitional Bilingual Education program (TBE) or English as a Second Language program (ESL). The…

Early reading should be studied from three perspectives: the function of print, the form of print, and the conventions of print. In so doing, it may be possible to avoid some of the hazards that have plagued the field, such as unsubstantiated assumptions about beginning reading and how it should be taught, erroneous beliefs that maturation plays…

The second of a two-volume report, this document focuses on the study of written language growth and development among 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children. The first section of the report introduces the program of research by examining its methodological and conceptual contexts. The second section provides illustrative and alternative looks at the…

A comparative analysis of staff allocation in the six Australian States, the Australian Capital Territory, and New Zealand, this report describes existing structures and policies at the education system level and identifies innovative policies worthy of further examination. After an explanation of the background and conceptual framework of this…

The document provides data gathered from 1,379 questionnaire responses of 1,428 Head Start programs on the status of handicapped children as of March 15, 1976. A brief summary of data findings (such as that 95% of Head Start programs serve at least one handicapped child, and that 45 states met the mandate to provide handicapped children with at…

To investigate the assumptions that interpersonal problem solving skills can be systematically taught to young children and that such skills mediate behavioral adjustment, 37 black, economically disadvantaged preschool age children participated in a year-long intervention project and a 6-month follow-up. Specifically, the study evaluated the…

The Early Childhood Observation Form was developed to compare and evaluate two distinct curriculums used in Title I and Title I Migrant Pre-Kindergarten classrooms in the Austin Independent School District during the 1979-1980 school year. Variables recorded on the form included language spoken, group size, activity, adult instructional…

This paper discusses the long-term effects of preschool experience on sixth and seventh grade students. Subjects (n=200) were primarily black, lower-SES, Head Start children who, in 1968-69, were randomly assigned to one of four preschool programs: Bereiter-Engelmann, Darcee, Montessori, and Traditional. In 1976-77, approximately 140 of the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 53 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) instructional procedures for teaching word meanings; (2) readability; (3) reading acquisition; (4) the relation of word deprivation to reading in elementary…

The Direct Instructional System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading (DISTAR) was developed to provide beginning and remedial instruction to disadvantaged children in preschool and the primary grades. The method places heavy emphasis on structure, programmed learning, drill, and repetition. To determine teachers' opinions of the DISTAR reading…

The performance of 68 preschool children, ages three (28), four (21), and five (19), on selected phoneme-grapheme correspondence tasks was analyzed for age and sex differences in two stages of data collection. First, the children spelled their first names and the initial of their last names with letters on a magnetic board, after which they…

This study attempts to identify potential school problems in preschool children in order to facilitate the provision of relevant information for systematic screening and early guidance. Data from the first 14 months (to the end of the preschool period) of a longitudinal study extending from 4 1/2 years of age to the end of second grade are…