Children and families receive maximum benefits from early childhood programs when families are actively engaged. "Parental involvement" is an established feature of Aboriginal Head Start in Urban and Northern Communities (AHSUNC) in Canada, and there is interest in increasing the knowledge on how AHSUNC sites engage with parents and…

Studied the early literacy practices of a 3-year-old Chinese girl in her family restaurant in an underprivileged community in Canada. The literacy practices indicate that home contexts have a role in shaping emergent literacy. Discusses implications for teaching minority children. (SLD)

The relationship between specific narrative skills and social class was studied in a culturally and racially homogeneous sample (51 4-year olds), focusing on narratives of economically disadvantaged children. Children from disorganized, chaotic and disadvantaged households were most likely to produce minimal narratives that were poorly planned.…

This study is part of a longitudinal research into the intellectual development of Quebec children aged 4 through 7 to determine the differences at preschool level between underprivileged and affluent children and show what the nursery school has to offer to 4-year-old deprived children. (MS)

Investigated whether low-income mothers learned to interact with their preschoolers in ways that fostered narrative skills. Mothers of intervention children were encouraged to elicit questions, encourage longer narratives, and participate in narrative conversation. Assessment of children's pre- and post-intervention narrative and vocabulary skills…

The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of the Natural Teaching Strategies (NTS) parent training intervention on parent and child behaviour during free play. A pretest/posttest experimental design was used with families recruited from Head Start programs. Measures of observed behaviour were used to determine the use of contingent…

The report in this issue of Curriculum Bulletin documents extra-curricular and after school activities adopted by Canadian urban communities in Ontario to combat cultural disadvantagement and reading deficiencies among inner-city children, pre-school through junior high school ages. The projects described in the metropolitan areas of Hamilton,…

International early childhood research provides hard evidence of the value of preschool for disadvantaged children and for all children. Despite high cost-effectiveness and numerous educational and social benefits of preschool education, most North American governments have been resistant to paying for universal programs. (SAS)

This followup study, one of a series of documents assessing the University of Western Ontario Preschool Project, examines the long range effects of the Project on the performance of children from low income families after entering the public schools. This study summarizes data accumulated by the end of the academic year 1977-78 and describes…