Strengthening family involvement in early childhood programs became a fundamental component of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Excellence Initiative. The initiative's strategies for encouraging family involvement include: creating a welcoming atmosphere; actively involving parents, children, and other family members in the education process;…

Discusses the importance of family and community involvement to student achievement. Schools can establish an effective partnership among schools, families, and the community by providing support for families, creating family-community learning centers, supporting the community, providing opportunities for shared responsibility, facilitating the…

Proposes the home-school connection as a key solution to boost science, mathematics, and technology programs in schools. Suggests that professionals in education must find ways to make connections between school learning and children's learning outside school. Proposes appropriate strategies such as science and mathematics backpacks, minimuseums,…

Describes a set of structured experiences within a preservice teacher education program that helped construct, with the students, a critical perspective toward better understanding pupils' home, community, and school lives. The structured experiences occurred within a New Mexico school community research project combined with a course on families,…

This article sets out a rationale and provides a model for family work by group care practitioners. In doing so it points out that practitioners will need to avoid parent blaming attitudes and become family-centered rather than simply child-focused. Thus the critical issues to be addressed are how to ensure that a group care program is from an…

The purpose of this publication is to identify the essential components of appropriate programming mandated by Alberta Education for students with special education needs, to provide examples of effective practices, to establish a common understanding of the terminology associated with this specialized field, and to clarify the meaning of…

Early Head Start services are typically offered through home- or center-based delivery models. A formative evaluation of an example of each service delivery model was conducted. The purpose was to examine the issues involved in the implementation of these two service delivery models relative to the content of services, intensity of services,…

This report highlights the progress of the 15 statewide family advocacy projects funded by the Center for Mental Health Services of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration during the 1993 fiscal year. Section 1 provides an historical background and a summary of the interim report. A qualitative description of the…

Most of the low-income, under-educated mothers in rural areas of Sri Lanka are disadvantaged and unable to provide their children with a healthy home environment, guidance, or the material support required for their children's education. This study hypothesized that educating low-income, under-educated mothers to develop their own literacy skills…

This theme issue offers a collection of articles focusing on support groups for parents of infants and toddlers, including the following: (1) "Gaining Perspective on Parenting Groups" (Nick Carter and Cathie Harvey) which reviews the purposes, history, and essential ingredients of such groups; (2) "The MELD Experience with Parent Groups" (Joyce…

Recognizing that a child's family is his or her first and most important teacher, this technical assistance paper stresses the importance of preschool teachers involving the family in the development of the child. It examines the fundamental principles that guide the creation of a partnership with parents and some of the objectives of building the…

This booklet contains ideas about how families can help children in school in the following basic ways by: (1) teaching their children; (2) learning new things to help their children learn; (3) supporting children and the school; and (4) making decisions about what and how children learn. For each of these areas, a chart is included so that…

Intended to enable parents to support and advocate for their children during transitions, this guide contains training activities and hands-on action tools to help parents and staff work in partnership as children transition into and out of Early Head Start, Head Start, child care settings, and elementary schools. The guide is divided into three…

This report is the product of a committee charged to define "medically fragile," explore the array of educational services available and/or needed for children in Michigan considered medically fragile, identify current information and gaps in the information, and identify areas of interagency collaboration. The report discusses critical…

The impact of class size reduction at the early levels on student achievement in various states is discussed in this report. The Tennessee Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) study, a statewide longitudinal evaluation of the effects of class size on student achievement and development in primary grades K-3, analyzed demographic and basic…