A program to prepare refugee adolescents for secondary school experiences in the United States is described. The program, conducted in overseas refugee camps, began in 1985 as a complement to adult transitional programs. The daily program is designed to simulate the schedule and classroom procedures of a typical U.S. secondary school. Classes…

Act 619 of the 1984 Louisiana legislative session initiated the State-Funded Program for High-Risk Four-Year-Olds, which is intended to improve the school readiness of preschool students. This document is the program evaluation report for 1990 and 1991. Part 1 of the report is a comprehensive program description which provides information on: (1)…

Test scores on the Test of Basic Concepts, a school readiness test, were compared with actual performance in school for 186 low-scoring and 133 high-scoring groups of first graders from Spain at the beginning of the school year to explore the issues of competence testing and prediction of performance. The measure of school performance was derived…

This publication assesses the status of public elementary-secondary education in South Dakota and describes the state's progress toward meeting the six National Education Goals. A notable achievement is the Families First program, which is a broad-based initiative that empowers communities to identify and meet local human service needs and to…

This study examined the factors contributing to the early school adjustment of children at risk of school failure from preschool enrollment to fourth grade. A longitudinal model that used data on 1,255 low-income, minority children was tested in an effort to bring about an improved understanding of the factors that influence a wide range of early…

Intended as an aid to parents concerned with their children's educational progress, this guidebook provides information about schools and subject matter, offers advice on numerous topics related to education from birth through the twelfth grade, and suggests activities parents can implement at home to assess achievement and improve school…

Many professionals are convinced that more testing, tracking, and retention are taking place in the early school years than ever before. They also believe that developmentally inappropriate modifications to curricula are being implemented. As a result of inappropriate use of standardized tests, disproportionate numbers of poor and minority…

This monograph presents information to help educators consider how to determine the best age for each child to begin his or her formal schooling. Trends in state requirements for school entrance age are described, and research in areas such as mental age, reading readiness, child development, screening instruments, and experimental preschool…

Results from this two-year study of seven kindergarten curricula in 1973-74 support the hypothesis that structured programs produce greater cognitive gains for disadvantaged children. The study also suggests that a structured program may be more beneficial for high socioeconomic children. The six curricula described and evaluated are: Lippincott's…

This report describes an external evaluation study of a project designed to develop, over a 5-year period, a model bilingual program from nursery school through grade 6. Innovative and tested instructional bilingual-bicultural components (language, perceptual, health, motor and cognitive) are being implemented in an attempt to reach children with…

More than three hundred assessment tools applicable for the evaluation of children and adults with specific learning disabilities in terms of age applicability, time to administer, and salient characteristics are briefly described. They are grouped into ten categories: Intelligence Tests, Preschool Readiness Tests, Motor, Sensory, and Language…

The Committee on Education and the Workforce, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 2123) to reauthorize the Head Start Act to improve the school readiness of disadvantaged children, and for other purposes, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with an amendment and recommend that the bill as amended do pass. Amended sections include:…

To ensure that all young children enter school in good health, ready and able to learn, and are socially and emotionally well developed, states are challenged by the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System (SECCS) Initiative to assure that services are coordinated, integrated and well managed. States must not only plan the delivery of services,…

This booklet is a collection of articles addressing current issues in early childhood education. The first article, "Would You Like to Pack Away Now?: Improving the Quality of Talk in Early Childhood Programs," (Laurie Makin) addresses how teachers talk to children. The second article, "Persistence When It's Difficult: A Disposition…

The assessment of school readiness needs to include all aspects of children's early learning and indicators of family/community activities that support children's development. This study used a holistic approach to set baseline benchmarks on factors related to school readiness for entering kindergarten children, and to engage schools in Washington…