High-quality early childhood education programs provide young children with experiences that promote healthy cognitive and social development and the basis for thriving in school. Over the past 20 years, states have made strides in terms of their attention to and provision of early childhood education. While 20 years ago, only about 10 states…

"R&D Alert" covers issues affecting schools in the Western Regional Educational Laboratory's four-state region--Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah--and throughout the United States. This issue focuses on early childhood education. While the importance of early childhood education has long been recognized, traditional ideas of …

Noting that teaching reading is one of the Bush Administration's top domestic priorities, this pamphlet introduces the Ready to Read, Ready to Learn education initiative of First Lady Laura Bush. The goals of the initiative are to ensure that all young children are ready to read and learn when they enter their first classroom, and to ensure that…

Presents a reconceptualization of developmental risk factors that may be related to school readiness, as well as an overview of Educare, a model of comprehensive rural service coordination in Missouri which is based on early risk identification assessment. Educare provides universal early intervention beginning at birth, risk assessment in…

Evaluation of a Scottish national pilot "baseline assessment" of preschool and primary students included interviews and surveys of preschool and first-grade teachers and head teachers in schools participating in the pilot. Most welcomed the professional judgment approach to student evaluation but identified significant issues related to…

As a part of efforts to evaluate and monitor the increasing public investment in early childhood education, teachers are being asked to assess children's school readiness. In this study, preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers rated children's skills in three areas (kindergarten readiness, academic skills, and communication skills), and these…

The construct of school readiness that focuses on children's maturation and homogeneity of their attainment at school entry has been challenged by recent research. This research indicates that there are difficulties in assessing young children's abilities, and there are limitations to the concomitant practice of retention. These challenges have…

International studies have concentrated on the achievements of children during or at the end of their schooling. But such data are difficult to interpret without knowing the progress that they have made since they started school. This article argues that the time has come to study the starting points of children as they begin their education. Such…

While testing children for readiness to enter Kindergarten using the Peabody Individual Achievement Test-R and interview probes, a pattern of responses developed indicating that some of the children were continuing to process answers to questions and to formulate elaborations to statements long after the testing had moved to other questions and…

Increasingly, young children are using computers; however, the role of the parent in facilitating this type of learning is not yet clear. This study investigates the relationship between parental involvement in computer use and cognitive development in their children. Parents of Head Start children who owned a computer (n = 136) reported on the…

"Educating the Human Brain" is the product of a quarter century of research. This book provides an empirical account of the early development of attention and self regulation in infants and young children. It examines the brain areas involved in regulatory networks, their connectivity, and how their development is influenced by genes and…

Identifying gifted and talented children and providing appropriate educational experiences for them has been firmly placed on the educational agenda in England by the Labour government since 1999. In the U.S.A., gifted education has received a high profile for several decades. In both countries, however, the needs of the younger gifted child have…

Hispanics account for over one-fifth of newborns in the United States, and Hispanic children, on average, achieve at much lower levels from kindergarten forward than the non-Hispanic white majority and Asian Americans. One of the most important educational challenges for the U.S. is to increase markedly the percentage of Hispanic children who…

Extra-year school readiness programs, which serve as "developmental kindergartens" or "junior first grades," are well-intentioned transition programs between kindergarten and first grade that are intended to serve children judged to be at risk for early school failure. Despite their good intentions, these programs are…

This booklet is designed to offer new parents clear, common-sense advice on how to nurture infants and preschoolers. It advises parents to set the stage for what their children learn in school and beyond. Six sections focus on specific activities that contribute to early childhood development and well-being in the first 6 months, from 6 to 12…